A good night

Popcorn, quilting, and Presidential Debates....


...I Promise to wash my hands in between the popcorn and the quilting.

My little super model

Today I photographed three blankets to post in my Etsy Shop. Jaxon HAD to be in the pictures. How could I say no to such a great model??

After this he said, "Mommy, I want hugs." *sigh*

I haven't been great about Quilt Month, but this is back to school time and I've been busily preparing my classes. I have found time to work on my Halloween quilt, though.

Here are how my blocks looked last night:



And here they are this afternoon:

From the pattern Diamond Jubilee by Pieces from my Heart

Please stop by Sew, Mama, Sew! today and see my tutorial for making an upholstered headboard. I love making these. In fact, all our beds have them, so I had to ask mom to let me make one for her for the tutorial!

Our Hawaiian/Tiki–themed guest room has a headboard upholstered in bamboo embossed felt.

The headboard in our bedroom is topped with a clearanced blanket from Target.

Thanks, mom, for letting me do the headboard, and thanks to Charlie for being my lovely assistant.
I upholstered my parents' headboard using a store–bought whole–cloth quilt.

And finally, another snap of my little model. I hope all of our southern neighbors are recovering from hurricane weather!

A little more quilting

I worked a bit more with my perle cotton. I finished the panel, and I have started the blocks (it looks much better with the basting ripped out, right??). Here's a quick shot of the panel, you may have to click on the picture to really see what I've done. Excuse the wrinkles, I've been toting it around with me.


The next couple of pictures are a bit blown out -- they were taken with my iPhone with a very bright window beside us.

School starts tomorrow so we had a little end of the summer celebration at my favorite Sushi restaurant. Yes, my dad and Jaxon are sharing the pizza that's in the background there.


The owner and waitstaff always remember us, and our server made Jaxon "training" chopsticks. He enjoyed eating his pizza with them. We did have one strange moment though. Jaxon is really coming along with his vocabulary and we know what he is attempting to say about 85% of the time, but he has started saying what sounds like "f**ky." We can't figure this out. When he says it we start pointing to things to try to interpret "f**ky," but we have yet to discover it. Tonight at dinner he started saying it. My dad asked Jaxon if he was going to eat his cheese. Jaxon responded with what sounded almost exactly like "f**k you."

We all knew that he was just forming sounds -- he has never heard that phrase and wouldn't understand how to use it if he had, but it still takes you by surprise when a two year old yells "f**k you!" And it's really hard not to laugh. I worked a bit trying to figure it out tonight and I think f**ky" might be monkey. We'll keep working on that.


I made a couple of back to school resolutions this year. (1) I am going to attempt to choose my outfits for the entire week Sunday night so I don't stand in my closet every morning wondering what to wear, and (2) I am going to pack our lunches the night before so I am less tempted to eat out (yeah, right) and I don't rush around every morning making Jaxon's.

We'll see how long this lasts!

Laboring through Labor Day

The end of the Labor Day weekend means back to school time. I've been diligently preparing my classes, but also trying to make time for sewing.

One project I can't share with you yet, but I *will* say the project will be posted at Sew, Mama, Sew! for Sewing for the Home Month.


I still haven't used my machine much since the blanket binding, but mostly because I'm finally putting the things I learned in that hand quilting class to use. September is Quilt Month over at Mr. Monkeysuit so I am trying to get on the ball. After a ton of questions to Louise about her beautiful, bold quilting, I got myself some perle cotton (or pearl cotton in the U.S. because we apparently have to Americanize everything). I only wish I could find the right blue!


I also made something new for a Labor Day cookout. It's from this recipe but I substituted two cans of cherries in light syrup (not pie filling) for the peaches and deleted the cinnamon sugar topping. It was a big hit.

I don't know whether to be excited about this or afraid of this. We'll see.