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Ooops I forgot to blog yesterday!

I didn’t actually forget, by the time I remember I was already in bed and I was too lazy to get up to blog. I tried a few times with an Ipod touch but it wasn’t cooperated so I gave up. Today I didn’t do a whole lot of anything. It appears I have lost my mojo for sewing in the sewing room. I better remedy that quickly because the holidays are coming and there’s holiday sewing that she be going on around here!! Saturday I spent the most lovely time with a friend stitching away on a bee block and watching movies at a friends’ house.. I wish I had taken a photo of it to share. I have the cutest little sewing containter I picked up earlier this year at my favourite store which I have to share with you. Come back tomorrow and cross your fingers I am productive this week! Seeing as how there are only 3 school days this week I must cram as much as I can do it Monday to Wednesday.

Blurgh

I got nothing today*. No pretty pictures, no quilty stories just a few words to say come back tomorrow and let’s hope I’ll have something!*Todays nothingness was brought to you by a big whopping headache that had me nauseous and sick on the couch all day except getting up the few times to tend to Aaron’s needs.

Bee FF blocks

Bee FF blocks, originally uploaded by LauraJ_Sews.

These are my blocks that I recieved from a bee that I participated in. I do love them and look forward to figuring out how I am going to finish this quilt. I’m leaning towards sashing them. I will have to make more.
I havent been very productive this week in the sewing room. I instead recouperating from 3 trips to the hospital -1 for me and 2 for Aaron. We’re fine, just some icky infections in ear for me and respiratory for him. Nothing that 10 days of antibiotics can’t cure.

Wordless Wednesday

Bee ff for tia, originally uploaded by LauraJ_Sews.

Baby Quilts (part 2)

I had this quilt saved in my favourites forever. I knew I wanted to make it someday. Someone even kindly shared the pattern with me. So when it came time to make these baby quilts I really wanted to try my hand at this quilt. I had bought a few fabrics the previous week before I started making the quilt not sure if I was actually going to make it. A couple weekends ago I didn’t have much to do and the weather was rainy and Aaron was happily rocking out with his ipod and a marathon of Ruby Gloom episodes I thought I’d give this quilt a go. I am sure I studied the pictures of this quilt for hours trying to get a feel of what exactly makes it so appealing. I wanted my quilt to evoke the same sense of calmness but also be child appropriate. I challenged myself not to wait and buy more fabrics but to use what I had in my stash. On the Friday evening I picked out the fabrics. Saturday morning I redrafted the pattern to make wider bricks and did math to make sure I cut my fabric pieces large enough. Saturday afternoon I cut them out and by that evening I had a layout on a makeshift design wall in the hallway. I have to say I was quite proud of myself. I made sure to choose fabrics with a big impact that also were gender neutral and apealing to a small child. I have this belief if you will that a quilt made for a baby could very well be used as that baby’s first learning tool in life. So when I was picking fabrics I tried to add a bit of “I Spy” elements to it.I didn’t quilt it like the patterned called for with lots of straight line quilting in the rows with the solid fabrics and little squares rows. Instead I used kept the quilting simple using a “wiggly” stitch on my sewing machine with Old Jan- I haven’t figured out the stitch on New Jan or it’s possible she doesn’t have it- going over all the seams to secure them in place. I like this stitch because it sews wavy lines down the patchwork seam.Here’s the front and I really love it.I want to share the back because whenever it comes to quilt backs they are my biggest dilemna in quiltmaking. More often than not I buy fabric that will coordinate with the quilt top from the bargain bin at my favourite fabric shop. In keeping with my earlier challenge of making this from stash I found some pieces that worked very well together and didn’t scream either girl or boy but could work for both. The binding is especially cheerful with it’s big cream dots on red that bring the whole quilt together. The quilt had a wonderful reception from the neighbours and the grandmother of the impending baby to be. I know I will be making this quilt again, I’m just waiting for the green light to start from a friend whose daughter is expecting.~~~~~~~~~~~~~Did you know that it’s NaBloPoMo?? Or National Blog Posting Month. I’m going to really really try to post everyday this month. I know when I set myself up for these types of challenges I either flop for I’m super productive. I do hope it’s the latter!! Although judging by today’s productivity it’s been a flop, one long seam to work on a quilt back. Tomorrow is another day afterall. Won’t you come back to see what I worked on?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!, originally uploaded by LauraJ_Sews.

I had resigned myself to the fact I wouldn’t be having Aaron participate in Halloween this year. As with every year the costume aspect of the holiday falls on me as he has no understanding of Halloween, or it’s customs. For years I wracked my brains from August to mid October coming up with fun costums for the boy that I could do cheaply. Every year Halloween stressed me out. I wanted his costume to look good and I didn’t want anyone to “laugh at him” at school. (Which I am sure no one ever did!) This year I said nope, I’m not making a costume. I wanted to rid myself of that stress of costume perfectionism. Then the guilt of that decision nealy ate me alive. When he woke up this morning I thought to just keep him in his pajamas and give him the craziest hair possible. He thought it was funny and I think he’s adorable with his major bedhead. As an aside can I just say that this child has my hair? No matter how much teasing, mousse, and hairspray I put in his hair it fell limp within 5 minutes. GAH! What is even more ridiculous is the one time I want to send him to school with the messiest hair possible it doesn’t behave! I toussled it as much as I could and then sent him off with a smile. He went to school all smiles and I’m glad that even though he doesn’t have a very well thought out or elaborate costume he won’t stand out today as the odd child out without a costume.