Slowly but surely…

This is the view as seen by my knees, he WAS looking out the window contently listening to the lull of the machine but I had to go and mess up my tension and disturb his daydreaming.  He loves when mamma gets out the camera!  He smiles and crawls to grab it so I have to be QUICK!

If there is any wonder why projects progress at a snail’s pace around here, this should clear it up!

Feed update

I have been doing a bit of blog housekeeping and have changed my feed address, but like an amateur I didn’t exactly give my subscribers fair warning!  YIKES!  So, if by chance you have made your way back to my corner of the world please update your feed, and add me  again to your preferred rss reader, or just click that shiny orange button right here!  Thanks a million, you’re a peach!

And for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, that is alright too, just be sure to put your email addy in that handy little box over yonder to get updates via e-mail!

UPDATE:  I think I may have posted this prematurely, it seems I didn’t loose any of you.  So!  if you are still getting this feed, don’t worry about it, man!  There is no need to do a thing!  Talk at ya soon!  -em’

Sewing Saturday (on a Sunday) w/ MQG

I am still bubbling with excitement, so I am not sure where to start!  Yesterday I did the most indulgent thing I have done in… I don’t know how long!  “My” modern quilt guild had its first ever Saturday Sit and Sew!!… but it was on a Sunday this first time because of scheduling conflicts.  SIX hours of sewing, people!  Not that I actually sewed for the six hours, nor did I exactly show up on time… damn blue dot on my iPhone almost got me lost for REAL!  BUT to be in a room with ACTUAL people that sew, and have similar taste in fabric and style!!  MIRACLE, I tell you!

When I started sewing a couple years ago I thought I was just going to be that crazy young-ish women who sews and quilts alone and has make-believe friends online.  I was ok with it actually, so I am just tickled to have found such an easy going, welcoming, corky, and excited group of women to get to know as friends!!

I was sorta too busy chatting and reveling in being away from kids and home WITH my sewing machine that I didn’t get too many pics of us all, I got my camera out a bit late. But here are a few (click to see them larger and to scroll through).  OH, and did I mention, I even went out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner afterward?  I TOLD you, indulgent!  Thank you Chris, Pat & Wendy for a simply relaxing evening!

Here is what I worked on… I feel like I could have gotten more accomplished, but I did do a good amount of stippling.  Perhaps more sewing, less talking next time… maybe– maybe not!

E’s new art journal

This was one of the few gifts I managed to finish this Christmas, I had grand plans, honest!!  But only three gifts reached completion in time and this is one of them.  Last year I gave two of Ella’s friends decorated journals with some rock crayons from stubby pencil studio, we LOVED ours so nauraly we had to spread the love… but I never got around to decorating E’s OR photographing the other two that I made. BLAH!  The back story is that I learned early on when the little lady was 18 months or so that having paper out for her to color on  was NOT the best idea!  She spread it out everywhere and I was frustrated with the mess, so I hatched a plan!

I found these 8×8 Kraft sketchbooks at stubby pencil studio, she could color on them any way she wanted as many pages at a time as she wanted and it didn’t get all over my house!!!  SCORE!  They proved to be of super great quality too, I was please to find out that they worked great with water colors to boot…. well the good kind at least– I am not sure how cheap-o Crayola water colors that you have to saturate with tons of water would work.  Anyway, we had one that she colored in all the time, it had finally reached its capacity, and our resident artist needed a new one!  So this year I managed to decorate it for her so 2010’s would not be so brown and boring!

Here are a couple pieces that I took out of last year’s journal done with some water colors, similar to the ones listed here… but not quiet THAT nice. And I matted and framed them up with some inexpensive CLIP frames from IKEA above her new art center!

family website update…

So a handful of you have been getting on me about not updating my family website, I was so good about it there for a while… but alas another child proved to be more work than I thought!  SO, here’s the deal, I am in the process of switching everything over to the site you are looking at right now.  I will be combining my family postings with my crafty stuff to make my life easier… the family posts will require a username and password just like most other sites, that YOU come up with on your own!  No more remembering stupid passwords I give you!  And what this means for you, crafty exclusive readers, is that you don’t have to read em’ if you don’t wanna!  This here site is getting a complete makeover too…. sometime… I hope… soon… you know… in my spare time.

In the mean time I HAVE been flooding my flickr account with new pictures of the kiddos in preparation of this phantom site overhaul… only not so many of you know about it!  So here is what you need to do:

Walk your nimble little fingers over HERE, and join flickr if you don’t already have a login.  HINT: you probably already have one!  Use your yahoo e-mail and password to login, it is the same thing (or for you local types, use your sbcglobal.net or att.net username and password, that will work too!)  Then, up there on the top part of the screen click “add seventeen and em as a contact,” after which I will add you as a “family or friend” (if I know you that is, virtually or for real… THAT is the whole point of this, duh!) and voila, you will be able to see everything from here on out, AND be sent automatic e-mail updates that you set up whenever updates are made… you know, if that is your thing.  AND, grandma CLARE… ARE YOU READING THIS!!!???  You can now print out pictures directly by pressing the “order prints” button!  I know, you are thrilled beyond words, ENJOY!  ;)

Once you have done that be sure to check out:
Pictures by Month, & Asher’s first year.

and b/c no post in complete without a picture:

While the rest of the nation is reportedly freezing, this is us outside at 10am in all our no-coat-glory.  E still has on her pajamas with a few choice accessories, and A is just out to foil whatever well organized plans his sister has for the day.

Stay warm out there!

Stitched Christmas tree dishtowel

I don’t know about you, but I am a bit stressed today with the realization that Christmtas Eve is only a week away, and instead of my list growing smaller day by day, I keep adding to it!!  Is this happening to anybody else?  My kids are the real loosers in the whole deal, I set out to make all their gifts this year and for some reason I keep putting non-listy things ahead of my projects I have planned for them.  This is one of those things.  I made it for my secret sister in MOPS to give to her today, her last name is Haring, if that wasn’t clear.  Hopefully this will be the last of my non-scheduled projects… at least until after christmas.  I found the pattern last year over at ninimakes.

meeting #2!

On Monday we had another LA Mod Quilt Guild meeting, and this time we exchanged pot holders!  It was so stinkin’ fun to see what came out of everybody’s head and hands.  Here is mine, complete with ridiculously small quilting and hand attached binding.  It is 7×7.

…. and because, you know, pot holders belong in trees….

Pat was the “lucky” recipient of mine!  She is the oldest member of our crew, I think, and I love her to pieces!  I think I will just bypass the formality next time and move right into calling her “Grandma Pat.”  She seemed pretty happy about her new treasure and says she is hanging it up in her kitchen, wow wee! that is quiet the honor coming from such talent as Grandma Pat!

I received this fab oven-mit that I am pretty smitten over, but I can’t remember who made it, ooops!  But I have already used it, and I LOVE it, so hopefully that makes up for my flakyness.

You can check out all our surprised faces and potholder yummyness over at the LAMQG flickr group.

L.A. MODERN quilt guild!!!

SERIOUSLY?

One EXISTS!?

IT DOES!

There have already been two meetings, I was not able to make the first one but was so thrilled to be a part of the second on Monday!  The back story is that I found out about all the hullabaloo from Alissa (A-lisa) over at handmadebyalissa!  Alissa’s the first blogger I found who LIVES in my neck of the woods and has a more modern style, so you can bet I have kept a close eye on her!Anyway, this whole modern quilt guild is the brain child of her and a few other fantastic chicks, but since it is just starting out it really is being shaped by all who are joining up so quickly.  Jenny, the fab proprietor of the new Home Ec. shop on Sunset, hosted our little soirée!!  Oh my how I fell in love with this place, if you are local, GO GO GO!  So, we met there on Monday, and will continue doing so one Monday a month, and after the new year we will also be getting together one Saturday a month at a church in West LA to SEW! HURAH!  If you are in the area at all, and have any interest in all this crazy fun, JOIN US!  Chris over at Izzy Inspired joyfully made the trek from San Diego County, that’s a wooping hour and 40 minutes, folks!

ok, so here is me sharing– with great excitement apparently, my little Mr. A quilt that just came out of the dryer in ONE PIECE just hours before.  Phew!  I took the liberty of fuzzing out the expletive lurking in the picture!  Hanging in Home Ec., in context, it is quiet funny, but not partially in a picture above my quilt and front and center on my blog! HA!  To get a good laugh visit the LA Modern flickr pool with the original picture to see that and all the other quilts the girls brought to share and inspire all of is with!  *the full poster says: “Make #$*& Your Self”

After all, people we ARE a MODERN quilt guild! LOL!  Perhaps we will try to get that handmade print out of view next time?

A bit of stippling practice

In preparation of my latest stippling adventure there was much practicing around here, and tea drinking on my part, but come to find out a certain little girl loves to sneak sips of my green tea when I’m “unaware.”

A few of you have asked me these past weeks about what the heck stippling is!  Well, in short it is free motion quilting in a meandering style, like doodling on a piece of paper.  Free motion means the sewing machine is not pulling the fabric through, you have to guide it.  Imagine a pen and paper, normally we write with a pen on a stationary piece of paper, well with free motion quilting you move the “paper,” and the needle is the pen.  Make sense?  True stippling means that lines CANNOT cross or touch.  Here is a little you tube video if you are more of a visual person!  I need to get some of those gloves!  Evidently there is a better solution than using my yellow dish gloves! Ha!

EEEEEKK! My first truely-completed-quilted quilt!

Mr. A is now seven months, and it is difficult to ignore the irony that I finished his small roll-around-on-the-floor-and-spit-up-on-it quilt  the exact day he pretty much started officially crawling… that is to say moving his feet AND hands.  In my defense it has been 90% finished for MONTHS, it just needed the quilting and binding but my we little Brother machine decided that it was not capable of such fancy things! BUT the fantastic news is that I got a dream machine out of the deal, so lets just say this is one very expensive baby quilt!

I wanted it to be unmistakably boy, and when searching my stash this is what I came up with, along with the realization that I don’t have much that can be used for a boy!  I have plenty of almost boy stuff, but designers throw in a small flourish, a token flower or something that just tips the scale, for me, even though they are “boy ” colors.  The final measurements are  21.5” x 27.”

and the back…

Out of complete inexperience and probably a bit of ignorance I had the “brilliant” idea to embroider the back to coordinate with Mr. A’s announcements.  This meant I really had no choice but to do some free motion quilting and figure out how to stipple, and you know what?  I love how it turned out, I think I am going to try to do this again, and I highly recommend it!

making progress…

…binding for a birthday gift– 6 months late.

really, it isn’t as crazy as it sounds!

what?  You ask?  Dare I say it?  shhhhh….

…

…cloth diapering….

I finally took The Plunge and it ended up being more like a small hop, not so bad.

Honest!

I really REALLY wanted to do this when Ms. E was born, two years ago, but I chickened out.  I felt like I couldn’t handle one more thing on top of all the other changes, so I adjusted my goals, accepted defeat, and for some reason I didn’t address it again until Mr. A came to stay.  I blew through all the disposables that seemed to make their way into the house for free and finally took my first trip to Target to actually BUY diapers when the reality set in.  While standing in the diaper isle, the epiphany that I was going to have to buy TWO SIZES hit me!  I know! Crazy, how that works!  As with most things in my life… I. had. a. PLAN!  I marched right on out of there with just a package of pull-ups, a determination to potty train Ms. E the next day (I had been putting it off for a couple months), and a scheme to get some magically-smart diapers asap!

I called up a couple of late (but very considerate… they wanted to make sure to get me something that I wanted) gift givers, g-ma Clare & Aunt Brandy, and pitched them my plan.  By the end of the week six of these beauties were on my doorstep, and I have since added six more.  So now we are a BumGenius operating household of 12, and doing wonderfully!

see… (this was after Mr. A braved his fourth month shots)

Here is where the non-crazy part comes in.  They are the most simple darn things EVER.   They go on just like a diaper, no folding, no plastic leaky covers, no pins or fasteners, and virtually no staining… at least none yet that the sun hasn’t been able to take care of in a couple hours.  There is no rinsing for now, since he is still an infant, if you get my drift.  I just separate the inserts from the diaper, throw it all into a cold wash, then a hot one, and an additional rinse. Presto.  Line dry the fancy parts, throw the rest in the dryer.  Detailed washing instructions and troubleshooting, here.

One size will fit Mr. A his entire diaper career, thereby saving ME tons of money and guilt every time I throw the other kind away.  Did you know 1/3 of our landfills are diapers!  We do our part around here to conserve and purchases environmentally friendly when possible, and every time I took out that big ol’ diaper genie of diapers I felt like I was voiding our efforts.  There are so many alternatives to strictly disposable diapers now too, even hybrid options.  I guess it is no surprise that I choose the most high tech option I could find, (no comments from you, Mr. K, you hear me?!) but this time I’ve got economics on my side.  Even at 18 bucks a pop, they pay for themselves quiet quickly– especially since my first six were gifted, woohoo!

Now, what about the wipes you ask?  That is what I have received the most questions about when you guys have seen me changing his fancy new pants.  Oh you just wait!  I’ve got a whole blog about that too!  Riveting. I know.  Tomorrow, promise.

In the mean time, do any of you cloth diaper?  Or did you?  Do you want to?  Or am I more off my rocker than I am willing to admit?

I don’t currently ride a bike, but…

…. if I did, THIS would be the one, in just that color, please!

They are having a giveaway, a bike each week!  And since my last giveaway entry went so great, I thought I would see if I could keep that trend going… or perhaps I have already run out of winning karma, I’m not sure how that works.  In any case, I have long since passed the luxury of having a bike since I have two kids and crap stuff to haul around all the time.  This will go just perfect with my fantasy life I will someday have in Portland with my weekly trips to the farmers market to get biscuits & gravy, flowers, and jam.  I can be her, I know I can!  If only I had THAT bike!  It comes with seat belts, people!

I WON SOMETHING, I WON SOMETHING…

… and I am completely beside myself!!!!!  I entered this pint sized giveaway, and WON WON WON!

Thank you Camille, the creator of Cotton Blossoms, soon to be released Simple Abundance, and a myriad of great patterns available in her Etsy shop!!  And your snicks are in the mail just as soon as I figure out where to send them!  EEEEEEKK!  Happy Belated Birthday TO ME!

Happy Anniversary to ME… and Mr. K!

Today is our anniversary.  Five years!  NO WAY!  Way.  Mr. K has a long standing tradition, a whole five years now… did I mention that, of gifting me traditional anniversary items.  Past years have included paper and leather, last year I scored with yards of linen, and this year that creative guy got me WOOD thread organizers!

I don’t know where he gets his list from, I think there are many out there, and I think he picks and chooses which one to follow each year, but I love it.   It’s our/his thing.  Thankfully he didn’t know if I really had a place to put the big mamma one, so he bought me a small one too.

Well Ms. E isn’t parting with hers anytime soon, and mine looks too yummy all set up to take back to the store, so we are just going to have to do some wall rearranging and hang this baby up!

Thanks Mr. K, we *heart you too!

P.S. Do you spy anything new in these pics??  Oh yes, that’s right! A NEW CAMERA!  Watch out internet, I have been having too much fun taking pictures of everyday items around the house!  Don’t worry, I will give you all the vital statistics soon!

mmm, I would really like some of these right now…

… but since I need to be good and cut such things out of my post baby diet I will blog about them instead!  It’s almost as good, right?

First, I must explain my love affair with snickerdoodle cookies.  Pretty much the main reason why I love these babies so much is because I always have the ingredients for them. Keeping chocolate in the house for a quick whip up of classic chocolate chip cookies is impossible, by the time I get to them they have been scarfed or I find an obligatory quarter of the bag remaining!  The same principal holds true for any other special ingredient I may pick up and not use right away.  Now, I am not blaming it all on Mr. K, I have been know to spoil the best of my plans too, but what I have learned is that I can’t stock the pantry with special things to bake with unless I do it quick!

With that being said I have gone through my share of snick-recipes, and it is due time I share my fav with my freindly bloggy readers.  Only problem is I am not sure about the legality of sharing such a thing, as it isn’t my original design but from a fairly famous lady who’s name is similar to Bertha Mewart.  It would all be much easier if she just had the recipe on her site so I could easily link to it for ya’ll!!  Not all snick-recipes are created equal, you know, this one and this one come up very short in my opinion… and those are the only two she has listed. GRRRR!

It is from Bertha Mewart’s Holiday Cookie magazine from 2005!

(oh, yes and check out the preview of my latest project!  I spy a bit of Anna Maria Horner goodness!)

I love, love, LOVE this $5.95 purchase!  Please excuse the bit of smudgy pumpkin on the cover!  There are no adds, except for a couple plugs for other Bertha publications, the pictures are beutiful, there are TONS of beautiful packaging ideas for all the sweet treats too, and just look at the table of contents.

YUMMMMY!

Now since I do not believe you can get one of your very own, perhaps Bertha’s Cookie book published a few years later would be a good second??  I don’t know, I haven’t even thumbed through it.  Let me know if you have it and like it!  I would love to know!  Otherwise, you are welcome to borrow mine for some inspiration, but be warned, it does not leave MY HOUSE!

Back to the cookies… My dear friend, Mrs. Clemons as Ella calls her, had Ella over for a couple days a few weeks ago so I could go to some last minute dr. appointments.  Not a huge deal, right?  Well it is to me considering my doc is an hour or so from my house and rarely runs on time.  Needless to say it meant a lot to me, and by-golly she needed some cookies as payment!

Two baker’s dozens should do the trick!

I’m stalling with the recipe… can you tell.  Still not sure about the sharing part… The magazine is 3 1/2 years old, what are the limitations on something like that?? Blah!!   Here it goes!  And if anybody out there can clear up the confusion for me, PLEASE DO!

Best Snicks EVER… at least until I find another one!

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoon sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt, set aside.  Put butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Mix in eggs.  Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixtures.
2. Sift together cinnamon and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl.  Shape dough into 20(1 3/4 inch balls); roll in cinnamon sugar.  Space 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes.  Let cool on sheets on wire racks.  Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

As always I have a couple hints/tips/you-have-tos to add

1. Whip the heck out of the butter and sugar for a FULL 3 minutes like step one says and even a bit longer if you aren’t chicken. Which brings me to #2…
2. Use a stand mixer if at all possible, I cannot fathom how to get the butter sugar mix fluffy enough without one.
3. Lastly, if you don’t already use parchment paper to bake your cookies with like in step two.  DO IT!  I love it!  Not to mention zero clean up.

So there you are!  Try it out!  Let me know if you have an EVEN BETTER one, I am always on the hunt!

Thank you Mrs. Clemons!

Mr. A’s Birth Announcement

So by now most of you who actually read this little blog have received your very own owl announcement!  But for those of you who haven’t I thought I would share the ins n’ outs of it.

To start I have to say that I am LOVIN’ my new Canon iP4600 printer!  It’s no sexy Epson R1900 wide format dream machine, but I had to compromise ($80 vs. $500) and this trusty Canon is what I settled on!  One of the many things I LOVE is that it can do borderless 8 1/2 x 11 print jobs, like I did here, making it possible to create a full bleed 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 flat card announcement.

This was truly my first project using any sort of Photoshop product, I have been putting off cluttering my brain with one more thing/project for quiet a while now.  To my demise I decided to “invest” in a *new (I haven’t had one for a couple years now) color printer rather than purchasing birth announcements this time around, so there was no getting out of it.  I purchased Photoshop Elements 6.0 for mac, and got to it.

I used some .psd files I purchased from twopeasinabucket.com by tia bennett for the owl and details on the envelopes.  I also had wallets printed to attach to the announcements rather than printing directly on them.  I did this with Ms. E’s professionally printed ones and it seemed to be a hit two years ago as well.  As I am in the habit of doing, I used my favorite textured paper (luxe fino white) from paper-source and as always I just love it.

For Ms. Carly’s 1st Birthday

Wow, really it has been a bit hasn’t it since I have posted anything… it’s not that I haven’t been doing anything. honest. I have just been a bit sidetracked/overwhelmed/sleep deprived– all complements of my brand-spankin’ new baby, Mr. A! The good news is… there really isn’t any bad I guess… I feel like I am coming out of my three month newborn baby slump.  I am getting back into the swing of things, starting with this tote I made up for a special little girl Carly who turned one last weekend.

I used the same dimensions for this one as I did for Ms. Haislea a year ago. This time when I cut the patterned fabric I cut salvage to salvage 5 1/2” wide, the same as before, and used the extra to make a pocket inside, so there was no waste. Score.

I know the pics aren’t all that great, I wasn’t able to give the linen the attention that it needed, but it is a miracle I was even able to get pictures!! I finished this one up in just the nick of time, thanks to my rock star sister taking care of fussy Mr. A.

everybody’s doing it…

It seems fatquarter month over at sew,mama,sew got a lot of us crafty types excited about made by rae’s free buttercup bag pattern.  And since everybody’s doing it, even soulemama, I gave it a try too… four times.

The idea is that a perfect little pleated purse can be made out of one fat quarter with the pattern, not including the lining & pocket.  I didn’t exactly take advantage of that fact since using linen for everything is still not out of my system, but when I find something worthy enough of a whole purse that fact will be great!

I used stabilizer on the linen for the first time hoping that it would make it less wrinkly after a few uses, I think it worked, but linen is linen and that means wrinkly to some degree.  I also used magnet clasps on these and I am HOOKED!  LOVE THEM!  Easy, inexpensive, and ubber functional.  I learned how to use them over at u-handbag, which by the way is a fantastic little corner of the internet you should check out.  Oh, and I finally got around to making some quick little sew in tags too.

The first one…

…I think I made for myself, although I am not sure which one I am keeping now because I am smitten with this one that has been hanging in my hallway for a couple days…

… there is something about the 70’s inspired red, orange and turquoise that draws me.  I do know however, that I made the strap a bit wide for my liking the first time around and perfect on the following three so practice does make sorta perfect.  This weekend the other two went to a couple very generous ladies from church who hosted a perfect brunch/baby shower for me this past Saturday.  Thank you Betsy and Laurie for a wonderful afternoon of fantastic food, conversation, and love.

Kelli, YOU ROCK!

So look what got dropped off at my door yesterday!

Upon reading my obsessive cupcake blog from last June she decided it was high time for me to partake in one of her favorite places.  So as a thank you for lending out my husband to fix their drywall, SPRINKLES cupcakes are what I…err…we received!  Holy smokes!  What you may not know is that it is a good hour drive to get these babies, and I still had never had them!  OH MY, YUMMY!   They are all I thought they would be and more!  Moist, cakey, not-too-sweet-goodness!  I am always in search of cupcakes to try, and these for sure take the cake– pun intended.  I am hooked.

THANK YOU KELLI, MATT, and IVY!  It was so considerate of you.  Do you have anything else Mr. K can fix?  We work for cupcakes.