Category Archives: Family & Home

Tidy Time

A couple of years ago, my husband designated 4 pm as “Tidy Time” and he would fold laundry and put things away for about an hour. I know that he was gently trying to inspire me to clean the place up, but it really hasn’t stuck. (I blame the often cluttered surfaces in our home on the lack of storage in our 1950s house.) I try in my own chaotic way to purge and clean and put things away.

My destash sale was a big help (THANKS!) and I will definitely be doing that again to reduce the volume in the sewing space. It also forced me to tidy up some piles around the room.

In the process of tidying and sorting, I found mass yardage of Amy Butler prints to destash as well as a this cute mini I forgot I ever made:

I guess one of the perks of being neat is always knowing where your stuff is. My wallet was lost for a good part of the week. It disappeared one evening after I was doing some online shopping. I looked everywhere for it and felt very annoyed/frustrated/resigned to always losing things under piles of fabric. Tonight I found the wallet deep under my son’s book shelf.

Naughty baby and perpetual unfolder of fabric:

I finished two more WIPs this week (HOORAY) so weather please be lovely tomorrow so I can photograph them. (I started two new projects today (using scraps so they almost don’t count as new, right?) which sort of offsets my two finishes. Blast.)

Happy Easter

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Lots of bunnies at our family Easter this year! We didn’t do much last year because Ben was still so little, but this year I put together a nice basket for him, including lots of handmade goodies.

{Divided basket using this pattern from noodlehead}

I used some Melody Miller, Echino, and some Heather Ross fabrics from my Kokka home decor stash to make the basket. I used similar coordinating prints for the bunnies.

We showed him how to bowl with the bunnies as bowling pins (as intended) and he would say “Boom!” and knock down the bunnies before the ball could hit them.

{Bunny Bowling using this pattern from Ellen Luckett Baker}

These bunnies were also made with mostly Kokka fabrics. The gray bunny you see in a back is a vintage find I bought just last week. It’s made using bits of an old quilt.

Happy Easter to you!

WIP Wednesday: Quilting Espionage

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I started writing this post in my head while I was looking through today’s photos, and I was thinking how I’d explain that my bad photos are the result of working in shadows. And that made me giggle because it sounds like I was doing something mysterious. Working in shadows sounds more exciting than starching and pressing quilt blocks.

Behold, my WIP Wednesday project for today:

This quilt started off as a stack of Bella Solids, and then I added some prints for interest. I’m making City Aviation from Cherri House’s City Quilts book. Here is her version of the quilt:

{photo courtesy Cherri House and Generation Q}

I have all of the solid blocks cut and probably 1/3 of the other blocks pieced. I’m going to keep at this one through the weekend and see if I can get the top complete. On Monday I FINISHED last week’s WIP Wednesday project – my Giant Scrappy Blocks quilt. Fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate tomorrow and I can get some photos.

Before I go off the Bedfordshire, I have to share these photos of Ben from his bedtime tonight. I was sneaking photos with my phone while I read his bedtime stories.

Ben-bedtime

His expressions crack me up.

If you’re reading along with my book club, tomorrow is my first book review of the year. Get excited.

Project Life Freebies + Mini Tutorial

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I’m adding month in review pages to my 2013 Project Life album, and I thought I’d share my template with you. I’ll use 8.5×11 in 2013, but I’m going back and adding these to 2012 as well, but in 12×12 format. I’ve sized these at 2.5″ square so they’re perfect for Instagram photos. Here’s my December 2012 page:

{front}

2012-12-00-for-web

It will print with a white border, FYI.

I used Photoshop Elements (PSE) to create these files and you will need PS or PSE to use them. It’s super easy to do.

1. Download files using links below and open in PS/PSE.

2. Open the photos you want to use (12 photos for 8.5×11 size, 16 photos for 12×12 size).

3. With the template open in your workspace, drag the first photo from the Project Bin onto the template.

4. Move the photo layer just above the clipping mask layer where you want it to go. With the photo selected, go to the Layer menu and select Create Clipping Mask (or click Control + G on a PC).

5. Resize the photo as desired. Repeat for all photos. Save as high resolution jpeg for printing (note: turn off the text layer for the back if you don’t want it to show). Voila!

8.5×11 template | click image to download

12×12 template | click image to download

Day Trip

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This weekend we took at little day trip down to Glen Rose. It’s the home of Dinosaur Valley State Park, a place my husband and I’ve talked about going since we moved to Dallas {6 years ago}. There was a star party and lecture about the Star of Bethlehem at the park on Saturday night so we decided to check it out.

The park itself is beautiful. It’s only about 90 miles from Dallas but it looks and feels like an entirely different place – lots of cactus and scrubby trees. The dinosaur tracks are amazing, and it’s actually quite humbling to think of the beasts that roamed the earth long before we got here. It was a nice reminder that we are just a tiny piece in a big plan – particularly after Friday’s tragic events. If you have the chance to visit (they have nice campgrounds, too), I recommend it.

I also spent a good chunk of the weekend working on my blog. I’m redesigning and moving things to a new server. The changes won’t show for a few more days, but there may be some broken links as I get the kinks worked out. My goal is to have a prettier place to blog so that I am inspired to blog more often. You will be hearing from me a lot more in 2013.

Milestones

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Ben turned one last week. I’ve been reflecting a lot on all that has happened in his first year of life. It is truly amazing how that tiny little newborn has grown into a toddler that walks, says a handful of words, and even has opinions about what he does and does not like. He has grown and developed so much, but when I think about it – he hasn’t really changed all that much. His little personality was always there. It just took us a while to get to know him.

{the most recent picture is on the lower left – huge smile and blue striped shirt. he is such a happy boy.}

We will celebrate his first year with a party this weekend. Birthdays mean a whole lot more to me now that I am a mother, and my old attitude that “it’s just another day” seems so silly to me. I feel suddenly so much more grateful to my mom for all of the wonderful parties with roller skating and bounce houses and cupcakes that she threw for me. I look forward to years of birthday parties for our sweet and beautiful Benjamin.

Memories

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We lived on the Gulf coast when I was young – in Texas and Louisiana. We vacationed in Gulf Shores, Alabama often. I have so many memories of crawfish/shrimp/crab boils and dancing to Zydeco…but I’d honestly forgotten how beautiful this part of the country is. Most Americans think that Texas is the south, but this is the true South, the deep South. Its like going back in time. The live oaks dripping with Spanish moss are stunning, simultaneously eerie and lovely. Everything is sort of gnarled and aged by the sea, and life here has a much slower pace. It’s really a dream to be here again, reliving so many long-forgotten memories with not only my parents and dear old family friends, but with my husband and our new baby.

We are spending a few nights in a modern-day plantation house literally on the Gulf Coast. The sea is mere yards from the back door, and we eat our meals in a glass enclosed porch that is the size of our house back in Texas. This home is a showpiece of handcrafted moldings and wood panelling, filled with oil paintings and antiques. It survived hurricane Katrina, but barely – the only remains of the house next door are a circular driveway. Yet 500 year old trees and houses from the 1800s all around this home were spared.

Coming here has been not just a lovely vacation, but a reminder of something that is easy to forget when you wake up in the same place every day with bills in the mailbox and laundry always needing attention. Life is unpredictable and often challenging, but it is also full of beauty.

I hope all of you had a wonderful 4th of July.

Over-Committed

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The six months (and 16 days!) since my son was born have gone by so fast. Unbelievably fast. In the beginning I was wishy washy about quitting my job, but once my maternity leave was up, I quit to stay home…and then some freelance work started coming my way. And then I was offered a short-term contract job that allowed me to work from home…and then another one…and yet another one! At one point, between the freelance and the contract stuff, I had 4 “jobs.” All of them were work from home, but there were definitely times when I struggled to balance mommy and work demands. I won’t even get into my extracurricular activities like being President of the Dallas MQG (we elected a new slate of officers this month – YAY!) and serving on the board of my neighborhood association.There is no doubt that I have been seriously over-committed. After many long conversations with my husband and several of my dear friends, I decided to cut the fat and just do what makes me happy. It’s hard to say no to opportunity (especially given the economy we’ve all lived through in the last few years), but it’s wonderful to have the choice, and I’m very thankful.

So now, after lots of chaos, I am committed to doing things that I love. Those include the obvious things like family time, but they also include two very exciting CREATIVE endeavors. I am going to be the editor for the Moda Bake Shop and I am going to teach classes at Urban Spools, my friend Michelle Kitto’s sewing lounge. I couldn’t be more thrilled. My little sidekick is thrilled, too. Just look at him:

I also have big plans to do a lot more personal sewing. I’ve sewed so very little since Ben was born, and I have truly missed it.

-Lisa

Benjamin

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He’s here!

Our son Benjamin was born on 11/01/11 weighing in at a healthy 8 lbs 7 oz. He’s two weeks old today and we are so in love with him!

I am feeling great and ready to get back to sewing and blogging after a long hiatus (September 15 was my last blog post!). Look for some baby boy quilts to appear here soon.

It’s Been One of Those Weeks

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This week my website was hacked (again!) and my car was damaged in a hit and run. The hacking details are tedious and boring, but I am now blogging on a wordpress.com interface (instead of my own hosted site) so that I don’t have to worry about security anymore. Blogging is supposed to be fun, and dealing with a hack is not fun. Google had my URL blacklisted for most of the week, but now everything is up and running and okay. Many links are broken and photos are missing, but I should have all of that fixed in a week or two. If you visited my site in the last week, please run a virus and spyware check on your computer. You can download a free one from Microsoft.

So after dealing with that mess for 5 days, I was awakened at 5:00 am Friday morning by the police knocking on our door. Apparently someone hit our car and abandoned their car a few houses up the block. One of our neighbors called the police when they saw the abandoned car and the police were conscientious enough to check all cars parked on the street for damage. Police often get a bad rap but I have to say that my experience with them (though minimal) has always been positive. They had an accident investigator at our house making a report before they even woke us up. Sadly, my car is not drivable and had to be towed to the dealer for repairs. I am driving a rental for a couple of weeks, and my wonderful husband is dealing with all of the insurance and car repair issues. He literally spent all day Friday on the phone. The people that hit our car did end up coming by the house and giving us their info. They were a couple of college kids who were driving down to the lake near our house and got lost. They were genuinely shaken up by the accident, but thankfully not hurt. Everything will be fine in the end and I am not a superstitious person that believes bad things happen in threes so I am expecting only good things for a while.

I’ve been mired down in purging and organizing my sewing room because in a few short months it will be a sewing + baby room. I’ve gotta make some room for our little guy so a bit of de-stash is in order. Hopefully I can get some things listed in my Etsy shop this week. Meanwhile, I’ve started a new just-for-fun project because I needed some cheering up.

I am taking some of my Moda mini charm packs (charmlets?) and pairing them with a vivid pink to make 9-patch blocks. Then I’m going to quarter them and sew it all back together for a super scrappy quilt. (this one was my inspiration) I’ve got a combination of It’s a Hoot, Hullabaloo, Summer in the City, Central Park, and Buttercup. All of the colors are so happy together and it’s definitely cheering me up.