Twi Thursday - Look what I dusted off!

Just over two years ago as I stumbled around the TwilightMOMs chat forum, I found a chat thread titled "Twilight Quilt Mystery Style" that immediately peaked my interest.  Twilight.  Quilt.  Yes Please!  The chat hadn't been around too long by the time I joined in.  This was the beginning of a whole new chapter for me.  You see, I've been quilting for 12 years, but for the first 10 yrs my machine rarely got any action.  I remember having the cover on it for months at a time.  But I felt strongly enough about the Twilight Saga and had the encouragement of my new online friends, plus patterns to get me started, and so I dug in to making myself a Twilight Quilt!  Within a few weeks I had this:


This was a combination of the patterns given for the "Mystery Quilt" itself (that had been set up on a site called Zeppelin Threads, which no longer exists) patterns discovered on Sewhooked** plus a couple of alterations and and even a couple of things made up by moi!  Including a paper pieced meadow!  Me the "wannabe" quilter was suddenly busting out some mad skills!  I know someday the OCD will kick in and I'll give you the deets on the individual blocks, but right now I'm just concentrating on overviews.  My buddy Elizabeth over at Such a Sew and Sew has ALL the details of her Twilight Quilt.  There's some overlap as we have pirated :pirate: borrowed ideas back and forth.  I'm even mentioned a couple of times in her posts.   Hmmm....might have to go steal some of her code.....oops did I say that out loud? :ninja:

Right after getting all those blocks done we started this crazy talk about making a quilt for Stephenie Meyer, and then followed up with crazier talk about quilts for New Moon then Eclipse......fast forward two years and I've been a madwoman with that machine, belting out many a block and quilt in the Twilight theme.....and yet, this is what my quilt looks like right now:

So yes, there are a few more blocks.  The design evolved a little as we found more and more cool patterns (majority coming from our cool Cat down under) and came up with our own during the three group quilts I participated in.  Going through my photos recently I was shocked to find that the last time I worked on my quilt was last March.  Really, it's been a year?!  So guess what.  I'm going to be totally selfish and make this my #1 sewing priority right now.  I'm not going to go so far as to say I want to finish it by my birthday early May to make it a gift to myself because I have a few tops I'd like to practice quilting on first and I already have my present on order. :flower:  (I'd hoped to reveal that here this week, but it's got a longer lead time than I expected - Boooo) 

Here are the original plan for my Twi Quilt (gotta think of a name for it) and the revised one side by side.  I'm going to play with the design again because while I want to make it small enough to hang on the wall, with all the cool blocks I just have to include, it's getting crowded.  I think I need more "white space".



** Jennifer Ofenstein, incredibly talented designer, creator of Sewhooked, has a fabulous site with TONS of free patterns, and some special ones for sale, and is currently running the Project of Doom BOTW , a Harry Potter Paper Piecing Block of the Week project, on Live Journal.  It's easiest if you just check out her blog for all the up to date info.
** Catherine Magraith, our Coven sister in Australia, ran a Twilight Crafts BOM (Block of the Month) on Live Journal.  All her beginner and advanced patterns, many of these used in all the Twilight projects I've worked on, are being hosted on Sewhooked as well.

Perfect Teacher's gift....where's the apple?

When I signed up to be Room Mom this year to Pixie's 2nd grade class, I was told each class needed to make something for the auction being held in March.  I immediately thought of the perfect auction item - a quilt of course! :wink:  And not just any quilt but one that the kids could participate in. 

A couple years ago I saw this quilt at Vivian Love's blog, Quilts With Love.  This lovely woman quilted Piece, Love, Twilight, the quilt we made for Stephanie Meyer, and her quilting blows my mind.   I dream of going down to take a class from her down in Southern California someday.  (too bad I didn't discover her sooner when I lived a few hours from her rather than now that I'm half the state away)  After drooling :drooling: over the gorgeous quilting, I thought what a great teacher's gift. 

A few months later I saw the quilting book they must have gotten the idea from, Calendar Kids: Handprint Quilts Through The Year.  So of course I bought it.   I've been scheming to make a few wall quilts with my girls from the ideas in this book and had even gone so far to buy fabric paints and markers.  But for this class project I needed to fit 30 kids prints, and I did not want to make a huge quilt.  Nothing like that gorgeous quilt Vivian worked on.  I was not that ambitious.  Especially since I got this even better idea - make 2 and use one as the Door Decoration for Teacher Appreciation Week!


Then I thought of the perfect solution.    We've had the book Ed Emberley's Complete Funprint Drawing Book since Pixie was a wee one and I could make some cute critters with kids fingerprints mixed in with some of the handprints.  Cute buggies and flowers are Pixie's obsessions after all!

Three weeks ago I, along with two volunteering mommies, including my neighbor Jessica from Crushed Crackers, spent a couple hours with the kids getting their prints.  On two sets of (6) 15" x 15" blocks of muslin.  Jamie, the other mommy, had a great idea to take each kid's thumbprint and decorate to look like themselves.  Like a "class photo".  I LOVE that idea, but by the time she said it we'd done a third of the class.  But next year.....

I kept the quilt simple (the one for the teacher I just did; it's twin will be done when they need it for the auction now scheduled in May).  Pixie and Jessica's daughter, I will nickname her HoneyBee (she's in Pixie's class btw) "cutied" up the fingerprints.  They loved that!  I added  simple 2" sashing that I stitched in the ditch.  Then I added ribbons on some of the flowers and the apple trees - hey there ARE apples after all, they just happen to be pink because I didn't have red the first day I got the prints.  And I quilted the accents.  One thing I'm not happy with is that I used regular weight thread.  In the Calendar Kids book they hand stitched the accents.  But time was an issue for me so I did it by machine.  I think when I do the 2nd one I will use embroidery thread instead!

Here are the blocks hanging on my design wall before they've been "critterized" (one set with purple masking tape, one with green which I did to keep the edges from fraying, and keep the kids from using up the seam allowance):


Here it is all finished.  I just sewed a couple of ribbons into loops because I was hanging them on a couple of Command Hooks so they could be removed after.  Btw, I LOVE those hooks.  Been using Command products for years.  Really recommend them!  Anyway, when the week is done I'll take the quilt home and put a hanging sleeve on it so she can hang at home properly:


Closeups!  I took these at 7am, didn't do a great job.  Maybe when I get it back I'll take better shots:

 And here is the finished quilt hanging up where it was designed to go, on the Rm 14 door:

This was so much fun to do.  I can't wait to do some handprint quilts with my daughters soon! 

8 is GREAT!



Pixie @ 3 days
Today I get got to celebrate the birthday of one of my most favorite people in the whole wide world, my firstborn daughter Pixie.  8 years ago at 3:29 am an angelic 7 lb 19 inch little girl said hello to the world.  (after a 9hr labor which wasn't too too bad except for waiting to get the epidural then going thru the painful transition phase from 6 cm to 9 cm dilation during the 30 minutes of answering questions and sitting up still as they inserted the needle in the spine)



Pixie @ 1 yr
Pixie was a super duper sweet baby and toddler.  She sat up at 4 months, crawled at 8 months, walked at 11 months and didn't get her first tooth till 11.5 months.  She was sweet and quiet and a true joy.   She's always loved arts and crafts, reading and building things, usually with LEGOs.  Especially when Daddy is there playing along.

Pixie @ 2 yrs


Pixie is definitely a nature girl.  Or a monkey.  Not sure which.  Her favorite place to hang out is literally hanging in a tree.  And some of her favorite playmates are the bugs crawling and buzzing around.  I must have had a premonition because when she was two I bought her this super cute ladybug costume.  She wore it two years in a row (and Ariel later wore it once) and she was the most adorable little bug I've ever seen!  Particularly worms.  In fact two years ago for her birthday the kids spent most of the time outside digging for worms and last year she forewent a party altogether to go see Cirque Du Soleil's OVO, who's theme is, you guessed it, bugs. 

Pixie @2.5 yrs
Pixie @3 yrs
Pixie is a beautiful soul.  She is kind and sensitive to other people's needs and truly empathic.  So much so that it isn't the traditional "scary" parts of movies that bother her.  It's when someone is being hurt, either physically or verbally that she goes to pieces.  I think she considers being followed around with a camera abuse, cuz she'll often give me a look like this when I'm trying to take a picture (or 20).



Pixie @ 4 yrs
For her fist Christmas mama had the foresight to get Pixie a special lovey.  His name is Hippy (the hippo) and he's still her special friend.  In fact she has two Hippys (didn't want to risk loosing it when she was still a toddler and having to scramble for a substitute) and one "little Hippy" that a friend of the family gave her that's the same as her buddy, but the stuffed animal version, not the blankie version and has added a Hippo pillow pet called "Pippy".  She sleeps with all of them, plus a sundry of other buddies.  She feels really bad if she has to leave any out of the bed.


Pixie @ 5 yrs
She does have some quirks, or as I like to call them, Pixie-isms.  Some are cute, some not so much.  She's very tender headed and it can be a struggle to get her hair well washed and combed.  Not so cute.    She does not like toothpaste, it doesn't matter the flavor.  Not so cute.  When we have something where we ask a general question, like what should we do now, she says "ooh, pick me, pick me".  Super Cute!  She often has a favorite word that lasts a few weeks.  The latest is "apparently".  I could go either way on that one.  If she gets in trouble and sent to her room, she'll make an apology note and stick it on her door.  Super Cute.  She always wipes a kiss off herself, but then makes the motion that she's saving it in her pocket.  Super Duper Cute!

Pixie @ 6 yrs

Right now Pixie is in 2nd grade and she's been doing great.  She got 4's on all but one of the "know by end of year" categories on her last report card.  (though she's already so over the novelty of homework!) She's gets along with everyone, I wouldn't go so far as to call her Miss Popularity, but everyone likes to play with her, both girls and boys.  And although sometimes I'd swear she's already PMSing, usually at home she is very helpful and (mostly) graciously gives in to her younger more impulsive sister when she's asked to.  She's been in gymnastics since she was 4 yrs old and just moved up another level last week.  Girls 3, not sure if that's a standard level.  She started piano in the fall and LOVES it.  Practicing, not so much.  But she's doing awesome, her teacher is very impressed.
Pixie @ 7 yrs


I can't wait to see what the future holds for my dear little snookums.  My little burrito.  And yet I'm in no hurry to have her grow up. My sweet, dear baby girl. 

Last night I went in to tuck her in and say good night.  Pixie says to me "When you are in the room I am content"  That makes me all sorts of happy.  She makes me all sorts of happy.

Mama fox is one proud mama!



So many crafts, so little time....

Well, I haven't been keeping up with posting on here as much as I'd like because

1.  I have actually been busy craftin.  Woohoo!
b. All that busy leaves me too tired to share and
III. I have to be in a certain kind of mood to write

This week is super duper packed and there's no way I'll be able to catch up on all the show and tell I'd like to do.  So here's just a little preview show and tell of projects completed and in progress and I'll come back and do writeups when things settle down. :cool:






Giveaway over at Such a Sew and Sew

Ok, this is my first post of a giveaway at another blog.  Let's see if I can do it right.

My buddy Elizabeth at Such a Sew and Sew is giving away over 10 1/2 yards of Civil War Reproduction fabrics.  Along with a book called The Civil War Diary Quilt
 

All this to celebrate National Quilting Day which is this Saturday.  Of course I never know these things until they are just about to happen!  I will be celebrating my sweet Pixie's 8th birthday on Saturday but I'm sure I'll be finishing up the quilt for Teacher Appreciation week.

So click here by Friday and leave her some love and maybe you could win all this.

Adventures in Interior Design

I got my first professional* gig a week and half ago. dog products

My neighbor (and sometimes babysitter) Erica, asked me to help her makeover the living room at her parents' house.  She lives there with her parents, 6 yr old son, two dogs and a couple cats.  Her parents are very cheap thrifty folk.  Having both Goodwill and Salvation Army literally down the street does not help.  That's their favorite place to shop!



Her mother went down to help Erica's older sister who just had a premie little girl.  Her father unfortunately was not also leaving for the week.  We had one week to work some magic on a very drab, run down room and we had a budget of $1300 to do it.  And a very change-phobic, not-a-handy-bone-in-his-body gentleman overseeing our every step. dog products

I took stock of what we had to work with and what they she wanted to get rid of/keep.  The mismatched bookshelves and torn apart Goodwill couch HAD to go.  The dad was very obstinate assured that his collection of books had their place already and could not be re-located.  Only a few on one of the bookshelves could find a new home on the new bookshelf we were planing to get.  I was thrilled to find a nice authentic American Indian collection drowning in the crap knick knacks all cluttered together on two very dated glass and brass shelf units in their back family room.  Those combined with the orange brick "adobe" looking fireplace inspired me.  I did not want to do a "Southwest" theme *shudder*, but wanted to utilize some of the colors that are typical in that style (orange, black, white, tan, blue) and keep it modern/clean lined.

IKEA here we come!

Erica and I spent 3 hours shopping at IKEA.  We fit an EKTORP sofa in svanby gray, EXPEDITE bookshelf in Walnut (on clearance since they are discontinuing that color), matching LACK coffee table, Vilmie curtans and Vilmie throw, two RIBBA picture ledges, two RANSBY cushions (no link online) and some accessories all in my car!  They'd already removed one of the boxes from the back when I took this picture.


Erica was really stressed out but actually knew what she wanted - modern, uniform look, pet friendly furniture, some vibrancy.  So the first thing I insisted on was that they paint at least one wall to bring in some happy color.  I felt blue would compliment the orange color of  the fireplace so we'd make that wall the focal point.  We grabbed a bunch of blue paint samples from the Ace down the street and she picked a medium blue color that's the color of a clear sky.  It's called "Mellow Blue" and I thought that was appropriate since her mom is really laid back.  And as I told her dad when he balked showed some concern, blue is a safe color.  You never hear anyone say "I really don't like the color of the sky"!

So over the course of the week with her uncle's (and dad's) help we put the room together.  Her dad painted and helped assemble the coffee table and offered wonderful advice every step of the way.  Smiley Her uncle assembled and hung and leveled everything.  We visited Bed Bath and Beyond and Michaels for rods, display easels and frames.   The IKEA curtains that matched the throw for their existing lounge chair were very bulky for her windows so I cut them in half and hemmed them up.    I separated their collections, bringing most of the American Indian stuff out to the living room and rearranging the rest into more cohesive groups in the family room.  One of the bookshelves from the living room got moved back to a corner in the family room, which helped house some of the rest of the knick knacks there.

So the day of the big reveal, after chiropractor and dental appointments, and Pixie's piano practice, and errands, and sewing the curtains,  I went over there for the final hanging of stuff.  About 20 minutes later I was about to come home to get some stain remover for the older lounge chair when I see the mom in the driveway!  I closed the door and said "she's here, get all the tools out of the room"  And 20 seconds later, we were as done as we could be.



When her mom came in her words were "Wow, this is incredible.  I've been wanting to do something like this for years."  And guess who excitedly showed her every little detail and told her all that we did?  Yup, you guessed it.  Her husband.  Smiley So I guess he doesn't hate me and I'm still allowed in the house.  Which is a good thing, cuz her mom was over in my yard yesterday and made the comment that she's ready to tackle the rest of the house! dog products

*I've been thinking lately that instead of Engineering I should have studied Interior Design, Textiles, or Graphic Design based on all my interests.  If I ever have to go back to work, one of my dreams would be to become a professional organizer.  But I don't actually have any plans to quit my day job of running Foxden and taking care of the Foxlets.  This was just helping out a friend........however I did get paid with dinner at Cheesecake factory! Smiley