Quilt finish #5, my little pony

I am trying out mobile blogging, so who knows what this will end up looking like!

I finished quilt five this week, a my little pony quilt for sam. She has been asking for one for a solid month, so I put my head down and cranked this one out quickly.

Binding in the sun yesterday. Binding has become my favorite part, which is odd, since I used to dread that part.

The pattern is moda love. It's free online, but I don't know how to link on the iPad. Oy.

Cutting and piecing took me about two hours, I did it all in one day.

Quilting took about two hours, also done in one day.

The hardest part was finding the right rainbow stripe for the binding. After days of searching I turned up  this stripe at hancocks. It reminds me of fruit stripe gum.

After washing.

All the other fabrics are currently at Joann, except this huge polka dot on the back, which was vintage. I have a whole bolt in my stash. Sammi said, " oh, those big dots are my favorite!"

She has been carrying it around every moment since I finished it.

I want to do more playing with pattern scale. This is a fairly easy block, just HUGE. However, the next quilt is an exercise of a different kind. :)

P.S. With every quilt certain things get easier! I can tell I am gaining experience and skills. Yippee!

Flea Market Sunday

Oh man.  Friday night Sam was sick again. She was rolling on the floor screaming and crying that she was in pain and we were minutes from taking her back to the ER.  (Driving her around made her fall asleep, she seemed better after that.)

Yesterday we had our family Easter.  Grant started acting VERY funny. I thought maybe he was overwhelmed.

By 7 pm he was burning up with fever. He woke up this morning with a 104.

CANNOT GET A BREAK OVER HERE!

I went out the flea this morning because one of my favorite dealers had promised to hold some fabric for me.  He forgot the fabric, but I was already there so I hiked myself around anyway. IT WAS COLD. 36 with this horrible, wicked wind. My nose was running, my hands were freezing, I was totally under dressed, my eyes were watering and the tears were freezing to my cheeks. I ran that thing so fast my legs are jelly now. LOL

So what did my freezing run yield?

Apparently I am now totally unable to resist ironstone.

Wedgewood ironstone this time, a tureen.

Look at that flower!

I left this quilt after inquiring about the price.  The condition is not "super" (one of the blacks has shattered), and the price was not what I wanted to pay.

After stopping to talk to another favorite (the guy who sells my kids their favorite toys like my little pony and Thomas and pokemon) he reminded me there is no flea next weekend because of Easter.

Oh boy. I hot footed it back to the quilt and forked over the money.

And now? I AM SO GLAD I DID! 

I don't have any hexies in this layout in my collection yet. Isn't she lovely?

The shattered black. There are several of them.

Worth freezing to death.

Yes indeed.

Happy Sunday y'all!

Hello Easter Bunny 2015

Time to visit the Easter bunny!

This year was relatively drama free.

Sam (shoes on the wrong feet, LOL) was not feeling very cooperative. But Grant didn't cry! Jack is going to be bigger than the rabbit soon. (And me too.)

Progress.

Last year for fun. (Sam clearly was more cooperative.)

This morning I was working on etsy and trying to blog and I couldn't help Grant get dressed RIGHT NOW. So off he went. He took off his pjs, picked out clothes (that actually match) and go himself dressed.

ON.HIS.OWN.

He never gets himself dressed in any way other than to sometimes put on his coat.

This is a major milestone for him.

Also, he slept through the night last  night.  He took a nap yesterday and I do not think this is a coincidence. I firmly believe in little kids sleep begets sleep.

Now if someone would just explain that to Samantha, the chronically exhausted child.

Thank the GODS it is Friday y'all.

Kids. Sleep. Thursdays.

Oh Grant. Dear, Sweet, adorable Grant.  We need to talk dude. This not ever sleeping thing? HAS TO STOP YO.  Not napping? Not cool, but I could make it work. But up ALL THE DAMN NIGHT LONG? No. Just no.  You are 2.5! I should not be getting up with you at least twice a night every.single.night. I am a zombie again. Might as well be catering to a newborn baby!

Speaking of Grant - he calls lemons "watermelons".  We had given him a lemon freeze thing in the car last week and he takes a drink and then says "no beuno watermelon." We about died. LOLOL

Yesterday while we were all NOT napping I gave up and let them play iThings so I could rest for a minute. (I don't have a ton of RA pain anymore, but yesterday my shoulder was freaking KILLING me and one of the things I do deal with every day is tiredness. By 1 pm I REALLY have to have a 60- 90 minute break to regroup.)  So they are sitting there playing and Grant can't make something work and I was refusing to help. Sam takes the iPod and says very seriously, "Grant, let me help you. That's what big sisters are for!"  (Sometimes you wouldn't know they often are fighting/hitting/screaming like cats and dogs still.)

And Sam.  I bought her this giant Mooshka doll at Goodwill yesterday. I had big sewing plans but then I couldn't move my shoulder, so I went thrifting instead. I have loved these dolls since they first came out, but resisted buying her one. We have all sorts of (thrifted) dolls she never plays with already - Bitty Babies, BlaBla, Pottery Barn kids, Madame Alexander. But this was three bucks, so why not, right?  Turns out she LOVES the giant one.

What she likes even better is that now she has "a mommy doll, a little girl doll, and a baby doll".  (The baby is not in the picture, but the midsized ones come with a little puppet.)  She kept saying, "Thank you mommy for my dollie! I love her!".  (That child has manners. Clearly she is not my child. LOL)

Three or four days ago she was arguing about using the potty before bed.  Dave told her she would have to change her sheets if her bed was wet and she says "I have chubby baby hands and I cannot do that!"

LOLOL

Other than that, it's Thursday. I have come to hate Thursday. I am so over the week by Thursday. I call it "no fucks left to give Thursday."

And that's life here right now. You?

Minted. I'd like one of everything please.

Have you looked at Minted lately?

I used them once a few years back to make our Christmas cards and they were the most gorgeous cards ever, but I hadn't visited them in awhile.

When I went to have a peek around their website and saw the fabric tab I could not click on that button fast enough.

And then I swooned!

 How gorgeous would these Strawberry Fields berries be as a little dress for Sam?

Since I've become a full on instagram junkie I have fallen pretty hard for a raindrop fabric that is IMPOSSIBLE to find anywhere. But lookie here! Playful droplets!

I painted a wall in the playroom with chalk paint. Partly because it was fun for the kids, but partly because I thought I could use it as a back drop for all those themed holiday photos I take of the kids. It turns out the light down there is SO bad that it just has not worked out.  But these photo backdrops would do that job in a place where I can get natural light for the photos. I could even customize the top to have it say our last name. Hmmmmmm. Need one. :-)

Then I had to have a turn at making an ADORABLE Room decor sign for each kid:

One for Grant, who loves planes.

 This one is perfect for Jack.

 

And I let Sammi choose her own, she loves the mermaid. (Which happens to match her room pretty perfectly.)

My last stop (before Grant decided to pour water in the cat food container, oy) was to check out the planners. Planners are another thing that is ALL OVER instagram, so why not have a look?  This one is gorgeous.

But really - so much pretty there. Independent designers, everything right on trend, super useful things like coordinated party packages (so much easier than hunting it all down on etsy!), home décor and more. 

Go have a look for yourself.

**I have been compensated for this post with a minted credit. After ten years of blogging, I am pretty darn selective about who I do this for here in this space. I hope you will enjoy minted as much as I do.**

Flea Market Sunday, a FOUR quilt kind of day

Oh boy, this was a two flea market weekend.  And I am beat.

Before we get to the end you are going to be like "SARAH! Buy enough crap did ya? Didn't you just take a bunch of crap to the goodwill again?" LOL. 

Ah well, the junking circle of life.

Mary had a little lamb, with all her pieces. (For now, cough.)

Ginty loves these old pull toys.

Sadly the backs on these were cut to go over someone's porch lights, but for 50 cents, who cares?

Ah! The best buy ever. It works!  The blur on the bottom is a swinging girl. It actually keeps time and it plays edelweiss on the hour. I also bought a wooden German music box that happens to play Edelweiss too. Let's blame all that on the sound of music special Dave and I watched this week, okay? (If you are on instagram you saw that I paid a whopping $2 for this.)

Moving right along...

Oh.my.sweetness. This is the sweetest little cross stitch ever. I need to clean it up a little and iron it so I can get it framed.

It is done so well. Look at the tiger! I die.

One armed pumpkin man. Again, for 50 cents do I care? I think not.

Irmi circus mobile.

That fish!

A dancing bear! A dancing bear! When we went to the circus I died over the dancing, bike riding bears. Oh sure, it's wrong, blah blah. I still died.

Quilt number one. Slightly tattered, but a very interesting pattern.

An organdy apron. I never really buy aprons for anything but the shop anymore, but this one? 

I am weak.

Quilts number two AND three.  The light outside is not great, but these are a perfect minty green. Not the most exciting pattern, but the fact that she made two - one in girl colors and one in boy colors totally swayed me.

And there was no way I could split up the pair.

They are so soft and sweet.

Feed sack.

Another apron. I follow a seller on instagram who sold a piece of this fabric a few weeks ago and MAN I cried in my cheerios when I missed it. I stalk her sales hard core but the kids were sick or something.

So when I saw these bubbly beauties this morning I SCREECHED to a halt. I might have paid anything for them really.

The loveliest piece of vintage fabric I have bought in a looooong time.

Not a great picture of it though. It keeps telling me it needs to be a duvet cover.

I might have to let it boss me and make that this week.

And quilt number four.

Now, it is entirely possible that quilt number four will be the quilt that breaks my quilt storage's back. My home for wayward quilts is getting full up again. And I have ZERO luck selling them (mostly because of shipping I think). (I can, however, unload them at garage sales pretty easily and the neighborhood garage sale is a few weeks away).

The lady who sold me this one tried really hard to convince me her other quilts "were much, much better".

They were not.

I try to smile through that stuff - people telling me about their quilts - because let's face it I am a full on quilt hoarder. Unless it's related to the history of that particular quilt I am pretty capable of assessing them by now.

 And besides, the heart wants what the heart wants. And my heart does NOT want some 1970s embroidered quilt.

It wants this beauty. With it's meandering wedges, and that lovely quilting in the centers.

Ah, flea market season, I'd say it's upon me already and in full swing.

Happy Sunday to you!