"Jackson's Sunshine"

Karma. I love karma. Do a little bit of good, get a little bit of good back. It's like the barter system on the most basic level, and it's something I can get on board with.

Karma manifests itself differently for everyone. Me? I have parking karma. No matter how busy the street, the mall, the whatever, there is always a parking spot for me very close to the door. Which is good, since I'm usually toting a kid or two, maybe a dog, and invariably some other armful of something that I'm picking up or dropping off. I am very happy with the way that karma returns it's blessings to me, and when the parking spots start to dwindle, I know I'm either being a jerk, or it's time to build up my karmic stash again, and I better get busy.

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Griffin goes to daycare with a little dude named Jackson. Griffin and Jackson are buddies, but they are very similar in personalities - both headstrong, stubborn and the bruisers of the bunch, so they sometimes end up butting heads, often literally. I have a soft spot for Jackson though, I see a lot of Griffin in him - he's a true rough and tumble boy, with a heart of gold underneath that tough exterior.

Jackson is also one of those kids who has the unfortunate privilege of knowing the inside of Sick Kids Hospital way too well. He has Hydrocephalus, and has had more surgeries in his short three years than most of us will have in a lifetime. Or three lifetimes. So when his mom sent out an email looking for donations for a silent auction to benefit Hydrocephalus research at Sick Kids, I knew I had to help.
This quilt was more than a silent auction prize for me. I challenged myself to free-motion quilt the entire thing, which I have never done before, and I couldn't be happier with the results. I started it plenty in advance, spent some time picking out some GREAT fabric, took my time, and did it all right, with no shortcuts, and no rushing to finish. I tried (and think I succeeded) to make this quilt gender neutral, to make it more appealing to everyone. I used every last scrap of the 6 fat quarters that I purchased, and carried it over onto the back with a quilted strip that I love love love!I feel like I've taken my quilting skills to the next level with this quilt, and I'm stoked to do more. I have a pile of fabric upstairs that I bought two years ago to make a quilt for Griffin, and now I'm glad that I waited to cut into it. I also have a stack of fabric ready for Corben, and I'm excited about it too. (SOCK MONKEYS!) And as a result of posting the quilt photos, I have requests for more!I'm glad I took up the challenge to make this quilt. It's brought me to a new place in my quilting journey. It's hopefully going to fetch a pretty penny at the silent auction and benefit a great cause. And, I figure it should be good for a few really good parking spots!

A Gift of an Evening

Do you ever have one of those days/nights where it just all comes together?

Yeah, pretty fricking rare around here too!

But tonight, the clouds parted for just a moment, and a ray of light shone down on me, and my children, and my sewing room, and it all went right for a moment.

I thought it was going to hell at 5:30, when Corben fell asleep for his 4th nap today.

Fourth.

That was sure to be the demise of bedtime as we know it.

He woke up at 6:30, wailing.

We snuggled, he ate.

Griffin, who spent a good part of this (rainy) day playing games on the computer (I'm a bad, bad mother,) was bouncing off the walls after dinner, and the snack that he requested 30 minutes after dinner was over.

(I gave in, but I had a secret...carbs. I fed him all carbs. Dinner, and snack. Carbs. HA!)

I convinced him to pick out some books and come snuggle with Corben and I in the big bed. We'd read. He'd keep bouncing. Eventually, something would give.

Corben conked in a milk drunk stupor.

Griffin and I read 4 books (one up from our usual three,) and he bounced and bounced and bounced around until about 6 minutes after the last book ended, when he threw his arm around me and said "Mama, I just wanna snuggle with you," and passed out cold.

And at 8:06 I posted this picture to Twitter, and proclaimed it a sign that I was to head up to my sewing room and sew:
I had already been in my sewing room today to start and finish a little project that I got into my head, a blanket for my cousin who's shower is in a few weeks. The best thing about having a stash is being able to whip off last minute projects at random, like these:

Shower blankey: And another blanket/changepad thingy I whipped up last week, combined with an excuse to show off the cutest baby on the planet, made extra cute by the accentuation of the Thunder thighs by the BabyLegs:
Anyway, back to my story about the light shining from the heavens and what not...

So by 8:10, cold beverage in hand, I was in my sewing room, turning this:
into a quilt.

Hot damn if I didn't get it all cut, and 12 squares pieced. It needs some sashing , and the top is done. Go me.

By 9:30 I was (back) here, at the computer. I've been chatting with friends, answering emails, christmas shopping, finishing my drink, hushing children, nursing babies, and blogging for the past 2 hours, all of which was delightful.

And now I'm going to hit publish, and crawl into bed.

And that, my friends, is what I call a successful evening.

G'night!

Creativity Bootcamp, Day 6-7-8

Day 6: Fluid:

This was a cheat...faced with the daunting task of doing 3 squares today, I came across this square that I had started a while back for another project, and abandoned. "Hey, it looks kind of fluid-y" I though, with all that water. And thus, fluid. I'd like to take another crack at it.
Day 7: Fly:

This is nice, but feels a bit "safe" to me - I've used this technique a lot - outlining various fabrics to create a picture. (Most notably, my favourite version of this technique, can be seen here.) I feel like I've mastered this, so going back to it feels like I'm not getting the most out of this. I REALLY need to find that book that Steve got me, that inspired this all in the first place.

Day 8: Ornament.

This is a Celtic Tree of Life: "The ancient Celts believed all living things were spiritual, mystical beings, not just inanimate objects to be exploited. They believed trees in particular were a source of great wisdom with the power to bridge the gap between the upper and lower worlds and bring blessings from the gods. "

What the hell does that have to do with ornament, you ask?

Well, this particular tree is my very own ornament - it's the tattoo that I have on my back.
I'll be taking a break for a few days for other adventures, see you in a few!

Creativity Bootcamp, Day Five

I had this square in my head ever since the start of Bootcamp, and I was just waiting for the opportunity to do it.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out, which is a nice switch from yesterday's tank-fest. It was nice to use some appropriate border fabric to frame up the "picture" area, and to keep the picture area really simple.

I've learned that the quilt as you go method I had in mind doesn't work so well for these little picture squares.

Today's word: Growth.

I think I have.

(Grown. Not a growth.)

Creativity Boot Camp, Day Three

To be honest, I started on this one a little late. Like an hour ago late. But I also had in my head exactly the way it was going to go. And it did. And I love it when that happens!

Today's word: multi-layered.

I thought about creating a literal "picture" for this, but then thought "nah, I'm working with fabric...this is practically a gimmie!"

So I multi-layered it. And multi-textured it. And maybe when it's not 10:30, I'll go back in and add some more colourful stitching too.

But for now, this is multi-layered in my little quilty world!

Creativity Boot Camp, Day Two

This was fun, but I may need to rethink this a bit...this little tiny square took FOR-EV-ER!

Today's word: Picnic.
I need to give the table itself a little more love. I left it unstitched on purpose, but it looks terribly out of place with everything else being accentuated with stitching.

The tree turned out completely different from how I had it in my head, but I kind of love it, so that's OK!
I'd like to add some more colour in the bottom right hand corner of this square, to balance it out a bit. Maybe later...

Tomorrow, must simplify a bit! (Even though this wasn't that complicated!)

Creativity Boot Camp, Day One

I have a feeling that I may be INSANE, tacking another thing on my daily to do list, but we'll give it a shot.

When I first saw this Boot Camp badge, I was intrigued. Boost my creativity? Well sure I'm interested. And there's something particular that I'm interested in learning how to do.

I like taking pictures, but I don't have a good camera right now. What I enjoy about pictures though is the composition. The colours. I want to make better pictures, but I don't want to do it with my camera.

I want to do it with my sewing machine.

I want to learn how to draw pictures with my sewing machine.

Ever since Steve gave me a book (that's packed away right now, so I can't tell you what it's called) it's been something in my mind that I want to do.

Until this morning I didn't know exactly how I was going to make sewing work for this project. Or how I was going to conquer an entire "project" each day. And then it came to me this morning.

A quilt square. A 10" square, totally manageable. One each day. Nothing too complicated, but something that forces me to CREATE, pictures specifically, with my sewing machine. I'm going to make it into a wall hanging at the end, putting all the pieces together, quilting as I go, and not caring about the backs. This is all about the front!

Today's word was IVORY.

Here's what I made:
Lessons learned today? Never, ever, ever, EVER use a piece of linen in a quilt square. NEVER.

Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings!

Finally: Sewing Room Love

My poor poor sewing room has been in shambles for weeks now. I decided it needed a reorganize, and promised myself I wouldn't sew anything until it was finished all good and proper like.

And then I stuck to my promise. And didn't sew for weeks. And weeks.

But now? Now it is done. And it? It is a thing of beauty!

There is so much organization happening in this room, I hardly know what to do with myself!

For a very long time, I've been wanting a cabinet with glass doors to store my fabric in, so I could SEE it all. However, I realized recently that it wasn't going to happen anytime soon, so I went foraging in our basement for something to do the trick for now.
What I found was some IKEA shelves (we have bajillions of the things lying around here) so I got busy with them.

I wrapped the shelves in muslin and put a curtain on them to keep the dust out. The final result is a bit wobbly, but will certainly do the trick for now. And the best part? There is still ROOM on those shelves, people! Sing it with me - Fa-bric-land, FABRICLAND!

Organizing all my fabric by colour has inspired me to do a version of this:
Insane? Quite likely. But I'm going to do it. Or die trying!

Proved the circle quilt doesn't kill me, I can finally get around to finishing some projects that I had started eons ago, like giving this little quilt top here a back. The last thing I want to do in the room is to put up a quilt design wall...I just did a little trolling on the internets, and it seems that I have the supplies that I need to do it here. I was going to get all fancy with cork tiles, but it's SO not necessary! I think a little foam insulation and some diaper flannel will do the trick just fine!
And, last but certainly not least, introducing my new favourite sewing room accessory:
Isn't he the cutest??!!!

Visitors!

We had a very special visit today from some dear East Coasterly friends.

My dear friend Alexis and I have shared two pregnancies. Her boy Timothy and our Griffin are only a month apart. This time around, we had a phone conversation sometime in March, both bemoaning the fact that we weren't pregnant yet. In April we called each other with the news that we were BOTH pregnant....this time our babies were due 8 days apart...they arrived within 2 days of each other, and today we all got to meet for the first time!

Not sure who was egging who on more here:

Corben and Annika have a snuggle on Annika's (new, made by me!) quilt!

And here, just for shits and giggles, is Timothy and Griffin, at the very same age, in November of 2006...no doubting that those 2 above are related to these two here! Everyone piles in for a snuggle!
And here, a little close up of the quilt and it's perfectly perfect squares! This is a supercool technique that I found at Sew Mama Sew, involving a bit of interfacing, and it GUARANTEES you perfectly perfect squares...it's awesome!
We're so glad we got to (drink too much wine with you when you arrived last night and) spend such a lovely day with you guys!!

How I spent my Friday Night

One quilt. Started at 8:00pm. Finished (with the exception of hand stitching the binding) at 10:37. Just another wild night here in the big town!

A very quilty weekend.

(Well, hello! Long time no see! I'll spare you the excuses, you've heard them all. Heck, you've probably USED them all! You know - working, sleeping, eating, the occasional (some may say a little TOO occasional) shower, etc etc etc. Lets just get on with it, shall we?)

So after a busy week, and a fun Friday night in the city with Kendra, I headed back here on Saturday morning. With NO plans on the horizon (that's right, not a ONE!) save for the company of my Ma for the weekend, I seized the opportunity to get quilty with it yesterday. Having an extra pair of hands in the house, and a 3 hour nap by Griffin made the day INCREDIBLY successful. This morning I scooched back downstairs for a bit, and polished 'er off. That's right - one quilt, complete, in less than 24 hours! Okay, okay, it's a baby quilt. It's small. SO???

The binding still needs to be stitched on, but I'm more in the mood to blog than sew right now. Plus, sewing binding is a very ritualistic thing for me, that always involves alcohol and trashy television (90210 is best) on my computer, while sitting in bed, and I'm not quite ready to crawl into bed yet, seeing as it's only 3 o'clock in the afternoon. (Often I am MORE than ready to hide my head under the covers by this time of day, but today, I'm not.)

Since the quilt is still in my living room, and hasn't been shipped off to it's recipients yet, I'm not going to show it to you here. However, if you're dying to see it, and your name is NOT Julia or Rafa, then you may click on this linky-poo to see it. If your name IS Julia or Rafa, NO CLICKING. Besides, you kids should be waaay to busy pushing out a baby to be surfing the net!

Since I remembered AFTER cutting about 1/2 of the little squares that I was going to strip piece the quilt (which, if you're not familiar with quilting, has less to do with quilting with no clothes on, and more to do with sewing with long strips of fabric and then cutting it all apart) I had a whole bunch of little squares of fabric leftover. I decided to take pity on someone I feel VERY VERY sorry for: Widdle Dude. Because the life of a Widdle Dude in our house? It's a hard knock life. It's a cold, cold life. Nobody plays with you, people push crackers and Lego around in your stroller before they even THINK of taking you for a ride!

So now at least Widdle Dude is warm, under a fancy new Widdle Dude sized quilt. Neglected still, but maybe a tiny bit less so. I'm thinking about making him a teddy bear next...poor little guy!

(P.S. Can I brag about some other brilliance for a second? Today, around nap time, Griffin and I had our customary weekend fight, that goes a little something like this: "ME NO WANNA LAY DOWN! NO NAP! NOT TIRED!" Rub eyes. Annnnnnd repeat. So then came the brilliance. We had lunch, and then proceeded to lay down on the couch with a pillow and a blanket and a show on the DVD player, not for "nap" time, but for "quiet time." Quiet time is what Griffin has the other 5 days a week, when he's not busy fighting me, at daycare. They snuggle up on and around the couch with pillows and blankets, and all fall asleep with some asinine blather highly educational programming coming from Treehouse TV in front of them. Dudes, it worked! I figured why not go with what works 5 days a week elsewhere? I'm surprised it took us this fricking long to figure that out. Now, if only we could figure out this night time business, we'd be laughing!)

Cock-a-doodle Dandy

I finished up this little gem (and by little I mean 5 feet square!) and I totally love the way it turned out! I had a request for a "blue and white quilt with a rooster" and this is the result! The rooster pattern is from Florine Johnson Designs, she has some wickedly awesome rooster patterns if you're ever looking for something rooster-y.
I love this custom applique stuff. More, more, MORE!!

BlueJeanBaby

Blue Jean Baby Quilts and other goodness- It's here, it's up and functioning! Head on over and check out the new website - bluejeanbaby.ca. Click on it lots, put it on your blog roll, buy a quilt or seventeen! It's still a work in progress, I'm not happy with the colours, or a lot of other things for that matter, but it's a step in the right direction. The link list isn't complete either - I will add all of you other wonderful people crafting handmade goodness as soon as I can!

And while we're clicking on links, check this one out - we're in the paper! (Fame at last!!) If you ever wondered who the heck we were, here's a lovely little story that tells our tale. It's fraught with errors, both grammatical and factual, but welcome to the local rag!

P.S. This post has entirely too many of these:!!!! in it!!!)

Another Finished Quilt

Just missing the baby...

This was a super fun and super fast quilt to do. I got the pattern idea from this quilt here, and pieced it together in no time flat. It's small, baby sized, but a great weight (polka dotted flannel on the back) and I think it'll be great for tossing over the car seat in the fall, or throwing in the diaper bag for taking just about everywhere. It'll be great for swaddling a newborn for the first little bit too.

The quilting of a quilt is actually the part I hate the most, this time I decided to try freehanding it again, and went all twirly on the square pieces within each square, making for random swirls on the backside (you can see the swirls in the 2nd picture.)

The pictures don't quite do the colours justice, they're really delightful if I do say so my self, and go with the baby's blue and chocolate brown nursery.

Like I said, just need that baby now....

(I don't think Cara reads this blog..but Cara if you do, you could pretend you don't, and act surprised when I give this to you!)

While the Cat is away....

...the mice (well, just this one mouse actually) watch chick flicks, and quilt!

I had a delightful evening tonight. The boy went to sleep no muss no fuss. I parked my bottom in the easy chair with a quilt and it's binding to be stitched, and everyones favourite teenage drunk driver, Miss Lindsay Lohan, and got chick-flicky with it.

So now I'm done the quilt! EXCEPT Steve has the camera, so I can't even take any pictures to show y'all! You'll just have to wait. (It's worth it, this is a very cute, very fast quilt, I'm quite in love with the colours on it.)

So until then, we bid you adieu. Crazy weekend ahead. May be M.I.A. for a few days. Miss me!

A Quilt for Baby Peter.

Auntie Jenn finally finished the quilt for Baby Peter, and here it is, with the young baron himself, in all it's quilty glory! I'm particularly proud of this one - using a real pattern certainly has it's advantages.

Little Peter is getting cuter by the day, he may even catch up to his cousin one of these days! He looks less than impressed here, not sure he liked the quilt!More on our Griffin-less evening to come. It's your typical tale of drunken debauchery, Mom and Dad style, but we still had a hoot!

Quilty Goodness

I finally get to share with you, Internet, the froo-its of my lab-whours (fruits of my labours for those that don't speak whore) in the quilting department, cause the giftees have been gifted and now there is no more surprises!

So! Here's my Ma's quilt...it's very "Home-made" - the first quilt I've ever done entirely by hand. This was a house warming prezzy, made almost entirely out of all my Dad's old shirts. It's warm and cuddly and slightly haphazard, but I like it a lot
And here's Baby Stoski's Quilt. Made from Preloved Jeans (which I collect, by the by, for occasions such as these!) Close up on the centre square (not Whoppie, but a rocket ship!) which I am particularly proud of. I have kind of started a quilty website to showcase all my Quilty Madness, but it's not quite ready for public viewing. Someday I'll finish it. But not today. Or tomorrow. Or Saturday. Especially not Saturday, because that's when WE'RE GOING TO FLORIDA!! 3 more sleeps, and we're outta here!

Steve left today for L'Ottawa, and Griffin and I meet Darren at the airport on Saturday, so he can come up here and spend time with the Xbox Dudley. I tried to get Darren to blog in my absence, but he's not the blogging type so y'all will just have to sit and miss me till I get back. Don't worry though, I'm not gone yet!!

Baby Hale's Quilt