Weekend joy and a pillow case

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! 
I filled it with the things I love the most...family, sewing and being outside. 

Backyard soccer session!

The little garden gnome

Working on some new landscaping...it was a jungle out there.

New house project number 101...getting ready to put up a new privacy fence.  The work is never ending!

My older crew hit the creek banks in the morning, ushering in the first day of fishing season and I took Malcolm with me to complete some errands before his second indoor soccer game of the season.  Part of my job as the FACS teacher is taking sewing machines for repair and picking them up, so I lugged three machines back to my van and made a few more stops before going to my LQS.  

I was searching for some Robert Kaufman Architextures Crosshatch fabric for a special project, but had no luck.  Instead, Malcolm found a kit for a cute soccer themed sausage pillow case.  I thought, why not!  After sitting down around 8:45 PM, we had a pillow case about 20 minutes later. 

He loves it!  Unfortunately, the pictures where he looked enthusiastic about it were too blurry from all of the excitement.

This pillowcase is actually a project that the students in my school district do in 8th grade.  Most of them tell me that they still use them when they get to my class at the high school.  I really love this project because it can be personalized to fit anyone.  I think I will be making these for kiddo birthday parties this year. 

Anyway, I was looking for the Crosshatch fabric to tie my blocks together for the #TellMeAStoryQuilt sew-along over at During Quiet Time.  Amy's new book Intentional Piecing is stunning!  You should definitely pop over to her blog and check it out!

 I've made a few blocks so far, but I really want to make a quilt top and the ones I've made so far are just a menagerie of scraps from my old projects.  I was hoping to use Crosshatch, but I'll probably use plain white instead.  It will be easier to find in my little town and I'm too impatient to order online.  We'll see...

My first and favorite block so far!  Coffee is the story of my life!

These paper-pieced blocks come together so quickly and they are really fun to look at and to make.  I have been admiring all of the blocks that have been posted on Instagram.  So much talent out there!!

Sunday Sewing

A snowy Sunday in spring...  Lesson plans were done for the coming week and then I took some time to do a little stitching. 

I stitched out this awesome embroidery a while back.  I love the message!  It is an Urban Threads design.  I LOVE their embroidery designs!!  There are so many cool designs to choose from! 

This particular design reminds me a little of my students.  Back when I taught German I had mostly male students.  Now I have a lot more female students with my new job in FCS.  After listening to some of the things my girls deal with, I hope they can take that message to heart and realize that they need to be happy from within before someone else can contribute to their happiness. 

Originally I had planned to make a zipper pouch out of it.  I looked at it today and thought I would make a drawstring bag with the pink fabric around the top and for the lining, but sadly I realized I didn't have enough denim to do that. So, I came up with a bucket tote instead.  

I had my heart set on using a bright yellow zipper to make a pocket on the outside of the drawstring bag, but since that just wasn't to be I still used the yellow zipper as the handles of the tote.  I really love how it turned out.  Not too bad for not having a pattern. I put a layer of fusible fleece behind the denim to help it keep it's shape. 

 I love how my yarn fits in it nicely.  It'll be a great little project basket.  Maybe I should set it on my desk at school for a little while. 

Where have I been?

So, it has been quite a while since I've sat down to post something substantial.  I promise I haven't been sitting around being lazy...quite the contrary.  

For the past two years I have been adjusting to my new role as the Family and Consumer Sciences teacher at my high school. 

(Haha!  Obviously a posed picture of me ironing a whole lot of nothing!)

German was phased out and as sad as that is, I am so lucky to have been given the chance to teach yet another subject that I LOVE!!  I actually get paid to teach kids how to sew, cook, live a productive life and be good parents.  It doesn't get much better than that! It surely has been keeping me busy.  It's kind of like having a whole other house and family. I'll talk more about that in a different post. 

I missed blogging and making stuff that didn't pertain to school, so I recently had the genius idea (haha!) to combine the two.  My blog will still be my creative space, but maybe with a slightly different focus.  I can't wait to give you a glimpse into the day in the life of the Home Ec teacher!  I can show you all what I am doing with my students in class and hopefully as I learn the tricks of my new trade, I will have more time to sew things that aren't for school, too, that I can share. 

Sewing still remains my passion!  I have done a little sewing for a local craft fair and I  just joined the #blackandwhitequiltswap on Instagram.  That is the first sewing swap that I've done in years.  I'm so excited to start!  It feels so good to get back to what I love to do!  I hope you'll continue to follow along with me on my journey.  

Zip pouches galore!

      Back to school tomorrow... yes, I got my job back.  I am still the one and only German teacher in our school district.  I am very happy to be employed, but also a little sorry to see summer go.  

     It has been a strange summer to say the least.  Not quite as relaxing as I am used to.  My beloved father passed away after a long battle with brain cancer.  We all miss him terribly, but we are happy that he is not suffering anymore.  He was truly a man of integrity; someone that everyone looked up to.  

     There were so many wonderful people who comforted us and helped us out.  My mom has some really great friends from the school where she works.  They helped out by keeping my older boys entertained while we were there.  They took them to the movies and swimming and gave them other kids to play with.  It was so wonderful and such a big help!  It really helped the boys keep some normalcy during that time.

     My mom and I wanted to do something special for the women who helped us, so I made them all a back to school pouch and my mom is going to fill them with some supplies since they will all be going back to school at the end of this week.  I really like how the pouches turned out.  

  

 I love the dark denim with the contrast of the white thread!  I'm not sure why, but I find it to be very appealing.  I wish the weather would have cooperated a bit more for the photo shoot, but it is what it is!

The pouches are great scrap busters.  The next pouch is for my sweet J.  Originally I had made him this one, but he offered to give it to a friend.  He decided that he would like a Tom and Jerry one instead.  Not my kind of fabric, but perfect for an 8 year old boy!  

Angel potholders for PP7

An oven mitt and a pinch potholder for Liz at Living my Sweet Life!  Poor Liz waited and waited for her original potholders to arrive from the PP7 swap, but they never did, so here are a couple that I whipped up for her.  I loved making the oven mitt in particular.  It was a bit theraputic quilting the fabric. :)  Please excuse the poor pictures.  The lighting has been terrible for a few days.

For my oven mitt, I used this tutorial.  It is really great, but I would sew my binding on differently next time.  Instead of trying to catch the inside with the stitch in the ditch from the front, I would sew it to the inside before turning and then hand stitch it to the front.  It was just too tight on my machine to get it right doing it the other way.  I would also suggest serging or zigzagging the inside before turning.  It was really a fun little project to make that didn't take too long.  I'm thinking about using this for some Christmas gifts this year with some hand-written recipes.  They would be great teacher gifts!

The pinch potholder is a Keyka Lou pattern.  She really has some cute stuff.  I bought her reusable bag pattern, too, but I haven't had a chance to get to it yet.  I work best under pressure I guess.  :)

The fabric that I used was Anna Maria Horner's Bubble Burst and Michael Miller's Mimi Gingham.  I think they went really well together.  I lined the oven mitt with some navy dotted fabric that was really nice, but obviously, you can't see the inside.  Next time I will use something a little more plain and not so expensive.

I hope they will work well for Liz!

A Pouch

 I discovered this pattern for a simple zipper pouch at Sew Much 2 Luv.  It is super cute and super easy.  This was my first attempt at a zip pouch, so I was pleased with how it turned out. 

 

I'm not sure what the fabric line is that I used.  It was a cute and retro part of my stash. I love the puppies on the lining.  They are adorable.  I cut another pouch that will be the opposite with the puppies on the outside and the flowers on the inside.  I didn't have another zipper on hand that was long enough at the time I made this one.  These would be so easy to whip up assembly line style.  Lucky for me my order from zipit arrived today with some fabulous zippers and ribbon. Jennie has terrific customer service and so many colors of zippers, not to mention some really cute ribbon!  If you ever need zippers, check out her shop.  You won't be sorry!

The inside shows the seams.  I zig-zagged them since I don't have a serger and they look okay.  A serger is high on my list of things to buy.  Any advice on purchasing one?  What brand do you have or recommend?

A bib and a burp cloth

I made two sets of these adorable Hooty Hoot bibs and burp cloths.  Baby M was the lucky recipient of one the other one is available in my little, neglected Etsy shop.  I hope to build my shop a bit this summer.  I was planning on lots of creating, but so far it hasn't really happened.  Babies sure take a lot of time, but they are so worth it!  I had forgotten how demanding they could be.

The bib is backed with chenille and has a velcro closure.  What do you prefer? Snaps or velcro? 

The burp cloth is also backed with a cream colored chenille.  Baby M loves his.  He is always checking out the owls.  I wanted to post a pic of him modeling his bib, but I wasn't quick enough before he spit up all over it.  Poor baby!

A Couple of MugRugs

I thought I would share a couple of mugrugs that I gave as Mother's Day gifts for my Mom and my Grandma this year.  Life was crazier back then and I never got them posted.  I'm just thankful that I got them made!!

The first one is pinwheels for my Grandma.  Most of the fabric is Neptune.  The pinwheels and binding are something that I picked up from my LQS.  Not sure what those fabrics are called.  It was fun to make those super tiny pinwheels.

The second one was for my Mama.  It was completely from my scrap bucket.  I loved quilting around the poppies with my shiny orange varigated thread.  It was so much fun.  I'm not so great with the free motion thing yet, so all the practice I can get is great.  My other favorite part is the binding.  No idea what it is, but it is from a rather big UFO that I've been sitting on for a few years now.  I really need to get that finished, especially since it is for one of the boys.

Both mug rugs were well received!

And here are two very happy boys now that they are having lots of free time to run and play!

A Second Skirt!

I like to call this my "Hooty Birthday Skirt".  I decided to make myself a skirt for my birthday on Wednesday thinking that I could get it all finished in one day.  I didn't quite accomplish that, but I did just finish it, right before the Crafterhours Skirt Week deadline.  Shewww!  Kids tend to spoil some of the sewing fun every now and then. 

I used the same pattern for this skirt that I used for my Escape from Reality skirt. This time I added a few inches to the length to accomodate the large dresden plate.  I really like how it turned out, but I do feel almost like I'm wearing a target.  It is a very comfy skirt though, with it's elastic waist band.  I will have to try something new for the next skirt.  I'm feeling a bit lazy with all of the elastic.  The grey fabric has been in my stash for many, many years.  It is a heavy weight fabric, but I have no idea what it actually is.  The dresden is made from an It's a Hoot charm pack, hence the name "Hooty Birthday Skirt".  Haha! 

I've linked up to

Clover and Violet: Stash Project for June.

 And now a very serious picture of J and Baby M with some electrical tape.  Boys are always busy with something.  Baby M wants to know absolutely EVERYTHING that his big brothers are doing.



Escape from Reality- The Skirt

In an attempt to 'escape from reality" last week, I whipped up this a-line skirt using my Far, Far Away that I've been hoarding.  The end of the school year was very stressful and after 12 years of teaching German I got a furlough letter because there is just not enough money to continue foreign languages other than Spanish. (Gracias school district!) 

My dad also had round two of brain surgery last week.  He is doing well, but you just never know what the outcome of something like that will be. 

STRESSFUL WEEK= UNICORN SKIRT!

 I drafted my pattern based on a tutorial from a Sew News magazine that I got a couple of years ago.  It is definitely a very simple skirt to sew up once the pattern is drawn up.  It has an elastic waist band, so it is also wonderful for the remaining extra baby weight. :(  (15 pounds to go! He is well worth it though!)

These photos were taken before hair and make-up came in and before the sun came out in an attempt not to have puke all over my shirt.  If you notice, the bottom picture was a black shirt.  I had to scrap those photos because of just that.  My 7 year old photographer didn't let me know that I had a mess all over my shirt in the first photo shoot.  It's amazing what we fail to notice when we are so used to something.

I've been thinking about putting some kind of a ruffle on the bottom to dress it up a bit, but I wasn't sure if it would take away from the fabric.  Any suggestions?

I entered this skirt in Crafterhours Skirt Week.  I also linked up to Clover and Violet: Stash Project for June.

I also made a cute little button necklace to go with my whimsical, new skirt.

Poppyprint made me do it!

A few posts back over at Poppyprint, Krista made a sweet, little "wee loopy blankie" for her new nephew.  This project has been on my list of things to make since before Baby M was born, but it kept getting shoved to the bottom of the list.  I saw her post and I had an extra block from this post, so there was no time like the present!  Thank you, Krista!  Baby M loves his new little blankie!

The top is pieced flannel.  It is so soft!  The back is the super-soft fleece that I used for the afore mentioned blankie. For some reason, I didn't have much ribbon or trim lying around, so I also used various fabric scraps to make some of the tags.  Baby M really likes to look at it. He inspects it quite thoroughly.  It must be the bright colors.

  

Baby M also had his first buzz cut.  It was sad to see his beautiful long hair being shaved off, but it was time.  It kept falling out and getting in his mouth.  I think we are all much happier now.  And he is still just as cute!



Blankie for a New Baby

 To go to my SMS GIVEAWAY please click HERE.

Every cute, new baby needs a cute, handmade blankie!  This one is for a friend's new little girl.  She's joining her two big brothers, and I'm sure they aren't spoiling her. (yeah right!!)  Her mommy is not so fond of pink, so I chose lime green and purple as my main colors.  I haven't given it to her yet, so I hope that she will like it.  I love all of the smiling bugs in the center!

The center block is made from really soft flannel.  I blanket stitched the block to the fleece.  A very simple project, but also quite cute.  I like the way that it turned out.  I had planned to tie the fringe around the outside, but I decided that it would have made the middle too small.  Instead, I sewed in about 2 3/4 inches in all the way around the blanket and simply cut the fringe.  This will make a great stroller blanket or a great place to play on the floor.  The back is solid purple.

In other news I took the day off today to go on my second grader's fieldtrip to the zoo!  I went from one zoo to another!  :)  We had a great time, although I always feel so sorry for the bored and annoyed looking animals.

This was the first time that the rhino was ever standing up when I have visited.  He definitely didn't disappoint as he went potty in front of us.  The boys thought that was totally cool.  Gross!!

Here's hoping that your evening is not a "zoo"!