Weekend Projects

So this weekend was a little busy. All the children in our family have their birthdays in March, so I have been quite busy. This weekend we had to go the birthday party of my second cousin who is more like a niece to me. Last week was my other second cousins birthday who is more like a nephew to me. So on Saturday I was sewing for the party on Sunday.


First I made my six year old niece a wonderful "Jessie Bag", I shrunk it down to be small enough for her and had to choose pink and purple fabric since they are her favorite colors. She loves purses and bags and thought this was wonderful.

She could not wait to use it.  It took about three hours to make it and I had a wonderful time with it.


Once that was finished and wrapped I had to think of something to make my nephew who just turned six also. He is such a wonderful child and such a joy to talk with. He loves telling stories.

He was recently diagnosed with Krohn's Disease and has had a hard time with it, so I thought that I wanted to make something he could have with him as he went through the doctor visits and tests. It had to be something he could squeeze and hang on to when he needed it.

So in comes this wonderful little pattern I found for a patchwork owl. I made it with fabrics I just received from Art Gallery Fabrics. I also had a couple of scraps of Minkie I used on the wings for a texture thing.

I stuffed it a little full so when he squeezes tight there is still some substance for him. I gave it to his mother to put in the car until later because it would not be fair that on Ashlee's birthday party, he got to open a special gift too.

I finished his owl just in time to get dinner started for the evening.

Here the two are sitting on the throne at the party. All the kids had a wonderful time and boy were we worn out after things finally settled down.

I got back home Sunday evening just before dinner time and had a wonderful dinner and settled down for the evening.

Next weekend starts Spring Break at our house. Yeah two mini teens, what to do with them?

Concert time

Jessie had her concert last night and it was actually really good. They had the beginning, intermediate, and advanced band classes playing last night. She is in advanced band and had a blast.

I never realized how uncomfortable school bleachers were until I got older. It was an hour and a half so by the time they were done it took me a few moments to feel my legs again before I could climb down the bleachers and onto the floor at the end.

Her class had to dress up to represent themselves. She borrowed a shirt from a friend that matched her skirt. I being "Mom" of course did not like that it came off her shoulders and had spaghetti straps, but she did look nice.

She plays the trumpet and did very well. Each class got to play three songs. They had the choir there too and they sung a couple songs also. It was an entertaining evening.

She was nervous but got over it when she finally got to her chair and set up.

 This one is not that great because I accidentally had the flash on. But she is playing her horn in it.

 The girl on the piano was doing a solo of "Jar of Hearts", and her voice was very pretty.

This was a good song. It featured the trumpets. The three boys standing up were doing their own solo's and Jessie and the boy sitting next to her were doing the backup for them.

It sounded really good.

That was my adventure for the evening. I got to have a show just after dinner and got to see my daughter in it. I keep telling her that I am her biggest fan.

Jessie is 15 now.

So I am recovering from my daughters birthday.  She is now 15 years old. So now I get to look forward to DMV and driving for her. Yeah me!! I am just not ready for this. It seems like just yesterday she was in my arms and coming home from the hospital.


 Time really flies. So her birthday was on Friday and since it was a work day I did not get to make her anything, so I thought fast and grabbed an ice cream sandwich from the freezer and added a couple of candles in it just to let her know we had not forgotten her special day.  As you can see she was not at all pleased we made a big deal out of it on Friday evening. But inside she was grinning from ear to ear.

We were having a party for her on Sunday with my best friend and her daughter Shyanne. Shy's birthday is the same day as Jess's day so we had them together. We went over to Amber's Mom's house. She lives in the woods and has a lot of space for the kids to run around and have a good time.

This picture is of Amber's mom. She is a second mom to me and a wonderful friend. We barbequed up hamburgers and hot dogs that day. It was the only day of the last week that was sunny and reached 60 degrees out. It was the first BBQ of the season and boy did it taste good. We had a couple of homemade salads too. A fruit and a pasta salad, and of course chips and drinks.

 This is Mikey. Actually he is Michael, this is Shyanne's little brother. He was having a ball chasing the girls around and enjoying the sun out.

This is Jessie on the left with Mikey in front and Shyanne bringing up the rear. They were trying to get out of the line of fire of my camera. Gosh they are all getting so big.


They were having a ball running around everywhere.

I made a Banana Cake for the birthday cake. It had 15 candles for Jess and 8 candles for Shyanne. Amber brought it out and it was hot with all those candles on it. Jess could not wait for the cake, I had to wait until Sunday morning to put the cake together so her or my husband would not keep bugging me for a piece before the party.

They all had a wonderful time and did not want it to end. Now that that is over it is back to the daily grind.

The Jessie Bag

So today I promised I would post the project I have been working on. It is the "Jessie Bag"  by Busy Bee Quilt Designs.  My daughter, who's name is Jessica and we call Jessie, fell in love with this pattern as soon as she saw it.

I decided to take her with me a couple weeks ago to a couple of quilt shops around to see if I could get her interested in sewing. She is always asking for things for me to make so I thought it would be a good idea to see if she would get interested in sewing or quilting.

Well while at the Pine Needle Quilt Shop in Lake Oswego Oregon, she fell in love with the fabrics and colors of all the quilts they have hanging in there.

We got to the pattern section and she just about bowled me over when she saw the Jessie Bag. So I looked it over and told her since her birthday is March 2nd I would make that for her but she had to help with it. The first thing we did was look at what materials we needed. She had such a time picking out fabrics. We must have had half the shop pulled out and spread out looking at different combinations.

I finally had to help her narrow it down. She was leaning towards blues so we put the other color combos away. Then we were down to about 6 different groups of blues. She seemed to be smitten with the batiks so I put the other prints away and now we were down to 3 different groups, something I can work with. We finally got the fabrics and got them cut and then had to pick out thread. So I had the fabric swatches and we headed over to the thread. That did not take too long. By the time we left we had all the makings of the bag. On the way home she had to open the pattern and lay out the fabric.

She helped wash and press the fabrics. She then helped layout and cut all the fabrics. After that she watched with anticipation as I slowly made and showed her every step.  It took a couple of evenings after work to get it done and I thought she was going to die.

 

She finally got her bag and was so excited about it and how she was going to use it for school. She went to school and the kids liked it very much. She said some of the kids thought it would be a cool skirt too.

 Here it is after she used it that day. She loves the colors. She thinks the bold blues make a wonderful statement.

 She loved the designs of the batiks. She thinks she is something else now that she has a unique bag for school.

Here are a few pictures of the bag.

Busy Little Bee

Sorry I have not written in a while but I have been busy.

Let's see, first off we had to attend my daughter's band concert this last month. She has been playing the trumpet now for 3 years and she has gotten pretty good if I do say so. She played her little heart out.

She does not think she is that good, but if you could have heard her in the beginning and compare it to now, I would say she is great. She makes it seem easy. I am glad she got a little of her mother's musical talent. I have played the violin, clarinet, piano, and organ in my lifetime.

I have also started crocheting more wash clothes. I crochet in the evening while we are all sitting around and watching a movie or a hockey game. These two are pretty simple and only use about 1/2 a skein each. They each only took about an evening or two to make. I like them because they are just the right size to do dishes with.

Here is another view of them.

I use the Lily Sugar N' Cream yarn. It is the best when it comes to making wash cloths. The skeins are the perfect size for either one fancy or two simple cloths each.

I also want to show you some of the more fancy one's I have done. These have a little ruffle on them.  I got the pattern for the ruffled one's from a wonderful blog called Chickens in the Road. She has the most wonderful recipes and such on her blog. It is really a wonderful blog to follow. I also made her cinnamon bun cookies. My family ate them all up.


I am in the midst of making a bag for my daughter. It happens to be called the "Jessie Bag", which is her name. We had spent a day going to quilt shops and she saw the pattern and just about pulled my arm off trying to beg me to make one for her. So I got the pattern from The Pine Needle Quilt Shop. She loves the shop and fell in love with the bag. We spent the next couple of hours picking out material for it. I am having her help me make it, come to find out she likes sewing. She never knew. hehe. I will post pictures of the bag as soon as it is done. With all the help it should be done tonight.

Hope you all have a wonderful day and I hope everyone had a wonderful Leap Day yesterday. I know I was busy sewing most of the day. How about you?