Picnic basket quilt

Finally, a sewing finish! It took me a long time to finish these picnic baskets.  The pattern was from a june magazine. Because they seemed sort of plain on their own I decided they needed some spunk from some letters.

(Lately the ipad is taking really washed out photos. Hmmm)

It's wall hanging sized and it turned out super cute.

Fabric - stash, plus part of a moda dish towel
Batting - cotton
Commercial pattern
Start - may 2017, finish June 2017

Junking

Thanks to having some friends at the flea, I have a few treasures this week!

It was so nice to just sit and visit and not have to boss the kids for two hours, that was really the best part. :)

Garden

My squash are struggling, my tomatoes are taking forever to ripen, it hasn't rained in ages, but the carrot seeds the kids dropped all over the yard are growing like mad! LOL  (This reminds me of once when Jack was small, he was driving me batty so I handed I'm some free seeds that had come in the mail and told him to go play. To my surprise he grew carrots in the flower bed!)

water babies

 The little kids started swimming lessons this week.  Sammi loves it and is learning a lot.  Grant did great one day, okay the second day, by today he was crying and got out of the pool.

 He doesn't have great coordination and there is a child in his group who cries A LOT. Like a LOT. For at least half the lesson, hysterically screaming. I think it winds him up.

 Yesterday in the car after lessons I noticed that the usually very combative and argumentative grant was really mellow. We have had a snafu buying our pool pass this season (and our access to pools gets super limited as they keep closing the public pools), so yesterday I decided on a whim to just buy a big/little pool for the yard.

 They played out there for HOURS. And now they are exhausted. And not fighting because they have no will to live.

This might be genius on my part. Or it might make me crazy. You can never be too sure with these kids.

I am sure this is typical - but it's summer, the kids have been here a month and I am REALLY struggling to find any sort of balance in my own world. There  is no time to clean or sew or read and they just need SO MANY things all the day long. I cant even seem to eek out the time to get the kitchen floor clean. It's a bummer right now.

But anyway.

For now the pool is a small victory!

Flea Market Mondays

I have been REALLY trying to make a good junk score the past few weeks. Tons of sales, scouring ads, and man, I just cannot manage it. It's a bit frustrating. It's high junk season and I am about to yell I AM OUT! Because the competition is too much when you have three kids. I have considered looking for something else to collect, but meh, I'd just drive it all to goodwill. LOL

Anyway.

I did buy a few things FINALLY.

A HUGE pail that has the skinniest opening ever. No kid arm could reach the bottom of this thing through that little hole. And a teeny pail.

This was a good score!

I wanted this so bad I stood there forever thinking about how much I was willing to pay. I have hard core fallen in love with old blue and white.

Goodness, all the heart eyes for it.

Hapde Father's Day

Always a hot mess with these three!

Happy Father's Day to Dave. I am sure there are all kinds of mushy things I could say here, but the kids are busy needing one million things, so I have no time to stay!

Mini quilt

I like using printed dish towels (usually from Walmart or target) for pillows and when I saw this one I knew it had to be mine. There is a big blank wall staring at me in the sewing room after moving the furniture, so I decided on a mini quilt instead of a pillow. Then I got the GREAT idea to free motion quilt the center.

Meh. I didn't enjoy that much. It requires a lot of thinking and apparently I like quilting to be mindless. Also, I just do not love the look. (In fact, if I can remember I will buy another towel in Walmart and try again.)

In other news - at 42 I am blind as a bat in a weird way! I can no longer see things up close. I spent two years with the glasses off and on, off and on and feeling insanely frustrated. Now I have switched to contacts for the first time in 20 years. I wear one for close and one for far and it mostly solves the problem.

Yesterday the kids started fighting at SIX AM.  UGH. I turned on CMT videos to try and distract them with music and Grant's mind was BLOWN! "Mom, what is this? how did you get this on? There are pictures to go with the music?!?!?!"  He really loves music and it was funny to watch. I have tried all sorts of methods for keeping music handy - ipad with a Bluetooth speaker, a regular old school boombox/cd player, using the music channels on the satellite/cable, but nothing really is easy and convenient. I am starting to wonder if one of these Echo gadgets is the way to go, but I will admit I do not love technology and I do not love the idea of those things listening in my house. LOL

Gardening break

Look what we grew! We have three more heads out there too.

Keeping everything watered in the heat requires popsicles breaks too.

Me too, Grant

Man, the days are hot and busy and noisy and chaotic and I could use a nap like this too!

I had to go three more fillings today. I have had to have a stupid amount of dental work and I am so over it. But I am only halfway done! Root canals, crowns, fillings, one million dollars. Being old is fun.

At least the clouds totally brought their A game today and the drive was pretty. (Even if it was 96 degrees.)

Kansas treasures, or the tale of the chifferobe

We always go ride Thomas on the same day as the city wide yard sale in the same town as the train. Some of my favorite treasures have come out of that little town!

This time we were wandering around, finding nothing, when I saw this sitting on the side of the road. It had been marked $25, which was crossed out for $15. It was 1 pm in the afternoon, why was it still there? Never mind, hand over $15, rearrange everything in van and discover no way it's going in there with the kids in the van. So, we got our money back and left. And I wanted to cry. It would've been so lovely in my house!

Dave found a teeny, $$$$ hardware store and bought ratcheting straps and went back for it. When they saw us come back they said take it for free because I loved it so much and it was meant to be. Score! With help he got it hoisted on top of the van.

Now, we had NOTHING in the van - just an old sleeping bag. So even getting to this point was a miracle. I put a pic on Instagram and someone said we had to cover it where the straps are. And we had nothing to do that with! So we used quarter pounder containers from McDonalds. LOLOL

Then we started the LONG journey home! It was nerve wracking. And loud.

But we made it! And it's gorgeous.

It took moving it around the house for a few days for me to figure out what to do with it.  It occurred to me that it was a LOT of storage and I could use more in the sewing area.

Shuffling, shuffling. Moving all the things.

Done! So much storage. And now a wall for mini quilts, which I had been trying to figure out how to get anyway.

I had to redo this wall too to make room for it.

I also picked up a lovely antique quilt for super cheap. The setting blocks are totally shattered, but the pieced blocks are perfect, so vibrant!

I have developed a serious crush on 1880-1910 quilts and fabric lately after having sworn them off for years.

Poison greens, indigo blues...

double pinks!

Thanks Kansas, I still love you!