Rebecca worked all summer on her jean quilt. Sweet Edie Veronin let Rebecca use her professional sewing machine to finish it off. She also gave her lots of tips and suggestions.
Perfect picnic slash cold ballgame quilt. Proud of Rebecca and her sewing skills, along with her determination to get it done!
The girls love to sew and I LOVE that they love it!
We decided to sew sling (over the head) bags for them to keep stuff in for track. They are reversible and quick to make. I probably shouldn’t say “quick”. There are always problems and seams to pick out, but that is part of the learning. I told the girls that life is like sewing. Problems are constantly popping up and you just have to figure out how to fix and remedy the issue and keep moving on. If you stop, you will never finish!
Sun streaming in the window, chocolate treats to enjoy, and plenty of giggles. I SO love these big girls of mine!
HERE is the link to the pattern and tutorial. I should have made the girls reverse the bags for another picture, but basically they are just opposite of the front. They turned out really cute!
I have always wanted to make Christmas pillowcases. I have imagined the kids sleeping on them dreaming of Christmas. I have thought of how fun it would be to pull out when grandkids come here for the holidays. They would be vintage by then. :)
I bought the fabric 60% off, and had my own trim at home. They were only $3 a pillowcase and took only a couple of hours to sew together. YET, I know they will bring years of tradition to our family. The kids were so excited the night I gave them out. I did happen to buy new memory foam pillows on Black Friday for the kids as well, and used those in the new pillowcases. SO, I’m not quite sure if they were excited about the new pillows or the cases. I think that I’m going to pretend that it was the cases they loved the most!
Oh my goodness I’m loving all of the Fall desserts. I’m already rolling and Thanksgiving hasn’t even arrived yet. We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies last week and I couldn’t keep my hand out of the cookie jar. There is just something about pies and cobblers and pumpkin….
We decorated for Thanksgiving and got our Thankful Poster hanging up. I smile as I read some of the sweet things that have been written on it so far. One of my favorite decorations is this Indian that my mom bought me years ago.
For some reason Jerrica thinks my mom is an expert on Indians because she taught on the reservation years ago. Love her comment in her letter asking her “to teach her about the Indians”.
I noticed that someone helped her write the movie Despicable Me. I’m glad she didn’t ask me because I don’t think I even typed it right. I also hope whomever helped her was patient with her sometimes we have a hard time with patience around here. :/
Kaylee and I did a Souper Saturdar a few weeks ago. I signed us up for the pocket potholders. I’m determined that my girls will be able to sew when they leave home. The potholder were so quick and easy to make that I couldn’t resist sending each of my sisters one for Fall.
Alesha suggested that we start a tradition of trading favorite recipes from the year with each other during the month of November. Doesn’t that sound like a perfect Thanksgiving tradition?!?!
We have a new smile around our house and I can’t help but smile myself when I see it. So sad that this is my last toothless grin. Her lisp makes me want her to talk non-stop.
So many fun date nights, championships, activities and projects that I’m behind on sharing. I need to get back in my routine or else 2013’s Blog Book will have so many special memories left out.
Miss Kaylee has been busy getting projects done for her Personal Progress program. The first of the summer we drug out all of the old jeans from the basement and started cutting away. Then yesterday Kaylee decided to pull it all out again and start sewing. She sewed and sewed and sewed.
AND by the end of the day she had it all sewn together. It looks awesome! Here she is modeling her one of a kind quilt!
I’m so proud that she can sit and sew all by herself!
During Spring Break, Kaylee’s BFF was gone on a ski trip, her sister Rebecca was gone down on the farm, SO what do we do? … We make a sock bunny to keep her company until everyone comes back.
Kaylee is getting so good at sewing projects. I showed her THESE instructions and she went at it. She picked the socks, buttons, and created such a cute bunny.
I smile each day, as I see it sitting on her bed.
Jerrica was the only one home with us, so she of course wanted to make one too. I helped her sew and she sat stuffed hers for hours, just talking away to her bunny. I should have taken a picture of Jerrica with hers!
Anyway, perfect Spring Break / Easter / quick project!
The girls have been begging to sew. The boys not so much. So when Jacob left for EFY we pulled out the sewing machine and whipped up some PJ shorts, pants and capris. I told Kaylee to grab my camera and she became our photographer for the afternoon…
I even managed to convince a certain bored person to come and sew. He decided to make a small pillow for his scout camping trip. I’m so glad that he hung out with us and sewed. He was so funny and kept us smiling all afternoon. Sure love this boy!
Then what do you do after you make PJ’s? You have a pajama party. I don’t know what the deal is with the headbands, but the jumping on Ashley’s bed was definitely a party!
I decided to make Jerrica a library bag for Christmas. She loves books and we usually go to the library once a week to pick out books and hear the story time.
I used two different prints for the inside and outside. The inside fabric is filled with the stories of the three little pigs, the ugly duckling, the three bears…. It’s fun to see Jerra looking inside and outside trying to name all of the stories.
I love homemade gifts, both giving and receiving. Kristy’s family had us this year and she sent some really clever gifts to each of us that she had made. I will have to do a post on them. They were awesome Kristy, and are already well loved!
This is the time of year that instead of working in the yard or garden, I’m inside sewing. I LOVE to sew! I try really hard to give as many homemade Christmas gifts that I can. My kids always get at least one from me that is homemade.
Today I made Rebecca a new church bag. She was having a hard time fitting her scriptures AND journal AND mini hymn book in her old bag. I saw this fabric and it was just soooo Rebecca, and now it is Rebecca’s bag….
I put a little pocket on the inside to hold her mini hymn book and two slots for pencils.
It was quick and fun to make. She also likes to keep our little Mormonad Booklet in her bag. SO, I just ordered all of the postcard sets to make her, HER very own booklet. My kids have so enjoyed this little booklet over the years. Little do they know they are learning valuable messages as they look through it. :)
My other sewing project today was an ipod cover. I just used soft fleece to make the cover and then couldn’t resist adding a fun face on the outside.
I need to pick up an ipod apps gift card to slip inside the soft case.
My last sewing project was Ashley’s Halloween costume. I LOVE how it turned out! I’m excited for her to wear it. She is going to be Little Red Riding Hood. She told me that she “wants” to wear Jacob’s wolf mask under her cloak. Uh NO…. can’t she just be a regular, cute, little girl?!?!
We had a lot of friends in and out this week. Cari was one of them! She’s always ready to craft and came to help me with the little girls. We decided to make these pumpkins from Better Homes and Gardens. Here is their LINK, and here is our rendition of them…
You fill the bottom with beans so that it can sit up, and then fill the rest of the way with cotton. I dumped all of the ribbon, beads, and buttons out on the counter so that everyone could create their own unique pumpkin.
Kaylee got carried away and made TWO. She and her friend, Morgan had each made one the night before and also made little rock spiders. She requested a picture of HER creations…
I love little quick and easy sewing projects to get the girls comfortable sewing. A big thanks to Cari for coming and helping!
I'm trying to teach my girls to sew. AND when I saw these cute Christmas tree ornaments that have long stretches of ribbon to sew, I couldn't resist letting the girls go at it. Kaylee did really well by herself. Becca needed a little supervision, but she is getting there.
The trees are filled with a plastic bag to make them nice and fat. You can see the tutorial HERE.
We need to paint and glue the trunks tomorrow night. I will post our finished products when we get there.
I know it was pretty much straight lines to sew, BUT I am soooo excited that my girls can just sit down and sewwww!
Kaylee didn't have a playdate on Friday so I made my own play date with her. I'm always on the look out for easy and fun sewing projects to do with my girls. I knew this ONE from Martha Stewart would be perfect. We had buttons on hand and whipped him out in an hour.
Of course ALL the younger sisters want "their" own Mr. Bones. I do love working on projects with the kids. As you sit there doing it they LOVE to talk and open up about different things going on in their lives. Kaylee has such a funny sense of humor. We laughed most of the time that we were making Mr. Bones
I also had Jacob use his art skills this week and cut out a tree silhouette and tombstones out of a wheat tortilla to stand in our enchiladas one night. It's good for him to hear all the kids exclaim how talented he is with his art skills. Of course Ashley wanted to know why we don't ALWAYS put tree on our enchiladas. HERE is where I got the idea for that. AND here is the picture from Katydid's site.
I wanted to make cute stick horses for the little girls for Christmas. My sister, Alesha has a cute and easy pattern. Her kids have overly loved the ones that she made them years ago. SOOO I called her a few weeks ago to have her send me the pattern. Something even better happened ..... she MADE them for my little girls for their birthdays!
They have the little girls' initials branded on their necks and reins to tie them up...
She also made EIGHT of the cutest carrots. They are felt with plastic greenery tied in. And you know that EVERY horse has to take a break from riding and eat a little. We even found a little basket of apples while we were out shopping with Grandma to add to our little horse playing.
And as you can see its the BIG girls that are playing with the stick horses, OR maybe it's Maude March....
Since we are on Fall break, we did go see this today with grandma and grandpa...
I think after seeing this movie, we are EVEN more in love with the stick horses!
Anyway, THANK YOU Aunt Alesha! You are so creative!!!
I think that I'm going to ask you for MORE patterns ...
We have our own well and for some reason our pump is broke. Stephen spent all day trying to fix it himself only to have spent a lot of time and money on all the parts that weren't the problem. We use water for SOOOO many things....
We just take water for granted. SOOOOO since I can't really clean I decided to work on a little project.
I got an I Spy Quilt kit from a friend and since it doesn't require water, I think I will finish up the top today....
Oh how I love this time of year and all the projects to get ready for Christmas. I'm really excited about a few that I have going right now. Thanks again Amy for the quilt kit! If you are interested in a kit email me and I will give you Amy's contact info.
I had seen THIS on my friend Erin's blog. I wish she still lived here! Anyway, had a lot of the fabric and couldn't resist copying her idea. I was able to make quite a few for nephews and for gifts. It is the perfect size to roll up and fit in a purse to have on hand. AND the fabric is just so dang cute!
I just put on a quilted back and then sew machine quilted the roads to the back. Finished it off with bias tape on the edges. Really a quick project. I'm excited for Stephen to take them this weekend.
