Friday, February 22, 2008

So Much Snow!

You know back in my day we had snowdrifts as high...... ok, I know that makes me sound old, but really we always had snow in the winter. It's Wisconsin for crying out loud we're supposed to. But honestly in the last 10+ years the snow has been minimal. It didn't pay to own a snowmobile unless you went much further up north. This year is more like what I remember from being a kid. Snow drifts as high as the house.

Ok, I lived in the country, so they really would get that high, and my dad had a plow on the truck, and he would plow it all into one area so we'd have the best snow hill ever!

My kids are city kids (ok, it's a tiny village of less than 900 people, but there's sidewalks and neighbors). So we don't get huge drifts and Tim doesn't plow and if he did we don't have anywhere to put the snow. But our area in the front of the house is at my eye level if I'm standing on the cleared sidewalk.
I tried to get a picture of this, but I think the vastness of it was lost. This is at my eye level. I'm standing on the sidewalk. Liam and Lore are on top of the hill in our tiny front yard. I'm 5'2".
And here's a picture of Levi admiring the icicles on the roof. He always says I don't put any pictures of him up, but anytime I have the camera out he makes ridiculous faces. So here's one of him less than goofy.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Strawberry Sandwich Cookies


Every DI practice I have some sort of snack for the kids. 95% of the time it is quite healthful (whether they know it or not.) These absolutely are NOT good for you. But they are quite tastey and very easy to make! They are so cute and pink I had to take a picture. Someday my photography skills will be much better.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

In Wisconsin? Go Vote!


No matter who you are for, please go vote!

Tea Towel Tour

I am in a lovely swap for a Tea Towel Tour on Craftster.org. I haven't had the priveledge to participate in any of the other ones because I always seem to just miss sign ups. I didn't this time and I couldn't be more pleased. I have a lovely group of women, most I haven't worked with before. The premise of this swap is that each of us has a towel (or apron, or pillow, etc..) and we send it to each of the women in our group. They each get to embroider something on it, and then we get this lovely towel sent back to us to keep forever. I embroidered a bit onto my towel, and will be sending it off this week.

I had to quick take advantage of the little bit of sun to snap this picture. I learned I still need a lot more practice with french knots, but overall I'm quite happy with it.

*Edit* The pattern is a freebie from patternbee.com and the font is LittleLordFontleroy

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Reading Pillow Tutorial

Here is a tutorial to make the reading pillow that I made for my niece. I am hoping that this makes sense to everyone. I am coming down with something I fear, and I have been working with my DI team all morning, so my brain isn't totally here. If you see any major problems or have questions please let me know! It's 1/4 inch seams. And you can use any size patch, then your strip sizes will be different. This isn't exactly the size I used, but I couldn't measure, as my niece already has it. I have plans to make another and will try to take actual pictures, but it is still a few weeks off. My next one I think I will put a book mark ribbon on to save their place while it's in the pocket. (This is my pattern, don't sell it or claim it is yours. Don't make things to sell from it. Thank you)












I'd love to see them if you make one!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Snow Days

We've had a few snow days recently, so we've had to keep busy. Here are some stuffies that the boys decided to make.

The two bears on the right were made by tracing another bear that they already had for the pattern. They did all the tracing, cutting and sewing. I helped a bit with the safety eyes and closing up after stuffing. The penguin on the left was my eldest's design. He did everything except the final stitching of the stuffing hole.



The penguin's beak fell off, so he has a temporary paper one until we have a chance to sew it back on.


I am working on making some doll sized quilts for my wall in our living room. The Challenge on Flickr is Chinese coins. Here's my take on it. This is the top so far. I embroidered my husband's favorite quote in white. I didn't want it to be screaming obvious, but I think we need more quotes around the house! It says "Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. but without it, we go nowhere" -Carl Sagan

Happy Valentine's Day!



The one that never made it onto a sheet. I wasn't clever enough to think of sayings for some of the other pictures I had, so I didn't get page 3 done. This was one that the kids really wanted. I'm open to suggestions for Valentine-ish sayings for Cybermen, Cassandra, Slythene, and especially the Weeping Angels. Most of the mediocre sayings we came up with weren't really school friendly if you know what I mean.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Sickies

My Tim has pneumonia. Quite severe actually. They didn't want to let him come home, they wanted to admit him. Luckily his blood-oxygen level is high enough that he could come home. He got swabbed, x-rayed, and poked. Then they told him it was quite severe pneumonia. He has a really crazy strong antibiotic and he gets antibiotic shots in the butt every day for 3 days. It was sort of funny, before he went to the doctor he told me that he wished that he could just get one shot in the butt and be over with it. Well, it'll take at least 3 and some meds. Anyway, I have a few projects to post, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Gift for my niece

My niece is celebrating her birthday this weekend, so I made her a little gift. She loves horses and loves to read. So I made her a reading pillow. It has a pocket to hold a book, and elastic to hold it while she reads. I embroidered a horse and her name on the pocket. I also carved her a stamp with her name on it. I made it a little bag too.

We also gave her a book, but not the one pictured, this was just to show the pocket.
This is how the book is held open while she reads.

Quick tutorial added

Monday, February 4, 2008

Doctor Who Valentines Page 2

I am completely surprised at the huge response I have gotten at these. I have the second page done. I think I will have at least one more partial page before Valentines Day.


For the full size image go here.

Dr Who Valentines

My sons requested Dr Who Valentines this year. Well, living in the US, we don't have a whole lot of Doctor Who things, so I had to come up with something. Here is page one. I will be uploading at least one more page. They can be printed out on cardstock for postcards, etc... I'll show you what we're doing with ours in a few days.








Feel free to use this for your own Dr Who/Valentine needs. You can get the image here.

Please link to this post if sharing on a blog or other website.
Do not use for sale or charge money for this. Do not claim it as your own. All images are property of BBC. Etc...