Update

posting quickly from the iPad. It's late and Sam was just admitted to the hospital. They expect to keep her at least two days. I will try to pop on Instagram or the blog Facebook page while juggling the boys to keep you updated. Her blood sugar was pretty low, she had lost more weight and her potassium was out of whack.

Time to try and sleep.

Flea Market Mondays and a VERY sick Samantha

Before I say a single word about anything else - our Sammi is really quite sick. She started vomiting at 2 am on Friday, threw up every 15 minutes for a very long time, became lethargic and unresponsive, after 36 hours had to be rushed to the ER, was sent back home and here we are 18 hours later with a child who is still not better at all. She is unable to do anything but sleep, she is having a ridiculous amount of diarrhea (which she is wearing a diaper and does not even notice she is pooping, it does not wake her at all), and honestly I am starting to SERIOUSLY freak out a bit. She is not behaving like any sick child I have ever had. She has lost 20% of her body weight in three days (which is a lot since she is a 15th percentile child). Right now we are trying to get our actual ped on the phone instead of all these nurses and strangers in ERs.  So, if you are the praying sort...

To try and keep myself busy I cleaned off a pile of stuff I had been meaning to show you that was on the counter.

I don't often keep embroidered linens, but I could not resist the charm of this kitten.

Cheep, an Easter chick.

I love his pink beak and his little cotton cord comb.

These are REALLY small party horns with feathers.

Some old nativity type animals. We will be the only nativity in town with a German pig I bet.

Hello, childhood calling?

A lovely mirror.

I was really charmed by these paper Easter baskets, which happened to come with...

All of these Easter baskets too (and paper grass!).  I hadn't really set out to collect old Easter baskets, but...

 

the pipe cleaner chick on this one said take me home and worry about it later.

And an amazing quilt top.

I actually have some small pieces of that novelty pink in my fabric collection!

I have a quilt top post for the blog planned - what to do with them, how to care for them, etc, but obviously I am swamped and exhausted and worrying to death at the moment. :/

A little Valentine decor

Grant and Samantha just had a HUGE fight over a pair of sunglasses. I made her return them to him, he turns on the tv, I turn it back off and tell him it is not tv time, so what does he do? He breaks the sunglasses he was crying over into a million pieces. On purpose.

And now I have two screaming, yelling, raging small people.

Good times that.

(Wait until he discovers that now the much coveted glasses are garbage.)

Before all hell broke loose, we were taking down the Valentine's decorations.

The foyer trees. (The kids have broken my cabinet so the door no longer closes. Honestly, I could totally start a "shit my kids have ruined" blog with as much crap as they break on a daily basis.)

I definitely needed to move to two trees this year. And yes, some are lying on the table. See the kid problems above.

I pulled these sweet fabric flowers out of a totally tacky 1960s plastic floral arrangement. I really meant to make them into the blog header photo, but yea, who has time for that.

My candy box collection is officially as big as the mantle can hold!

I am off to try and calm the wildebeests. ~~

Baby pinwheel quilt version 2

As soon as I told my dad I had the first baby quilt done he said he needed a second!

I still had almost enough blocks left over to make another one. I just made a few more and then put another quilt together.

I had less color choices left in my Riley Blake 10 inch stacker, so this one is not as colorful. I told my dad that, but he didn't seem to care.

Because your eye seems to go immediately to the red block, I used a red for the binding. I had to wait a long while for more of this binding to arrive, but I felt it was perfect. Red, black, pink, aqua and triangles?  I hope it helps bring it all together.

And about that sashing seam - I realized after I finished the first quilt that part of  my bias problem is that I cut the sashing fabric long ways to avoid having a seam.  I had followed another quilt pattern once that cut ALL the fabric that way and didn't think much of it.  Yea, wrong. It makes horrible bias cuts. Better to live with the seams, and an important quilting lesson learned!

This one got a dotty fabric on the back because I was short of white.

The finished pair together! (The second one is slightly larger because I used the larger sashing.)

I have already started cutting pieces for my next quilt, which is also a very special gift.

It is FINALLY snowing here, so maybe I will get time to sew. Not.

Happy Valentine's Day

Apparently these photo shoots drive my husband batshit crazy, but not me! I love them. LOL

This was probably the best shot. (And no, I did not try and remove that plane, it would not have been worth the drama.)  Samantha looks so damn cute I could seriously eat her up.  That's a vintage velvet swing top and she has been DYING to wear it for something.  Jack wanted to know why she was wearing blue, but whatever, IT IS CUTE!

(And because everyone in public asks me about Grant's hair - he cut it himself a few weeks ago. I took him to get it "fixed" and the girl did a most awful, terrible job. Worse than he did. He has a double whorl on his crown, which is very tricky to work with, so now it is back to standing up all the time. But again, WHATEVER.)

Pretty sure I did not ask for "blank eyed stares", LOL.

Goof ball.

Happy Valentine's Day to you and yours!

Pastel saw tooth stars quilt

Quilt finish number two for me this is my pastel star tooth stars.  Originally I was going to have every block a star block, but this bugger was gobbling up yards and yards of fabrics I couldn't get anymore of, so alternating blocks it is.

I am pretty pleased with it. I can tell that my skills improve with each quilt.  I wanted a border on this one so the stars weren't at the edge, but when I had the top done it was *exactly* the same size as my batting, so I just left it. (The dark area is my shadow, heh.)

I love the low volume green stars in place of a plain white.

BUT! As I was taking these photos I noticed this. YUCK!  Some of the white is yellowed and some is super bright white.

What on earth? Ideas? HELP!

I did not prewash my fabrics. Cotton batting. Basted with 505. Washed in cold water on the hand wash cycle with a free and clear detergent. No fabric softeners or anything else.

I am washing it again in warm water, but what a serious bummer it will be if I cannot figure out 1) what caused it and 2) cannot get it out.

Heart to Heart 2015 Part 2

I have to go back to the dentist again today. Man. I need this part to be over so I can get over the trauma of this mess. :/

Let's look at the last of the valentines instead of thinking about teeth, okay?

These sweet hearts were a contribution from a new swapper, Kimberley.

Beth B. made altered textile art spools. Each of these was different and it was so hard to choose!  The cameo on this one won me over...

And then I spotted this be mine. Awesome!

 Right now mine is wrapped around the bottom of my tree. I really want to move it up so it covers up that middle brace, but I haven't gotten back to it.

Michaele from Twigs and Tulle has been working out her crochet skills.

Isn't her heart cute?

Michelle & Ashley were the first to send their swap box this year. I KNEW when I saw these darling gumball ornaments it was going to be a great swap year!

Beth is a super crafter. Honestly. When I open hers I want to secretly steal them all away for myself, and this year was no exception.

Sam made me hang this adorable, sparkly whale of a gem down low where she can admire it every day.

 

Look at these goofballs! (When did Jack get big enough to tote the little kids around like this?)

 

Thank you so much to everyone who participated this year. 

 

If you missed out - we sign up every year right after Christmas (in my etsy shop).  And we do another swap for Halloween in September. 

 

*****I hear the pleas to add a third swap. I am still thinking on it.  Maybe something patriotic in high summer?  I might be down with that. You?

Heart to Heart 2015

Ready to see the Valentines from the BEST SWAP EVER? Me too!  (If I have missed your blog  link, which I am sure to do, holler at me.)

Megan sent two Valentines since she was not sure how this first version would travel.  I went ahead and tossed this type in the box and hoped for the best.  They are made from maps.

This was her "real" contribution though - sweet map hearts that are three dimensional.

Tamera made us super cute stuffed owls. (You ladies must've spent forever making these this year!)

This was Dolores' first swap and I love these clever "sew" themed Valentines!

These lovely envelopes...

held these amazing works of art from Marci at Parsley Vintage.

Flying pigs! I die.  From Tiff at Folded Gingham.

 

And mini Valentine themed flash cards from Shara at Monkeybox.

And that is only half of them. :-)

Back tomorrow with the rest. Happy Monday to you!