Going on

I have had a SERIOUS case of the January funk over here. Not sewing, not doing my usual cleaning routines, not thrifting, just surviving. It was SO, SO -brrr degrees cold for so long. 

 As all of the malls continue to die, we continue to lose a lot of retail.  Our American girl store is in a mall that has all but gone belly up, so they are closing next month. I wanted to get Sammi there before they closed, so we went right after her birthday.  The store really is wonderful and I am sad to see it go.

 Sam took her birthday money and bought something for her new wellie wisher doll. And books. Leave it to Sammi to buy books in the mecca of toy stores.

 Sammi was home sick (and we had an inclement weather day this week due to -20 wind chills), so we cleaned out some cabinets.  We reminisced over pictures of the cats when they were young.

 Then we had a few days in the 40s and we spent as much time as we could outside. Fresh air! Sun! It was glorious and we stayed out until we couldn't stand it anymore.

 It took me forever to cross stitch that rose, then another 2 days to manage to make another zipper pouch. No motivation I tell ya.

After cabinet cleaning we cleaned out piles and piles of papers. The little kids declared paper shredding "the funnest thing ever mom!" LOL We shredded a ton of paper. Happy new year.

Today it is almost 70 and sunny. Cue more out in the yard all day!  Hopefully some rain is coming tonight though, the drought is terrible really.

Flea Market Sunday

We are having quite a January thaw and it has really helped improve my mood. I have actually moved off the couch! Miracle.

So, this week's loot:

 A gorgeous piece of silver millinery/floral/whatsit...

 And a bunch of millinery leaves.

 Vintage Halloween. Not super old, maybe 80s, but that cat and the witch are really fantastic.  The cat is HUGE!

 This vintage candy box is also HUGE.

 I think this lot of Valentine's is also 80s.

 A cake topper for the collection. These always start to appear around Valentine's day.

 This is an unfinished quilt top.

 Because it has an odd shape I might just cut it apart a bit for something else.

 When I picked this up I thought it was rather shoddily made.  That was ok though, because I need some donor fabric for another project I am working on and indigos are so hard to come by.

However, when I opened it up it was a lot nicer than I thought. For some reason she appliqued the corner squares on, which gave it the awful appearance.  So, no good for donor fabric after all!

Now I am still on the hunt for a 4.5 inch square of indigo to finish ONE block, lol!

Hapde Burfday Sammi

7! How is it even possible? Time flies right?

Sammi girl, you are my miracle. My feisty, fierce, tiny genius girl. You are so emotionally intelligent too. A bit shy, a total bookworm, a walking encyclopedia, creative, artistic, messy, perfectionist, intense, picky, completely devoted. There are a million things I could say about you really, but we are about to be off to the American girl store, you kids are fighting, and well, its typical chaos here at our house this morning.

Love you baby,

Mama

Whinger

We said goodbye to our big Whinger on Monday after 18 years together. I am not gonna lie - this one was the hardest.  Whinger was born in a laundry basket in our very first apartment after we had taken in a stray cat who turned out to be pregnant. I fed him kitten formula, taught him how to use a litter pan, carried him around in my overall pockets (hey, it was the 90s).  He was our first baby.   When he woke up on Sunday he could no longer walk. He would go 2 steps, fall down and meow loudly in complaint.

We've gone from four cats to one in 9 months. And it has SUCKED. Our last cat is exceptionally unhappy about this development as well.   Sigh.

Love you whingey boy.  xoxo 

Vintage lantern orphan blocks quilt

 When I bought the box of the wedding ring quilt pieces, I also bought a small stack of these lantern blocks. They were still basted and just so charming that I wanted to get them whacked into a quilt ASAP.

Of course it then took me a week to decide on a sashing fabric. And another week on the binding (which I am still not thrilled with bc of the crooked dots.)

 But! At long last they are a quilt.

It's small. A bit smaller than baby sized, larger than doll sized and I am not sure what I will end up doing with it. Maybe it's a sell candidate.

Either way - I am inspired to get more of these orphan blocks into quilts this year.

Happy New year

I love our family selfie new years eve tradition.  This year we wore a rainbow. It's totally a year that needed to end on a rainbow, right?

We also used a phone instead of a point and shoot for the first time AND only needed to take ONE photo!  The sun is a little odd but whatever, one and done and the kids could go on their way with no crying.  

Whoooohoooo!

Happy New year from us to you!

A finally finished project - single girl no more

I have been working on this quilt since October, which is totally unheard of for me!  I bought a box of 1930/1940 wedding ring quilt wedges on Instagram and they were just so lovely I could NOT wait to get them used for something. They were cut horribly so I first thought I would recut them into postage stamp pieces and make that.  But the more I played with them the more they seemed to scream to be made into a Single girl.  I didn't recut them at all, which made them wonky as all get out, but whatever.

 There some solid color wedges in the box and I decided to make just one solid color ring. Once I put it on top of the other rings I decided this quilt is my "single girl no more" quilt. You'll note that there are five rings joined together at the bottom there.

 Between piecing the uneven shapes and appliqueing all those circles this quilt was full of new challenges for me, but I just LOVE it.

 (The back is a white on white dot.)

In fact it was so much fun that as soon as I was done I set out putting more orphan vintage pieces into another quilt and I am pondering carrying on with that plan for as long as I can stand too!  I have a huge box of orphan blocks and pieces, I am sure I would be busy for quilt a while.

Stats:
three months in the making
rings from vintage fabric wedges already cut
base fabric is hints of prints from Darlene Zimmerman
sweet prairie fabric on the binding
cotton batt
machine quilted, machine applique
finished on Dec 30, 2017