When Life Gives You....

When life gives you:

• a fever and you are laid up for 2 days
• remnants of ear pain that I've had off and on since the fall
• a foot of damp snow
• 4:30 A.M. worries about your son coming home for "spring break"

and you have to:

• put a French twist in your daughter's hair (while watching a how-to video)
• find clean underwear
• watch your son in a Biathlon and freeze for 4 hours

You have to have a sense of humor (and maybe a glass of wine.)

(Snowman created by Annie!)

National Treasure

 I have only visited a few national parks, but this one is a true national treasure.  It is the Cuyahoga Valley Naitonal Park in Ohio

It runs along the old Ohio and Erie canal...an engineering feat!

It is also the Cuyahoga river, derived from the Mohawk word for "crooked".

We have been biking the path for years.  This was the first year without my college son.  We stop at all the locks.  Some are dry but some still have water.

Our day started out damp and chilly.

There is an old train that travels through the valley.  We love the "echo" in the tunnels!

The scenery takes my breath away.

The sun came out later.

At the farm stand, do we head for the apples?  No!  We head for the old-fashioned red licorice.  We save it for the ride home, by the end of which we usually have a belly-ache!

You have to be careful not to ride over the woolybears!

We hike the same trails, climb the same rocks, take photos of the kids jumping off....and always end up for a late lunch at Winking Lizard in this charming town.

As we were heading back on the final leg, the sky opened up!

Every one of us had mud stripes and were completely drenched!

 

Another year of biking was enjoyed.  There is such comfort in our tradition and I can't think of a better way to spend the day as a family than in this amazing national park.

PS.  Can you tell I'm starting to get tired, along with many of you, of the blizzards, grey skies, cold weather....

The Daddy Quilt

I am very excited to share with you my latest creation:  The Daddy Quilt Kit!  This kit includes everything you need to make your very own 3 x 3 square T Shirt Quilt Blanket.  I call it the "Daddy" quilt because it's a great way to use dad's T shirts to make a special gift for baby!

You may remember that I made one for my great-niece, my new poster girl.  Isn't she sweet?  She is demonstrating how the Daddy Quilt is perfect to lay on the floor for baby to play!

To test the quilt kit I turned to my blog friend Liz of Living My Sweet Life.  She is a wonderful mom of young boys who shares her sewing pursuits on her blog.  She reminds me a lot of me when I first started sewing.  I was a young, stay-at-home mom who had a desire to create and turned to sewing to fill the nap and evening times.  (Boy, do I miss those days!)

Instead of T shirts, Liz used her husband's button down shirts to create this adorable quilt!  What inspiration!  I simply love the interesting patterns of the shirts!

Her son snagged the quilt as his own and brings it to bed with him every night.  I am sure it is extra-special because it was made with "Dad's" shirts!

Using the buttons was a fabulous design feature!  Liz's boys are not babies.  I would not recommend using the button side of a shirt if you were making a quilt for a baby, but you certainly could use the back side of the shirt for a similar effect!  Cut one of the shirts on the bias for an interesting design!  Mix and match button-down shirts, T shirts, sweatshirts.  You are only limited by your creativity!

I was so inspired by the Liz's use of button-down shirts that I upcycled one of my husband's shirts (it was sitting in my "mending" bag) into a drawstring bag.

You can read Liz's post which describes her Daddy Quilt experience here.

The Daddy Quilt Kit includes:

Cotton sashing fabric, pre-washed, cut into strips

Non-pill polar fleece for the back

Interfacing

Vinyl window to center and trace T shirt designs

Coordinating thread

Pattern

Upcycled button-down shirt/drawstring bag

Black with white dots kit

 Brown with white dots kit

Royal blue with black dots kit

In addition to the sweet red with mini, white dots fabric, I offer the kit in black, brown, and royal blue colors.  These are unisex colors that work with many colors of tees.  Each kit will be packaged in a unique, upcycled button-down shirt drawstring bag.  This bag can be used to hold the finished quilt.

I've taken the boring work out of quilt-making with this kit!  All you have to do is find nine T shirt sides.  Liz said the entire project took about 3.5 hours.  It's a perfect project to sew in a weekend!  You can break the project down as follows:

Friday night:  Select and rough cut T shirts
Saturday morning:  Interface shirts while watching your favorite TV show
Saturday afternoon:  Sew top of quilt blanket
Sunday:  Sew quilt top to backing and complete top-stitching
Sunday evening:  Cuddle your baby in your quilt!

The creative possibilities of the Daddy Quilt Kit are plenty:

Make one for your new baby

Make one for your friend's baby shower

Use Dad's college sweatshirts

Use MOM's shirts and make a "Mommy" quilt!

Use family shirts for a lap quilt for Grandma or Grandpa

Make a picnic blanket

Use as a decorative wall hanging

Preserve memories of a loved one

I am also open to discussing fabric options.  For help I turn to my fabric fabric stores:  Contemporary Cloth and Jo-Ann.  Just contact me to discuss!

You'll find my quilt kits here.

Don't like the idea of sewing but love the idea of the Daddy Quilt?  Find my custom items here.

I hope you will find the Daddy Quilt a practical and pretty item.  These functional blankets are meant to be used:  throw them on the floor, use them in the stroller, car, beach.  They are fully washable.  I look forward to seeing your finished creations.

For the Boys

It's 60 degrees here in sunny Cleveland.  The ice rink in the back yard is melting.  (We had a great, three-month run!) and I'm writing about

Sewing a Wool Coat for my Boy!

I told you, I'm not trendy...Actually, I was hoping my project would be selected for "Celebrate the Boy" month.  If it had been, I would have had to take careful photos of the process.  So I was waiting to hear and pushed the project into a pile on my (not so clean) counter.  It's probably a good thing because my pictures aren't that great.

The idea started with big brother.  We bought him a coat last year so he could look a little dressier for attending concerts, jobs, church, etc.  

I enjoy making wool coats.  I made several for my daughters when they were younger and even pea coats for my son.  My little guy would dress up for church and then thrown on a zip-up hoody, or his "puffy" winter coat or a baseball jacket.  I realized my son needed something dressy.

Dressy, but not too formal.   I started with Kwik Sew's Sewing for Children.  This is a great book.  I have used this book over and over again.  You can mix and match various details and it is all explained in a straightforward manner.  (I also own Sewing for Toddlers.)  I started with a basic jacket design.  Rather than have a knit collar, I made a stand up collar.

I added welt pockets - really not that hard!  Sewing is nothing more than following directions.   I think my second one looks better than the first, however. 

I lined the coat with polar fleece that I had stashed.  My boys seem to wear short-sleeve shirts all winter long.  I figured the fleece lining would be much warmer than standard lining.

 

He's pleased with the result!  It's cozy, sporty, but a tad dressier than a North Face jacket (which he does not own.)

By the way, my son wore his vest to one of his last performances at school and said he got a ton of compliments on it!

Let's hear it for the boys!

Randoms from a Rambling Rose

Sit back, grab some coffee and surf the net.....

First,  the winner of the Valentine Tote Bag is:

Meg!

Thank you to all who entered.  Welcome, also, to the new followers of this blog and my Facebook page.  I hope that you will find this a place of occasional inspiration.

Thanks, also, for your kind and encouraging words about Annie and her Etsy shop, the Pink Paintbrush.  She enjoys creating as much as I do and I enjoy that we share our crafty love.

Three lovely readers purchased a clutch from Annie.  Two of them shared a nice review on their blogs:  Stacy of Golden Bird Knits who is running a New Techniques Knitalong on Ravelry, and Heather of Implausible Yarn a young blogger from Maine.  Thank you so much!

Thank you to Sarah for linking to Annie's contest.  If you are a mom, head over to Sarah's blog.  Not only is she a beautiful mom to five, she has an amazing gift of articulating the feelings, fears, and struggles of parents.

Speaking of moms, have you ever read Design Mom?  She just moved her family (6 kids!) to France for a year.  I am so resistant to change I've been in the same house for 22 years, hate to change doctors, schools, etc.,....  I can't even imagine.

I have also made new friends on Twitter.  How does that happen?  I don't know.  Sometimes you feel like you are "talking" to yourself, but then something happens and before you know it you have a new friend.  One of those is Luke, whom I had mistaken for a woman.  I didn't understand why the sweatshirt tote he bought from me wouldn't work for "him".  Well, "she" was really a "he" who bought it for his daughter!  Check out the supplies he sells on his shop, The Supply Stop, if you are a crafter!

Speaking of Twitter, I came across another amazing shop, Made in Lowell, and bought myself a birthday present!  My brother bought his wife a 3 Carat diamond ring.  (She deserves it for being married to him.)  So I told them about the ring I bought myself:

Isn't it the cutest thing?  I love it!  I thought it would be very "practical" for me when I construct my quilts.  I lay the quilts out on the floor to pin the layers together.  Instead of sliding my magnetic pin grabber around I can quickly grab the pins out of the ring.  Soooo pretty!  BTW, that is not my hand in the photo.  I think someday I will expose my hands to the world, well the wired world, that is.  I have ugly nails, fat knuckles, short thumbs (my dad always said that means we are stubborn) - I like to think that my hands were meant for creating.

I want to say a special thanks to Sondra on Contemporary Cloth.  She has encouraged Annie and I in our Etsy endeavors.  Annie is especially grateful for the zebra fabric Sondra donated to her!  It has been quite popular!  Check out all the neat fabrics at Contemporary Cloth.  If you don't sew, there are some really neat wall hangings to see.

Finally, I want to thank Liz of Living My Sweet Life.  She worked on a project with me and we will both be sharing that soon!

Even though there is a hint of spring in the air, I am working diligently on sewing a wool dress coat for my eleven-year-old son.  I was putting it off because I was hoping to be a part of Celebrate the Boy and wasn't sure if I would have to photograph all the steps of construction.  Now I just want to have a jacket for my son to wear when we go to Church or go out some place nice.  The poor boys are neglected on the jacket front.

Thanks for letting me share today!

Practical Tip - Repurpose a Musical Card and a Winner!

We have very sweet friends who spoil us rotten!  I think they singlehandedly keep Hallmark in business!  We have a drawer full of musical cards they have given to us over the years.  Recently, they gave me a lovely card that plays "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins.  I thought it would be a perfect card to repurpose into a Valentine's Card for the very friends who sent it to us!

At $4.99, the card is valuable!  And let me say I'm feeling proud of myself for doing something holiday-ish!
So let's get started....

 

The winner of the lanyard from the Pink Paintbrush is:

#7 Sarah!

Annie will contact you to determine the colors you would like.

Thanks for all of your kind words of encouragement for Annie!

Still time to enter my Tote giveaway here.