Keep on Sewing...

Quilt Con triangle class sampler

MAN! I have been super busy.

So busy I feel like I need to schedule bathroom breaks just to make sure I know it'll be taken care of. Nope, not even kidding, I lose what day we are on on a regular basis. I went to feed the cat and instead put instant…EDITED!!! seriously? The kids came home and I hit "publish" haha…just to show I wasn't kidding about being crazy busy…OKAY: 
I went to feed the cat this morning and instead put instant oatmeal in her bowl she looked at me and was like "what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks lady?!" I was like "dude, I'm kind of tired and frazzled, quit judging me!" That was at 5:30 am mind you. I don't drink coffee, but I should really look into natural invigorating/stimulating? type things cause yep…I'm losing my mind. Perhaps it's already been lost? Shhh, I don't know if it is... so just let me be if it is.

my view from under a tree on a snow day while the kiddos had fun sledding down our friend's hill. 

 I'm grateful that it's the snowy and freezing season because I've been huddled in the house working and working and working. Between Quilt Con prep of my classes...

Judgey cat on my ombre bloom quilt and my quilt blocks for Quilt Con ombre class. 

and almost done with my book series!!! YAY!!! Check out GREEN  
BLUE , and PURPLE , are already on Amazon too!!! Whooooot!

 Here's a sneak peek of Orange which will ship starting in March 2015. I can't express how much I am in love with how this series of color books have turned out! And I've gotten so many nice compliments of the Red book that just started shipping to those that have already ordered the series! THANK YOU!!!! There will be a blog hop later on as more of the books start shipping and we can show them off, but for now I'll just tease you with beautiful pictures here and there!

Extra fabric bundles for my Quilt Con triangle class

And well, now I must go back to finishing up my presentations for Quilt Con and then we have to go to orchestra and piano lessons…perhaps I should try to take a shower first though… :)

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V and Co: yesterday

yesterday we had a really cold morning...well for march it was cold and for me it most definitely was. it was 2 degrees and the fog had just burned off or moved on...and what it left behind was beautifully frost covered trees. this has got to be one of my most favorite things that happens in winter like weather. all the other crap could go away but the frost covered trees make me super duper happy. 

later today i am sitting with a friend that just had her gallbladder taken out. we are watching a chick flick and i am going to hand embroider a little spring-y type thing to help remind me that even though march looks like that outside...spring should be right around one of these corners...please??

a small how to on how to make my spring-y embroidery coming at ya on monday. :)  oh and stay warm if your outside looks like that too. and if it doesnt i don't want to hear about your fabulous weather. 

have a fantabulous weekend. we'll talk soon.

V and Co: visits home ec in iowa city

 the other week i was invited to hang out with a few wonderful people. we went to a great shop down in iowa city, iowa. it was a pretty crazy weekend as there was a hawkeye game (and not just any game THE game against the cyclones. heaven help me i don't even follow football and know all the details) anyways that wasn't the only thing going on that weekend, there was also the president coming into town, and some festival...which i can't remember right now but i have a feeling it had to do with corn? don't quote me on that.

 anyways, as part of our get together we got to come in and hang out in codi's shop called home ec. it's really cute and homey and wonderful.

 every corner was filled with thread, yarn, notions, and fabric choices that are jut wonderful.

 she had knits, and echino, melody miller, coated fabrics and japanese fabrics. that's not all she had, she had a lot more...but those are the ones i was drooling over and so i didn't get to take pictures of the other stuff.

 the atmosphere was laid back, and yummy. in the front you had the sewing machines and some fabrics and notions...as you moved back...

 you were surrounded by wonderful yarn (wish i knew how to use it!) and a place to sit relax and work on a project while you ate your yummy pastry from the bakery she has in the store.

 she has classes on how to make this beautiful shirt (that most people have either heard of or have made one or want to make one) the tova which is the talented jenny gordy's very popular pattern. she teaches this class at home ec.
i will be teaching a class there soon. i'll let you know when it comes closer to the time. :)

 here is jenny and greta looking all smug and cheeky. kidding they were a hoot and we had a blast. here     greta is showing jenny her new fabric lines with marcus.

 so if you are in the iowa city area make sure you look up home ec and tell codi V and Co sent you.
:)
on our little trip linzee wanted to show me some of the awesome thrifting that goes on in this cute college town.

 i didn't walk away with too much stuff i was trying to be good. :)

 but i did find this lamp that is going in my eldest noisemaker's room. it looks great in his "map" room.

 speaking of the eldest noisemaker...apparently i'm rubbing off onto him because he came home from scout camp with that bowling pin. when the husband saw him with it he said "what in the? where did you get that and what are you going to do with that?"
noisemaker answers "i found it! isn't it cool? i'm going to use it as decoration in my room."
as the husband hangs and shakes his head in disgust, you pan to my face and i'm beaming with pride. :) first off it was free and it serves the purpose of nothing other than a cool fixture for decoration. job well done son. now you and i both can confuse the your father. :)
 i found a vintage quilt that instantly had to make it come home with me. when linzee asked what i was going to do with it i answered "hide it from my husband." seriously. it has no purpose except looking pretty. kidding the husband saw it and again i get the look of "WHERE IS THAT GOING?"

it's made me pick up my double wedding quilt, and i'm excited to keep going on it because i want it to be a vintage quilt someday as well, hopefully one that will stay in the family. 

have a lovely and productive day. :) i'm hoping for one!!!!

V and Co: our weekend-ish

my family is in the shadows i'm the tiny little person in the reflection in middle of the bean taking a picture

stop the presses, i'm blogging. i KNOW. seriously i look at how much i'm blogging this year vs how much i was blogging in summers past...and well, the numbers don't lie, for some reason i've not been blogging and yet, we've been busy. not busy doing projects every minute, just busy being us. and while i used to blog about us being us...for some reason, i get nervous to do it.

why? well lets just say this: when you live in a small town in a remote area, all the people pretty much knew you knew your stories, and pretty much were family. i could write about everything we went through and they would laugh/cry with me...but they already knew it because they witnessed it or i had already told them. so when i wrote things the people that would come up to me and say "you're so hilarious!" or "oh my gosh could you BE any funnier?" (cue in chandler emphasis) or my favorite "we can take care of that goat problem of your yours." and of course "can i just tell you, i love your kid, he's going to be okay."

yeah. somehow living in a small town where i was just writing to a computer screen and all my "friend-family" were the only ones coming up to me and saying that they read what i wrote, it seemed okay.

now cue in living in a larger city, (not that large compared to most but still) and not knowing everyone in your town, and cue in the looking over your shoulder and wondering are you reading what i wrote? 

is this weird? i mean my readership has been in the general area in numbers for a few years (a slow incline but nothing too drastic), but all of a sudden because i don't have my hula hoop of wilderness around me, i feel like i'm more on display.

so yeah. thoughts? 

anywho. i'm working on writing about every day mundane things, because honestly, that's when the best things happen, at least when you are in a family. it's the stolen looks between the husband and i of a funny inside joke the kids don't even know anything about. or the HILARIOUS, or the things that our children do and say that drive you insane or teach you life lessons. 

those are the best memories, and the prettiest images around you that should be the threads of our creativity and the wind in our sails.

so here it is: 

we went on a little trip.

 i say little because chicago isn't that far away from where we live. well, compared to where we used to live. it's a mere 4 hours away and we decided we were going to try to see somethings we've never had gotten the opportunity to do before due to living on the other side of the united states all our lives.

 we went to cloud gate or "the bean" we've seen it in pictures, i'd seen it in movies, but never had i ever seen it in real life.
amazing.
it.
is.

 i tried to get good posed pictures of the kids (emphasis on the tried and you will see why later on in the next few pictures) but due to too many witnesses, i couldn't do my "take a picture and make it look good so i can use this picture to send it out to everyone this year blah de de BLAH iCAN STAND HERE ALL DAY PEOPLE TILL WE GET IT RIGHT...DON'T YOU TEST ME I CAN CALL SANTA, YEAH YOU HEARD ME!" routine i normally do when i try to get a staged all facing the same way smiling only once a year happening because we're using it for christmas pictures that year rant.

don't know what they were contemplating here in this picture...but it would have been cool if all four of them did the same thing, but of course one of them didn't. oh well.

i have to say the millennium park is pretty cool, we didn't look at everything, we were kind of pressed for time, but next time we will return and i'll take pictures (ahem possibly with a camera other than my phone camera because i forgot the real camera)

also this time around we got to go to the Shedd aquarium.
my kids are huge water/fish/turtles/dolphins/penguin/otter lovers, so this was a fun and exciting thing for them seeing that it's been over 5 years now that we lived in monterey and had the membership to the best after school time waster also known as going to the aquarium for a few hours so mommy didn't go cray cray till dad got home.
our kids loved the jelly fish, when we were living in monterey, and they loved it this time around too.


in the jelly fish area it was super pretty, with all the jelly fish flowing movements, and they had nice soothing music and the colors were cool. :) kind of felt like a "happy place" of some sort.

here's another attempt of me taking a posed picture...no go on the christmas card yet again.

 next we headed to the lego and american girl store. i wish i could have gotten the reaction of the girl noisemaker's face when we turned the corner and saw the american girl store.
she was so excited it was really fun to see.
she got a hand me down doll, she's been introduced to these dolls just recently, and well up till i went into the store i didn't get what was so cool.
i was like "a hospital? and hair salon? whaaaaat? thats just stupid." and honestly it is, but man, you walk into that store and all of a sudden you want to set up a hair appointment for your little doll, eat at the restaurant...with your little doll, and buy matching outfits...wait, no, still don't want to do that. because that is just too creepy weird and kind of stupid in my book. but yes, buy the little doll outfits and glasses, and shoes, and all the other stuff that you can buy but wait i have to eat next month so let just slow it down for a minute...
regroup. breathe. get out of the spinning of crazy...and make some rational choices

so this time around we got "calissa" a new outfit (i think the girl noisemaker  named her calista, but her "t's" aren't all that great. :))
a freaking $38 outfit. um. yeah. (but they came with cute little roller-skates!) anywho moving on.
while the girl and i were contemplating what outfit, the boys were building legos.

legos are the go to toy for my boys. they like them, i like that they like them, and the big husband boy likes them too. we dig legos.

um apparently noisemaker #3 was all over the map on emotions. :/ 

after a fun filled few days we came home. 

and we were super happy to see our new normal of the iowa fields and corn. we are getting used to our new surroundings, and it's exciting to see what memories we make here.

we'll talk soon. :)