fiddling with half square triangles

I promise I'll go back to the cat quilt soon. I ran out of white fabric and need to make a quick trip to get fabric.

I've had a stash of blue fabrics sitting around for a while and I haven't found the right project to use for them. Couple days ago I decided to just use a little bit to practice HST's. The last time I did those blasted half square triangles was for Lucas' quilt, and they were such a pain.  Since that quilt, I read more about better ways to cut them, and it has really helped. I still need to trim them up a bit, and thats tedious and frustrating, but I'm getting better.

So, instead of doing a quilt with these (cause it'd drive me mental) I made a mini one to hang in my kitchen. One day I'm sure I'll try these as a quilt, but this is all I can take for now. The colours remind me of the movie "Frozen" (one of the only two academy award winning movies I saw this year).

Its my cute Frozen shooting star mini quilt. I'm thinking I might do a large scale quilt top with this shooting star thing. That way I can avoid millions of half square triangles. This is its temporary hanging spot until I get some small dowel. 

A quilt for 1 (or 2)

I had the need to do a smaller project. The cat quilt is big and fiddly, plus, its black and white. Its really boring doing just black and white. This is probably why I headed down the road of vibrant colour with this one.

I should really go measure it, I think its 55 x 63, but I cant remember. Its a nice size for one or two people to cuddle under on the couch. I really wanted this one finished before the snow melted. These colours really pop against the melty snow.

I went with the grey as a backing and a splash of red. I really like figuring out the backing of a quilt. Using up scraps and leftovers to make something a little random.

See, isn't she pretty on the snow?

7/52

Surprisingly enough, we got some snow here. Its the second snowfall this year.

The kids have been loving it. Begging as soon as they get up to go out and play. We're inside now, scarfing down grapes and getting warm again.

Loitering at mcdonalds

Recently, I've taken to loitering at the McDonalds near our place. I've found that the secret to Sadie napping is that she NEEDS to run off a ton of energy. If she doesn't get out all the energy, that means no nap, and then after 5 pm she turns into a "threenager" - see this is why my three year old still needs naps if you need any more proof.   I don't care if she's almost 4, this girl gets in a foul place without her naps, and without being able to be outside 24/7. So, the kids and I walk down to McDonalds, I buy my obligatory large double double, and then they play.

And play.

AND PLAY!!!!!!

Meanwhile, I can relax, sip coffee and browse the internet to pass the time. Its fantastic. I always go around the slowest time, 10 am -11:30 ish. Theres maybe one or two kids there max. Sadie and Lucas make friends, teach the other children how to scream all the way down the slide and have a wild time.

Oh, and this one time, I saw one ridiculous grandparent try and make a business call on his phone while sitting in the play place. Foolish man. Theres no way you'll hear anything when the children get to the slide. I was secretly laughing at him in my head. Usually I'll be on twitter, tweeting these types of things, so check that out if you want live entertainment. 

So, this is my secret to keeping my sanity. Only twice a week, but its better than nothing.

6/52

Late again. I'm still going to stick with it though. We were having a bad day, so I filled the sinks and threw towels on the floor to mop up the swamp. They had a grand time. It allowed for me to finish this blog post and get dinner going.

Oh the little things.

a jumble of things

More black and white ideas are whirling around in my head. Sadly, I've only done 3 rows of my cat quilt. Its not getting finished as quickly as I'd like, but I've got other things coming up.

My sister in law and her husband are moving to Saskatchewan in a couple weeks, and so we're having our last games night here. I'm trying to clean things up a bit more, and get stuff baked. I'm hoping to bake a chocolate cake with salted caramel filling inside and then some lemon macarons.

Today I need to bake the cake and throw it in the freezer, and then measure out the macaron components. I find I'm less freaked out about making macarons if I measure out the ingredients by weight the day before. Doing it by weight is better apparently, and since I've had such success, I'll stick with it. Maybe I'll do the caramel filling for the cake and pop it in the fridge. It all depends on if the kids play nice today, or have a decent nap.

I found out that cleaning ahead of time is futile. A couple days ago I mopped the bathroom floor so I wouldn't have to the day before the games night. Well, that evening Lucas had an accident and peed all over my beautifully clean floor. He then trucked it all over the bathroom in effort to try and make it to the toilet. So yay for more mopping and clorox wipes.

So thats that. I bet I'll do more cat quilt after the weekend.

This is why my three year old still needs naps

Two days ago, Sadie was getting put down for a nap. She overheard that I was going shopping while she would be napping. That did not sit well with her. She started to cry, and then freak out, and because I just put Lucas to bed and was terrified that he'd wake up too (and I'd totally miss out on hitting the thrift store), I gave in. Yup, the start of my downfall. 

Sadie was surprisingly well behaved for the thrift store up until the end. I understood, and we headed home. She never rested on the couch, and instead tormented her brother and sassed us with bad attitude all evening. I was so grateful for bedtime when it came. She threw fits, and didn't want to go to bed. She stalled for half an hour. Longest half an hour EVER. 

So, after a late bedtime, she woke up the next day as early as I allow, which is 7. I took the kids for a much needed grocery trip. Usually I take a kid in a cart, and the other gets to walk which is a nice privilege. 

Beth took her walking and I had Lucas. After 5 minutes, I see Beth practically dragging Sadie, who is trying to bolt. So we switch kids. This is when it hits. Sadie arches her back and screams LET ME OUT OF HERE!!! LET ME OUT NOWWWW!!!! and then just screams at me. You know what? I'm not about to leave without getting groceries. I'm not abandoning my cart. I've got things to do. So, I calmly go throughout the store picking up things while Sadie screams at me, kicks her feet and thrashes in the cart to try and knock stuff off the shelves. Worst tantrum I've ever seen from her. Ever. She calmed down after a while, but Beth could hear us across the walmart. It was quite a sight. Thankfully it was pretty dead at walmart, but regardless, I'm sure I got evil looks. I don't really pay attention to much else other than the task at hand when the kids freak out. 

So, that day, Sadie had a good nap, and slept well that night, and gave me no grief. So, don't let them fool you when they try and get out of naps. Crazy children. 

Also, without naps, I'd get no time away from them, and those precious 2 hours a day is enough to keep me sane. 

I also really like taking naps on those kinds of days. 

5/52

Crafts for Valentines day. Glue sticks were the highlight that day. They were purple, so whats not to love?

Started this yesterday

I have been loving black and white quilts lately, and finally I took a step in making one. Tried out this cat block, and I really love it. Tony hates cats, so its not for me, but maybe I'll make a mini quilt for myself. 

I used scraps of white fabric for this block as my white sheet is getting washed. That means a couple hours before I can really get into cutting for this quilt. Le sigh. I'll go read and have some tea while its drying. 

Pretty things and projects

I've got a few projects in the works. Theres a certain yellow quilt that I am half way done hand quilting. I really have procrastinated on that one, but hopefully this week I'll get a chunk more done. I also wanted to do a twin sized quilt, and I've got 2 ideas for it. This is also very good because have 2 twin sized battings waiting to be used. Flying Geese quilt for one. It will drive me mad, but I'll love it. The other will be black and white. That I'll do first. Might start this in a couple weeks, I've got a party to plan soon, and the house needs a good clean. Like, really needs to be super cleaned. It also means I'll need to put away all my excess quilting stuff that takes over the dining room. There are many rubbermaid bins and batting that are stacked beside my shelves. It all needs to be hidden in my room next week. So, until then, you'll get pictures of the kids until I start doing the twin quilts.

Valentines Day Crafts

I thought it would be raining today, but it was really beautiful outside. We did one of our Valentines day crafts anyways since I had prepped the hearts last night.

I cut hearts out of cereal boxes and cut out the middles. Then I used clear contact paper in the middle so they could stick tissue paper to it. Sealed it with more contact paper and then we hung them in the windows as sun catchers. They loved them.

4/52

We went to the park to check out the beaver dam and birds. Today we were lucky and saw a big heron and some pretty ducks, and look similar to buffleheads. I could totally be off on that one. They were so pretty.

The kids were happy to be outside.
1. Sadie jumping in the field
2. Lucas checking out the beaver "house"
3. Both saw the heron way down the creek

3/52

Better late than never. On one of our walks the other day we were talking about the birds we heard and where they lived. Sadie wanted to build them a nest, but I explained how we could ask papa to build a bird house instead. Well, she was so excited, she asked him as soon as she could.

Papa delivered the houses asap so they could paint them. They really love painting. I would do this more often if it weren't such a lot of work. They had to bathe afterwards and everything. It was a good day.

Finished quilts

Two crib quilts finished this last month. The grey one was a quickie done in less than a week. Its got a solid very pale blue backing.

This one took a bit longer, ahem, a lot longer, but its so pretty. I used anything and everything with this sucker, and I like how it turned out. The back is white with yellow roses cut from a vintage sheet. I also like how I got a nice shot of this one in the fog. It wasn't foggy enough when I shot the grey one.

So these guys are new. I might have a home for the grey one, and if not, it will be up for sale. The bunting one is for sale $60.

2/52

I'm behind, I know. I'll be posting more soon.

1. Sadie was getting ready to dig in the dirt again
2. Lucas was chucking ice on the pavement watching it with glee.

1/52

1.Lucas actually holding still long enough for me to get a beautiful picture of him
2. Sadie grinning at her brother

Inspired by the bleubird blog's 52 week portrait project.

Hand quilted pink baby quilt, finished!

Finally finished. Its my first hand quilted baby quilt. It was so relaxing to sit and watch some mindless tv in the evenings and quilt away on the couch. This is far better than sitting hunched at the table over the machine.

I wasn't sure if I had enough fabric to bind it, but luckily enough I found some in my shelf that had fallen behind some books. Huzzah!

This one, like the other, is also for sale. $60. You can email me at jamesblonde85 at gmail. Also you can follow my instagram jamesblonde85 #mirandaquilts to see more works in progress.

Spur of the moment Adventures

This morning we started out with only the library in mind. There were brand new books we had put on hold that were ready. We grabbed a couple more since we were there, while waiting for a bus home, I realized it was a perfect day to visit Tony in Vancouver and grab lunch.

We turned around and caught the skytrain downtown. Mr Sassypants decided to sit beside me on the not so crowded train and then turn around and shout SKYTRAIN at the people behind us. Letting them know what we were riding, check!

This one wanted to stand and hold the bar like big people. She was thrilled that I let her. Bus pass tucked in her pocket and everything.

We met up with Tony near his work and headed to a vietnamese place for lunch.

Noodles and tea for everyone! 

They both had to try eating with chopsticks. Might even get them some childrens ones to learn on.

This one was starving and ate Tonys bean sprouts.

Our trip meant that nap time was skipped. They were content to watch a new Max and Ruby DVD from the library and relax on the couch.

Its now 7:41 pm and they are exhausted and grumpy. I think Lucas might be asleep on the couch already.

Oh, and I have to show you all the pot holder I finished.

TA DA!

Since I'll be hand quilting Mikaela's chevron quilt, I need to practice. This batting was not easy, its not fluffy and thick, its weird and metallic and has fuzz on it. I hope it goes through the wash ok. I like these wonky stars. I foresee a quilt in them definitely.

5 things happening lately

Im terrible at keeping this stuff up, but I should. I've been tempted to start a new blog. Need a change and all that.

1. What have we been up to lately? Well, besides the pink quilt, I've been working on 2 other small baby quilts and my sisters quilt. Its too big for me to use my machine on, so I'm going to hand quilt it. Waiting on supplies so I can test it out on one of my small ones. The site I ordered from said it was shipped. Ya, I ordered my quilting thread and stuff online. It was a pain in the rear to try and colour match my fabric to the tiny swatch on my screen. Never do that. I'm hoping I got colours I can use.  Give me some credit though, I did try a quilt shop in Abbotsford, and they looked at me like I was nuts when I asked them about the size of quilting thread that I wanted. The sweet old lady told me to hit up the yarn store. I had no time, so that was out. Oh well.

2. Sadie had a speech therapy follow up appointment. It went really well. She's caught up now. Just needs to work on adding to her sentences, and saying "I" or "me" instead of third person.

3. We are going trick or treating again this year. Sadie will be an owl, and Lucas will be a teddy bear. Their costumes were really easy to make. Bought the teddy bear hood from superstore, added a bowtie to it and am going to paint his nose. Sadie has her owl wings and a toque from last winter that has an owl face on it. I'll give her rosy pink cheeks and or glitter too. Not doing extensive trick or treating though, just our street and a couple cul-de-sacs near us.

4. Got a bunch of fillings done. Ativan was really the best. I was so calm and relaxed. Tranquil even. I'm not as terrified anymore, and thats the best. I have a crown to do soon and a few more fillings. After the appointment, I walked like a astronaut on the moon, my knees felt really bendy. I took double the prescribed dosage though. Maybe that did the trick. I haven't been to the dentist in a few years, well, since I got married in 2007. Yeah..........I'm bad. I promise to go back now that we have decent dental coverage. Don't go and make your teeth so bad that you need a crown, just saying, they be expensive, even with coverage. It makes me sad.

5. We are trying to be better at using less heat this winter, so Tony found the window plastic kits at the place he volunteers at. They were really cheap. So after we did one together, I brought Beth up so she could help Tony with the rest. Why, because WWIII would have hit. We will never be a DIY couple, its not in the cards. The kits weren't the greatest (should have realized thats why they were so cheap). Ended up using extra packing tape to seal the deal yesterday after the kids rammed into the plastic and broke the tape seal. I hope this plastic crap helps.

So that's it for now. I'm gonna go make dinner. Good night :D

The pink scrappy baby / lap quilt

For the last little while I was determined not to buy new fabric for the little quilts I'd be making. I had yet to make a quilt like this, and it was exciting. Scraps of vintage sheets mixed in with some pink and white cottons I had laying around make up this little quilt.

Its a crib sized or lap sized. It turned out better than I expected, probably due to the fact that my walking foot came in the mail while I was working on piecing the top together. Its going to be up for sale.

I'm asking for $60. If you're interested in purchasing, email me at jamesblonde85 at gmail.com

If you're curious about what else I'm working on, I post my works in progress on Instagram under jamesblonde85 #mirandaquilts