December Post

Where did December go? Not one post! 
Well, I'll get one in on this last day of December!

With such a short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this year was extremely busy. The first 2 1/2 weeks I finished up my long term assignment.  Monday, December 16th and Tuesday, December 17th were transition days between the regular teacher and myself. Since I started the year with the kids, I did most of the teaching on Monday so she could learn the students names, the schedule and the routines that we have been doing. On Tuesday, she taught more of the day and I just assisted.  I came back on Wednesday afternoon to see the kids practice for their Holiday Sing. 

This is the ornament we made for the school Christmas tree! Here is where I found the inspiration. Turned out so cute and was easy enough for first grade!

So on Thursday, I started getting all the things ready for the holidays that didn't get done before including making several gifts including a knitted infinity scarf and a sewn one. Of coarse I didn't take pictures of them. 

I also made several fabric baskets that my sister taught me how to make while she was visiting over Thanksgiving. Here is one of them.

I made my Ornaments of the Year! Inspired by these. Great use of old yard sticks and scrabble tiles!

Here is part of the Christmas gift we sent to our kids in Texas. 

A snowball fight in a basket...

Texas style!

(inspiration found here)

It was so much fun watching them have a snowball fight Christmas morning! Thanks to Facetime!

After Christmas, we get away for a few days with our closest friends at the beautiful Osthoff. This is the most relaxing and fun time of the year! Now I really don't like the winter or the cold but the beauty of this place can surely change my mind for the days that we are there.

sunset from our rooms

our traditional breakfast at Otto's!

Many more pictures but just a few to share!

Today I wanted to try arm knitting! Have you heard of it? 

It's basically knitting using your arms as the needles. It makes very large and loose stitches and is great for chunky yarn. I had 2 skeins of this angel hair in my yarn stash so I made an infinity scarf...in maybe an hour...hour and a half...including learning how to arm knit.

I casted on and knitted 12 stitches for about 60 inches then formed it into a infinity scarf by sewing the ends together. 

It knits up pretty fast since the 'needles' are so big. 

Finished! Worn doubled...

worn with one loop tighter than the other. 

Pretty cute!

I'm still finishing up some challenges of 2013. At least I don't have too much to catch up on...I'll post again next year...

A Little Late But .....

Finally, I was able to put the finishing touches on my November Art Calendar Journal. I had it almost all finished last weekend but just ran out of time before my week at school started. Planning, teaching, report cards and conferences made for a long week! But now we have a week off for Thanksgiving and only 11 days remaining on my assignment! I will miss the kids and the staff at my school but I am ready for a break so I can get back to quilting!

I had this background fabric in my stash so I decided to use it and then only use fall colored circles for the days since the fabric was already busy. I realize that it is almost December so I spent some time catching up on the daily entries. Hopefully, I will also be able to create my December calendar this week. With family staying with us this week I can't make any promises Ü

Here is my October calendar all filled in!

Remember this quilt?

Yesterday was my niece, Courtney's wedding and this is the quilt that I made for her and her new husband, Chris. Glad to be a part of their special day!

Brown for November!

I finished my Rainbow Scrap Challenge block for November! The color for November is brown. Not my favorite color to use in a quilt but I like how the block turned out. 

Little by little I have spent more time either in my sewing room or hand quilting my hexagons. No where near the amount of time I am used too but more than I have since school started. I am on the countdown now for the end of my assignment. 16 more days of teaching, report cards and conferences still to be done. Then there will be 8 days before Christmas to do all that needs to be done for the Christmas holidays! 

Here are all 11 blocks on my design wall. I wonder what color December will be? Now to catch up on a few more things! Head over to soscrappy to see what others are doing with brown!

Too Long!

I really miss my blog, my blogging friends, and quilting on a regular basis. I have about 1 month to go on my long term assignment and then I will be taking some considerable time off for myself! 

My creative need is being satisfied by planning creative lesson plans for my first grade students. Although I enjoy teaching, I really miss my quilting. 

I do have a finish to show as I finally found time to quilt and bind the second of the wedding quilts I started in the summer. The wedding is in a few weeks and the quilt is finished!

I have wanted to make a plus quilt for some time! I used Kona white for the background and Stonehenge by Northcott for the plusses.

The backing is a fabric I found at IKEA. 

I chose to do straight line quilting both up and down and across the quilt.

I love the colors and brightness of this quilt I named Crossroads. I hope my niece and her fiance like it!

My Knitting Club have been knitting washcloths for our church's Prison ministry. I have knitted 10 washcloths. 

Here we are on World Wide Knit In Public Day!

Another post...Oh my!!

It feels so good to be back in my sewing room after a long absence! I carved out time this extended weekend to fulfill my creative nature. As stated in my last post, I caught up on my Art Journal Challenge and now here are my September and October blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

September's color was baby blue.

October's color is black!

I even spent some time quilting my nieces wedding quilt. It has been pieced for quite some time. I'm about 3/4 done with the quilting. Hopefully pictures soon!

Normally, my DH and I are camping in Door County this weekend. Not so this year as he is on a business trip to Thailand. This gave me time alone (with our Nellie) to put school work aside and be creative. I must admit, I miss Door County and the beautiful colors that are spectacular this time of year and all our DC camping friends! Here is a picture from last year.

Check out the new button for Sew We Quilt! It is now Sew and Show...a blog about sharing your creativeness with others - at the blog hop! Go on over and get one for yourself here.

Checking in with an update

School has kept me quite busy and away from my sewing room for the most part. Recently, I have been able to steal away some time to play catch up on my Art Journal challenge. I am finally able to post my finished August calendar. 

In order for me to remember what has happened each day, I keep a list on my phone so when I have time to actually fill out the days I am not trying to remember because I can barely remember yesterday!

And speaking about school, my September page is all about apples! In first grade, we spend considerable time learning about apples! We read lots of books, do reading/writing projects, apple math, and science projects. Next week we will be making applesauce! YUM! 

Here is the before picture

and then all filled in!

Since I was catching up, I didn't do anything fancy with my entries...just wrote them.

For my October journal, I decided to do a fall leaves theme. I love the colors of Fall. So pretty!

Our school is off on Monday for Columbus Day so I will use this weekend to catch up on a few more projects in my sewing room. 

Oh, how I miss quilting!!

Pin It!

Well, it is my day to share my pincushions with you! Another great hop brought to you by Madame Samm, Sew We Quilt and Kristen from Meadowbrook. 

Thank you for all your hard work!

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may know that I took a position to start the new school year off teaching First Grade. It has been very hectic (I learned about this less than 2 weeks before school started). Fortunately, I had already started on my pincushions so I could keep my obligation to the hop. The unfortunate side is that I had several more ideas that didn't get done.

 They will have to wait. 

I will do my best in cheering everyone on and responding to your comments. Thank you for your understanding, if it takes me awhile.

I do love pincushions and have a good collection of them. I'm always willing to add to my collection so when I saw the Pin It Blog Hop, I signed up. 

In deciding what new ideas to make, I thought I would concentrate on egg cups. I found this pretty egg cup and thought it would make a pretty pincushion. Love the plaid and the flower!

Next up, I thought about the little chicks that hatch from eggs and found this cute egg cup that looks like a cracked egg. So why not put in the chick?

I made the chick from a soft yellow fleece from my stash. Added a felt beak and some little black beads for eyes. 

From the side you can see that my chick has wings and a cute little tail. I used this pattern but adapted it fit in the egg cup.

Another egg cup I found had its own little dish for your spoon. 

It makes for a handy place to keep your supplies while stitching!

In searching my Pinterest boards for inspiration, I came across this pattern for a stuffed animal. It was not intended to be a pincushion but I thought why not? Who doesn't love a penguin? He's too cute! So I reduced the pattern and changed a few things and here is the results. To help him balance, after adding the stuffing, I added a smooth round stone to the bottom. He is made from a gray recycled sweater that I felted and some striped knit fabric from my stash.

And who doesn't love owls? I search the web for some cute owls and found this pattern. However, in order to get the 'free' pattern you needed to find an copy of this old magazine. I couldn't get it of my mind because of how cute this owl is so I made my own. 

He is pretty little...about 2" tall. I used a white and black button for each eye and a tiny bit of white roving for the feathers around the eyes. He is adorable!

Here are a few of my old favorites. This is a wee 1" pinwheel pincushion that I made to attach to the side of my machine. 

I love the pun of this one I made last year.

And these too!

Hope you had fun seeing my pincushions! 

Now go and visit the rest of the talented ladies sharing on the Hop today! 

September 11

Vroomans Quilts

More Stars In Comanche

Dancing Through Threads

Jackie's Art Quilts

What About Rheema?

Stekje

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Just Let Me Quilt

Patchouli Moon Studio

Bea Quilter

Quilting Lines

I Piece 2 Mary

Quiltingbydawn

Nati's Little Things

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Krislovesfabric

Bquiltin

For a complete list of participants, you can go to Kristen's blog, Meadowbrook.

Where have I been?

Yes, it has been a long time since I last posted...August 10th! So much has happened and it has been crazy! 

Sometime in the beginning of August, I got a call from the principal at the school I often teach at to do another long term assignment starting in October. I knew I would have a few more weeks of summer so in mid August, a couple of my girlfriends and I took a road trip downstate to visit another of our girlfriends. 

During our visit, I got another call from the principal, asking me to switch long term assignments to one that would start off the year. At that point my summer seemed to abruptly end as the very next week I needed to get to school to start setting up the classroom. 

(The school was closed all summer for maintenance.)  

With less than 2 weeks notice, I started school as a First Grade teacher of 21 students! In the beginning of the year, we work a lot on establishing routines and learning classroom rules. It is hard work for 1st graders as they are not use to being in school all day and there are higher expectations to work for longer periods of time. I'm hoping that this week will be a little bit easier as we have been in school 4 days. Hope they didn't forget over the long weekend!

I will probably not be spending much time in my sewing room so I won't be posting very often. I already miss it but I will be back to check in when I can.

 

Before all this happened, I made these cute little fabric envelopes for a good friend of mine. They are super easy to make and are so cute.

I made 20 with 3 different lining fabrics.

I also worked on some pincushions that I will show you during the Pin It Blog Hop coming September 10th through the 17th. I will be posting on the 11th so come back a visit! 

In the meantime...

A finish and a challenge

Today I will reveal my finished triangle quilt that I named Summer Fun! Back in July I showed you the top before the borders. It is now completely finished. YAY!

The white borders are also triangles and half triangles...it is hard 

to see in this picture.

I built this quilt around the multi colored staggered line fabric ~ Boho by Urban Chiks, added Dots to Dots by Patrick Loose in orange, red, green, blue, and gray, then added the geometric shapes from my stash and several Kona solids. 

Here you can see the border along the bottom better. 

This quilt finishes at 68" x 81". A nice size for a picnic quilt for my nephew, his girlfriend and daughter. Hope they like it...I will delivery it later today.

The quilting is called honeycomb quilting which basically is a long, large zigzag that I found on Amanda Jean's blog crazy mom quilts.

The backing is a red on red print, which I love, and the binding is scrappy from the fabrics used on the top.

Here is a close up of the quilting. Sorry the colors are so horribly washed out but it was a very sunny day. 

I also finished my August Rainbow Scrap Challenge block. August color is red! You can see a scrap from the backing of the triangle quilt on the upper right. Pretty!

I have been working on my hexagons too! Hopefully have progress pictures to show soon!