Quilting, Building, and Clever Inventions

It is heart-warming and beautiful to witness a child's eyes light up when she discovers something new and brilliant in our world. It tickles my soul to watch my daughter point out the window to the neighbor's dog on his walk and say, "Dog. Woof!" and to see her proudly wave and vocalize "Bye, bye!" to her friends for the first time. Likewise, I secretly get the warm fuzzies as I outwardly roll my eyes at my engineering-minded husband when he turns to me, his eyes sparkling with the same kind of innocent excitement as my toddler's, while he reads and shares the "ingenious" inventions from his Lehman's catalog.

Hubbie has been busy today. While we women were getting our quilting on (more about that in a minute) he was working in the garage building the toddler a play kitchen from Ana White's plans. If you haven't checked out her site, you are quite simply missing out. Here's what Hubbie's built so far: 

These are to be the sink and the oven, respectively. Those extra boards are parts for the refrigerator. This is his first woodworking project probably since high school shop class and he's using his new power tools from my Dad and/or purchased with Christmas gift cards... so thank you, parentals! Hubbie is very excited to finally have time and space for a hobby!

I especially love and am inspired by this kitchen from Blue Eyed Yonder and this one by Kristen at the Crafting Chicks... although... I just saw this one from Cat Moore and nearly flipped for that farmhouse sink! Not sure yet how I'm going to pull this one off, but somehow I must convince Hubbie he can tweak the existing sink a bit and come up with something similar.

The knobs and sink aprons on all three are adorable! That robin's eggy blue has been a favorite color of mine for months! I think we will end up painting the toddler's kitchen white/cream because her bedroom walls are already a similar bluish-greenish color, but we'll see.... I could always keep her kitchen downstairs in the "playroom".... ;) ;) (We make "good" use of our formal dining room.)

I put the toddler's Feliz dress on hold after an uninspiring trip to JoAnn's for coordinating fabric. However, I (of course) could not leave empty-handed. While we were there I saw this adorable welcome sign and had to have it for spring. Yes, I know I could probably make it myself, but it was so cute and on sale plus an additional 20% off sooooooo.....

I feel I am justified in leaving our snowman sign on the door until all the snow if finally melted, but soon.... hopefully VERY soon, he will get to hibernate for a good loooooong while.

He was a gift from a sweet friend and his playful, springy legs and knobby smile make me grin. 

I know many of my friends would like to learn to sew. My first project was pretty rough. I did it all on my own and I really didn't have a clue! I didn't research the way I should have, my friends/family with skills were all far far away, and I was in a crunch for time. This was my first project:

It looks good in a picture, from a distance, but I sewed the entire thing without putting the presser foot down. It held together for the costume party and unbelievably is STILL holding on, but unless I someday decide to rip out and redo every wonky, loose seam it will never make it through the wash. The moral to this story is that I want my friends to have a better experience. I want them to have a first project they can truly be proud of... and be able to wash! 

I most enjoyed piecing quilts and I want to share this joy with my friends. It provides a great opportunity to learn some basic sewing terminology and have some practice "driving" a machine. I Pinterested for hours before finally settling on a few patterns/tutorials that I thought would be good for beginners-ish but fairly modern and fun. Out of this handful of choices my friends chose the Scrappy Lone Star Quilt. 

The Scrappy Lone Star Quilt by Janice at Better Off Threads is my current quilt-in-the-works. She put together an amazing easy-to-follow tutorial. You should also check out some of her other projects... sewwwww pretty! Anyway, her lone star is beautiful and I have a particularly soft spot in my heart for that navy blue and aqua dot fabric from Joel Dewberry because it is featured in my daughter's nursery.

I actually found Janice's tutorial after seeing a picture on Pinterest of Deb's Scrappy Lone Star Quilt. 

I am planning to quilt mine in a similar, modern fashion and I also chose the scrappier look in bright fabrics. The star looks so radiant with the simple, straight line quilting and I can finally put to good use part of this Kate Spain Terrain jelly roll I had tucked away in my stash. Here I have all but one of the strip sets cut.

(I'm saving the last one to use as an example for the 45 degree cut.)

I should have more up about this in a couple weeks. My friends and I try to get together and craft about once a month so until then I may have to actually get out and finish some of my works in progress! ;) ;) Here's a sneak peak of one of my buddy's color palettes... the aqua, orange, and yellow. I luuuuuuv her style. She has a great eye for color!

Until next time.... g'night!