Bite your tongue

Our little 1 yr old was running and bit his tongue yesterday. I hope it recovers soon as it is making him one grumpy little guy. He's not digging the nursing sessions as a result so I will confess to also being one unhappy camper.

I was reading some back posts over at Hand Quilting Stitches blog by Sara. Her bag in the style of Yoko Saito is in progress and oh so beautiful.

In order to cheer up a bit, a stopped over at superbuzzy and picked up some cute fabric to possibly whip up some curtains for my kitchen. I will come clean and also admit that I got some yarn too.

Oh, and a quick question for you - does anybody out there have this book: Patchwork Style by Suzuko Koseki? It seems like it's in English from the cover. I'm very intrigued.

Apple Picking and The Winner Is...

Thanks for entering Annie Smith's awesome online, global quilt class give away.

The random number generator picked out comment #9, so it looks like the happy winner Cheryl! Send me your email address - note: mine is quilt(dot)baby(at)hotmail (dot) com and I'll pass it along to Annie so she can enroll you.

I'm sure you'll find Annie's class pretty awesome.

We went apple picking yesterday and had a blast although it was super hot and towards the end we were ready to drink our fresh pressed juice and head home.

Ages ago I made a little apple quilt for a fellow blogger, and I've always toyed around with making another one. Guess I'll be adding that to my ever-growing-to-do-list. It certainly is growing much faster than I can mark things off.

Making a pie is starting to bubble up on that list.

And getting one of these split ring keys is on my list now too.

Quilt Class Give Away: from Annie Smith

My friend Annie Smith is not only an amazing woman, a famous podcaster, and an incredible quilter, but she also teaches classes in her global online classroom over at Quilting Stash Classroom.

She is offering a free seat (!!!) in her awesome online class "Quilting 101" as a give away to some of her favorite bloggers and it looks like you'll be the one to benefit from this contest.

Annie has an intro video posted here talking about why this class is good for beginning, intermediate, and advanced quilters alike.

Want to take quilt classes in your jammies? Well, now's your chance.

In order to win, submit a comment here and I'll pick a winner by random on this coming Saturday night. Polls close at 10pm Pacific time.

I'll pass your name along to Annie, and she'll hook you up.

Each lesson she does includes video instruction. How killer to take time to watch your class 'whenever' instead of having to show up in person? Sweeeeet.

Oh, and the above block is of course another Liberty of London birthday signature block I did for my niece. I'm ahead of the game, this one is for next year.

Falling into the iFold

I've finally done it. Taken the plunge. I'm the proud (and maybe terrified) owner of a new iPhone.

I originally thought, wow, this thing could really distract me from my quilting. That was only until I downloaded two new apps for it - QuiltFab and QuiltRef. They are really cute little iPhone applications that allow you to calculate how much fabric you need for the backing of your quilt or the binding you need to put on. Gee, handy.

Got a fav iPhone app? Please pass it along to me, the new kid on the iBlock. Meanwhile, I'll be here playing Stairway to Heaven on my ocarina.

The quilt block above is the 1st birthday signature block for our baby boy. He's a sweet and adorable little 1.

4 + 1 Kid party

Our kid party was a big hit according to the kid crowd. Our older son turned 4 and the baby turned 1 .

We had this awesome puppeteer, Peter, come, from PT Puppets. He was super entertaining, super professional, and the show was so great that most of the photos I took of the kids watching it include several mouths hanging open. Highly recommend him if you are in the bay area.

It was our first real 'kid' party, as all the other parties we have really thrown have pretty much been for the adults. Kids had a good time, so I guess I was worried over nothing.

Above is another 'in progress' photo I took of the party favor gift. Any more guesses?

When I read this post by Orange Flower Sketchbook I ran to my knitting needles and tried to finish the scarf I am making for my mom. I of course did not finish it today, but I am so so so tempted to try knitting lace after seeing that post.

And for those of you who are fans of the TV show Project Runway, did you know that Jay McCarroll (season 1 winner) has now designed a line of quilt fabric for Free Spirit? How cool is that!

Birthday Party: Party On!

Our boys birthdays are over and I must say that I'm a little sad since the preparations for the kid party and all the hoopla of the fiesta itself was such a huge blast.

I will have to give you a party brain dump in my next post.

Some of you asked a couple of questions about the birthday crowns.

I used Timtex or Peltex inside the two layers of felt in order to give the crown a lot of body and stand up to the battering it usually takes from my kids.

C&T publishing has everything you could want to know about Timtex in this blog post. Peltex seems to be another version of the same material - which is just thick interfacing.

I don't really prefer one or the other, I've used both in different crown's I've made and they both work well.

And to answer your other question, yes, I did make the crown adjustable by putting some simple ties in the back. Thought it would be more comfie than elastic, and with the size of my kids' heads...you never know how big they will actually get!

My mom was here last weekend and brought some goodies from Purl Soho for me. You gotta love these Lorna's Laces Shepherd Striping Sock Yarns for 40% off. Score! Thanks Mom.

Princess 1st Birthday

Today was the first birthday of my darling niece.

I made her a birthday crown (similar to the one I made for my husband and other family members).

She was amazing, adorable, and perhaps the sweetest 1 yr old baby girl on earth.

The crown pattern is from Amanda Soule's book "The Creative Family". A really excellent book, if you don't have a copy yet, it really is time to get one.

What Could I Be Making?

Is the suspense killing you?

Could this be a gift for the kids that are coming to our birthday party?

Might it be the coolest thing ever?

May it cause you to want to come to our party?

Would you like a clue? Ah, I guess you'll have to wait...

I had dinner last night with my friend and film maker Kathleen. After eating already way too much we decided to go totally nuts and visit the candy store. Oh such a bad idea, but oh so much fun.

The film she made called Discmen made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my chair. Her adorable husband is one of the star actors. It's rare to see grown men take their spandex so seriously.

Calm Before the Storm

With all the upcoming kid birthday celebrations, company coming into town, and general hoopla soon to be coming our way, we did the only practical thing last weekend.

We decided to ignore the reality that we have plenty of preparations to do, and take a family vacation at the beach. The little surfers above are my sweet boys.

We visited an awesome seahorse exhibit at the aquarium and even saw a pretty insane marine mammal quilt that is shown just outside of their cafe. Really cool that they have their own quilt featured. I found a picture of it on flickr here - sorry I forgot to snap a shot of it myself this time.

Flotsam is now our new favorite book. I think we'll be reading it at storybook time on a nightly basis for a while.

I've been working on a special surprise gift for kids coming to the birthday party. Stay tuned for the big reveal - assuming I finish it! (sweating beads here)

Have you seen this post by Lucy at Quilting with the Past? Her little windmill doll quilt is simple adorable.

Decorative Kid Party Invitation Envelopes

We are having a puppet themed birthday party this year.

In my usual micro-detailed fashion, I wanted to make the party invites super cute.

I ordered them from Tiny Prints - these guys really have an awesome selection for just about every occasion. It's the 2nd time I've used them, and I'm still really impressed.

Instead of just writing all the addresses on there, I wrote them with some funky hand writing and had my almost-4-yr-old color in all the 'holes' of the letters with pretty colored pencils.

Cute, right? Fun way to involve your kids in addressing the invites when they are too young to actually write all the addresses.

In other news, last night I went to a lecture at my quilt guilt (SCVQA). Lecture by Melinda Bula was entertaining, and her quilts were very beautiful.

I think she uses a fusable technique to make these giant floral quilts. Very Georgia O'Keefe looking. Bright colors. I had seen the quilts all before when I attend the quilting in the garden quilt show in Livermore last year.

Quilt Appraisal: More study time for me!

As I mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of antique quilts and quilt appraisal in general.

My hope is to someday become an AQS certified quilt appraiser. So far, I have been getting some practice, but it has been a bit more slow going since the baby arrived. I'm getting back in the swing of things - starting now.

Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) - a huge and really nice quilt show - is coming to my home town in October.

At the show, Cindy Brick (AQS Certified quilt appraiser) will be there to appraise quilts. She is taking me under her wing as her scribe, so I'll be volunteering to assist her the day during the show.

Really looking forward to learning more about how somebody else does appraisals.

Cindy's web site is an insane wealth of information. She has all these articles published here.

Ones I really loved were on best way to store a quilt, washing and caring for your quilt, and what to do with an old worn quilt.

Oh, and yes I really did cut into my Liberty fabric collection. The above block is the 1st birthday signature block for my darling niece.

I will confess that cutting into Liberty fabric is like taking a small slice into heaven itself.

Birthday Signature Quilt: 4 yrs old

I whipped up this number 4 block so folks at my son's birthday party can sign it and write a message on it for him.

You can see the 1 block that is done already with signatures, an early version of the 2 block, and the blank 3 block featured in previous posts.

I'm starting two new quilts just like this. One for our baby who is turning 1 year old this year, and one for my favorite baby girl on earth - my niece. She'll be 1 as well.

For the girl quilt I'm going to use my collection of Liberty fabrics. Yes, sports fans...I'm going to actually CUT them. I think I deserve a drum roll or something here.

Anyhow, I applique the numbers down on 8 inch sized blocks, and ask all the party goers to sign their names with a little message for the birthday person of honor. In total there will be 16 blocks. Hopefully it doesn't become too embarrassing before that age. Do you think we'll make it that far?

Win some, lose some

Win some:

I seriously never win anything. I seriously am never expecting to either. However, that amazing feat did take place, and I won a bunch of lovely fat quarters from the blog giveaway that I mentioned Chara Michele was holding.
Thank you so much Chara! Her photos always have the perfect light and her creations are beautiful. Please visit her blog for some inspiration if you have the time.

Lose some:

I quilted a bunch of feathers in the above block, but because the fabric had TINY dot thingies on it you cannot see them at all. Hm...think I wasted some time here. Oh well...on to the next block.

1 Year Old Birthday Prep

My sister and I are in full planning swing to play for the one year old birthday parties of our babies. Her girl will be 1 in about a month and my boy will be 1 a few days later.

We both have big parties planned.

Her party is a cupcake party, and I have the pleasure of dressing my niece in the the worlds cutest ever skirt for her big day.

Our theme is a puppet party, so we'll be having a professional puppet show. Should be a really huge blast.

My own birthday is quickly coming up and I'm thinking that the perfect gift for me from our sons would be this little fawn mommy necklace (hint hint). Is it not the cutest thing ever?

Oh yes, and I finished quilting another of the feather blocks.

Quilted Feathers

This little quilt I'm working on is turning out to have a couple of firsts for me.

I have practiced a lot of feathers just for fun, but never ended up adding them to a real quilt top. Perhaps this is out of fear of getting myself in over my head or not having the dedication to getting them perfect.

Well, I'm going out on a limb here, and throwing caution to the wind. Feathers, here we come.

I'm also using some self-designed fabric on the back - photo of it here on an older post. I love to design fabric with my calligraphy but it's hard to cut into it.

Solution: Put it on the back of the quilt! No cutting required.

And for those of you (my sister) who were wondering what book I want for my upcoming birthday, Album Quilts of Ohio's Miami Valley by Sue Cummings is on my short list.

What I've learned recently

I have spent a lot more time moving my sewing machine from storage (read: the floor of my office) to the kitchen table than using it to actually quilt lately.

The baby was sick last week and has been out of school again this week with no-fun-at-all high fever.

Who knew you could get so many germs rolling through your house during summer. I thought this was illegal.

Anyhow, this is what I have learned lately:

• If you have 2 kids, they will ALWAYS poop at exactly the same time.



• If you have 2 kids, they will NEVER nap at the same time.



• If your 2 kids share a room and 1 of them wakes up screaming in the dead of night, the other one will ALWAYS wake up and climb into your bed.
  
  
• It is possible for a 3 yr old boy to bump his head on a door jam so hard that a golf ball sized lump forms, and the 3 yr old will then most likely look into the mirror and say that he cannot wait to show his friends at school.
  
  
• If you are driving around in the car with your girlfriend for a relaxing trip to the farmer's market, it is highly likely that your 3 yr old boy will pick that very moment to ask you how is it possible to pee if you don't have a penis.



• If you work full time and raise 2 little boys, you do way less quilting than you hope and dream of doing, but you have way more fun than you ever thought possible.
  
  OhMyGoshTired, but still in love with my life here,
  
  Marisa
  
  ps. if you have yet to visit Red Felt Flower blog, please do so and enjoy the beauty.
  
  pps. if you want some free goodies and you love photography, visit Chara Michele!

Long Beach International Quilt Festival 2009

This weekend my mom and sister visited the Long Beach International Quilt Festival.

I will freely admit that I felt a small tinge of jealousy when I happened to call them and they were chatting to me about how much fun they had and how crowded it was.

Not sure I plan to go to it next year, but they did pick up a couple goodies for me, so not a total loss. One booth I would have certainly visited is the Shibori Girl Studios booth. Perhaps I will have to go after all next year.

In other weekend adventures, I did chain together a few more signature stars, and managed to baste another small quilt, so not at all unproductive.

At one point, I decided (why, oh why) to bake some french macaroons.

Please stop me before I bake again! Seriously.

I DO NOT heart French Macaroons.

The French Macaroons kicked my tail. I tried a different recipe (the chocolate version) and instead of sticking to the paper like last time, they were as dense and as disgusting little chewy balls of goop. Oh yeah, and they looked uglier than sin as well.

My husband thinks I should raise the white flag. I think I should call in the expert.

Japanese crafting - Yoko Saito's new book: Taupe Color Study

Ms. Yoko Saito has of course done it again by putting together a beautiful book on the use of taupe fabrics in quilting. In case you are looking for a copy of it: ISBN978-4-86322-130-7 Study Book for Taupe Colour.

This book is full of small projects, mostly little bags. I love it and would use many of the patterns in either full sized quilts as blocks or in small wall hangings or quilts.

I'm still cookin' along, making little signature quilt blocks...slowly but surely. My boys both fell asleep at the same time for about 30 min today so I was feverishly sewing away. I'm trying to batch process about 35 blocks at the same time.

Will post a photo of them once I get some more assembled.

In other news, I'm addicted to this band Mates of State. Are you a fellow addict? Yes, it is embarrassing that they did an Orange County (the TV show) song but they do rock seriously.

I just ordered the new Mates of State album from Amazon along with a boat load of "just corn". Who knew little boys would eat unlimited quantities of veggies if only you freeze dry them?! Go figure.

Road 2 California 2009

Road 2 California quilt show is planned for next January and accepting applications from folks to host quilts in the show as well as sign-up for classes.

Classes that interest me are by Jo Morton because her quilting style is very classic with an emphasis on hand work.

Maria, the owner of Pinwheels, is also having a class on making a little taupe bag, which is another one that looks very good to me. On her web site, she is selling these incredible 4 inch long zippers for coin purses - all in taupe colors. Super cute, super affordable.

The above photo is a quick snapshot of the pieces I'm cutting out (STILL!!) for my Sarah Johnson quilt. Progress is a bit slower that I might like, but I'm plugging along at it.

Happy 4th of July

Hope folks in the U.S. had a great long weekend for the Fourth of July holiday.

We did a lot of relaxing, and I logged some serious time holding the baby and tickling him. Important work, to be sure.

Quilting-wise, I did cut out and prep some more blocks for the Sarah Johnson quilt. Hopefully I can carve some time out to work on it this week.

My favorite blog post read for the weekend was this one by Oiyi. As if being an incredible knitter isn't enough in and of itself. No, Ms. Oiyi is off dying roving and spinning it first before she knits up the worlds most beautiful creations. I'm almost inspired enough to buy my own sheep. So very pretty.

I will also confess that the above patriotic quilt is not my own creation. It's a gift from my lovely and talented quilting sister.