Reading the Sunday paper

When Nate and I have time we love reading the Sunday paper while eating breakfast. Jacob is starting to enjoy the tradition too. Of course he loves the comics. Here we are having a really serious discussion about his favorite comic strip.

Somebody has an attitude problem...

Well, it looks like it has officially happened. Jacob has discovered the power of eyebrows and with that, he has discovered the force of his own will. He has been making a lot of funny faces lately. Most of them happen when he is frustrated about something, not getting his way, things aren't going his way...you get the idea. I think he is gearing up for the Terrible Twos. He's really not a tantrum thrower, but he does throw the eyebrows. That's our warning that something is coming. After that we look for a quick distraction and he usually calms down.

Last haul before Lent

I managed to get a picture from my haul. From the ads it didn't look promising, but as I am giving up estate sale shopping for Lent, I figured that I had better just get out there one last time. The first place I hit was a moving sale. It turned out to be someone's grandparents moving out. They had awesome antiques, sewing supplies and a few vintage tablecloths. I piled all of it into a box and they asked $5. THAT'S WHY I LOVE YARD SALES!!!

I spent less that $20 at the 4 sales I went to and I came back with loads of vintage fabrics, some clothes for Jacob and a few really cool odds and ends that might appear in my shop. I wish I had pictures of the places I went to. One was a real dive, but the piles of vintage fabric were incredible.

If you have not gone to yard sales or estate sales, I encourage you to get out there at least one or two weekends a year. It's fun to see what people have out there, but if you really want to get the good deals, you will have to go more often than that.

Growin' up

Here's my big boy discovering the joys of a double-sided cabinet. He is now almost 25 lbs and 33" long. He has grown quite a bit since his last checkup at one year. I did finally submit and let him get the chicken pox vaccine. I thought about not getting it and letting him just get it, but it is 2 weeks of pain (something I never actually went through) and 2 weeks of parents needing to find babysitters. So, we got that, but I decided not to get him vaccinated for Hep A. The doctor tried to strong arm me into getting it by saying how sick he could get, but I've done my research and Hep A is not a problem for toddlers. It is harder on teenagers and adults. So there! I'm not really worried about the autism problem as much as getting too many shots at once.

Jamie's quilt

G. and I collaborated on our first quilt for a church member. This has been my most rewarding quilting experience to date. I found that I actually am having trouble giving away this quilt I love it so much. This is for a new baby, but the mother requested these colors: eggplant, mustard, red, gray--no pastels. We searched through our stashes for materials using these colors and here is what we found. I love how 75% or more of the fabrics came to us secondhand. That beautiful purple backing is from Thriftown. All of the linen in the quilt was from upcycled thrift store dresses. 90% of the fabrics I contributed were from garage or estate sales. I love being able to reuse what others might have thrown away, and to be able to produce something this beautiful from cast offs is pretty amazing. Thanks G. for your idea. Although this quilt is for a baby, it would probably fit a twin bed. We made it 45" x 64".

RHQ #7 and 8

More quilts. I took #7 to NM to hand sew the quilt binding. That's the one that looks like autumn. Hand sewing the binding is a nice touch, but not worth the extra effort when you are sewing 30 plus quilts. I really like the brightness of the squares in #8 and the daisy patterned vintage sheet is one of my favorites. The scraps of that sheet became the binding for quilt #6. Quilt count to date:10

Refuge House Quilt #6

More Refuge House Quilts. We are closer to our goal of 32. Here's #6 and the first with new quilt binding. This one has some darker, more sophisticated squares, so I thought the lighter daisy binding would brighten it up. It worked. We decided to machine sew the binding in order to speed up the process. It doesn't look too bad. Blue Herringbone vintage sheet on the back of this one.