Midge Meditation

This is my latest quilt for the 12x12 group I belong to.

I made the frog using some fabrics I dyed

and a portrait method I learned about on Quilting Arts TV.

And I feel like my machine quilting has improved greatly since I took a class from my friend Lisa Brothman.

Fried Pies

These are a couple of my favorite pictures of my Mom and my girls.

I wish I had taken more pictures that day.

It was Christmas Eve-Eve in 2000.

We were making Fried Apple Pies.

One of the best things my Grandmother made were her Fried Apple Pies

and we loved carrying on the tradition with my Mom.

We need to make some Fried Pies again soon.

The really amazing thing about these pictures is that my oldest daughter was only 10 in these photos. The twins were 3.
Where did all those years go?

Now What

This morning as my college-graduate-son got ready for work he asked the question I have been asking myself, "What are you going to do now?"

He also proceeded to tell me how old I am as my children are all so grown up. Babies in junior high apparently makes me "very old." I don't feel old mentally, physically is another matter.

I informed my son that I was going to quilt. His eyes said "And. . ." And maybe I'll clean the house and spend my time praying that I don't need to get a "real" job yet. My job of raising babies may be done for 7 hours/5 days a week right now but once everyone hits the front door there is no rest for this Mama.

Faux Tie Dye with Sharpies

Last week when my friend and I and our darling children tie dyed shirts, my friend mentioned seeing a little girl with a tie dyed shirt she loved. She had asked the mother about the shirt and found that the shirt had been created using Sharpie Markers. The instructions were on Sharpie's website. We decided we had to give this new-to-us craft a try and so we squeezed in one last summer craft this morning.

Here is Little Man after he drew some of his designs with the Sharpies. The shirt has been stretched over three plastic cups so that it was easier to draw on and then when the rubbing alcohol was administered with the dropper the excess alcohol had a place to go.
Not as dramatic as actual dyes but very nice just the same. We found that some colors seem to spread better than others, and it may have been the amount of ink available in the marker, or how much was applied that made the difference.
While we played with Sharpies, Little Bubba watered my weeds for me.

It's amazing how entertaining a can full of water (or several can's full of water) can be for a child. (Did I mention that I just love his cheeks. And look at the little pudgy wrists. There is even an indent in his hand. So adorable!)

While Little Man went with the "design as you go" method, the girls all went with a pattern they had designed by tracing an object or printing off the internet. All were equally successful.

GO UTES!

Here is a close up of one of the designs as rubbing alcohol is being applied. It was interesting to see the colors that bled out. It didn't bleed true red as we expected.

This ball looked like it was on fire as it bled.

Another of Little Man's wonderful "design as you go" creations. My favorite of his I believe.

Things did get a little messy from the excess alcohol in the pie tins under the shirts but no where near the mess as with traditional dyes.

All in all we had a great morning and created some fun shirts!

Great Bangs

Need I say More?

Feelin' Groovy

A few summers ago

I had grandiose plans of doing crafts with the kids everyday

- or at least every other day.

This tie dye kit has been pining away in the cupboard ever since.

I brought it out into the sunshine the other day and the children rejoiced.

The kit came complete with dye in these sweet bottles

(which I will definitely refill with my own dyes),

a bunch of gummy rubber bands,

some thin gloves and

some very sparse instructions.

The kids twisted and banded and banded and twisted. . .
And then they dyed!
died? dyed?

OH NO NOT THE DYE!

Oh how I love this little face!

I could just squeeze his cheeks off every time I see him!

The cheeks on his brother here were once just as sweet.

It is only recently that he has outgrown them

and it is a good thing

because he was getting tired of me pinching them!

Look at what a wonderful job he is doing putting the colors on his shirt.

His shirt was one of the best ones actually.

Too bad I don't have an after picture of it - yet.

Ah man, could you tell this sweetheart no?

"Sure honey play with the nasty dye,

the package says it's nontoxic,

just let me eat your cheeks first."

After the t-shirts were finished I let use up the excess dyes on a pillowcase.

Look at all that dye squirting fun!

This is just one of the minor casualties that resulted from the dye squirting fun.

The pillowcase actually ended up looking black

but once it was soaked, washed and dried it turned out a dark purple.

The next day I told my girls to put on their t-shirts and pose for me.

This was their first pose.

It is always their first pose.

They think it's funny.

And in this photo they are shooting me with very large imaginary guns.

I don't even pretend to understand them anymore because,

after all, they are in junior high now,

but you can kind of see the shirts and how cute they turned out. We did have a lot of fun,

so much so that we are going to do it again next week.

This time we are going to experiment with

faux tie dying using Sharpie markers.

Stay tuned for more exciting pictures!

Baked Fudge

Baked Fudge.

Deliciousness.

Same thing.

I read the recipe for Baked Fudge on The Pioneer Woman's blog

almost six months ago and I have been drooling ever since. Yes, I know you've been wondering why I have been carrying this tissue around all that time, and now you know.

I didnt' make it right away because I didn't have ramekins to make it in. The recipe says you can use an 8 x 8 dish but I think I just needed a good excuse to buy ramekins. When I went to Sistah's in July I found these cute ramekins for just 99 cents each at Chef's Warehouse.

Score!

After the fudge bakes for almost an hour you plop on some freshly whipped cream and. . .

prepare to go straight to heaven.

It's kind of gooey and rich and chocolatey and creamy and delicious.

So worth the wait!

I think I need to make it again right now.

5 Things

Five things I love about this photo:

1. The wood carvings with orange fabric background on the wall are from Thailand. I wish they were completely in the photo because I'm not sure if we have any other photos with them in it. My Mom's brother gave them to her and seeing them on the wall brings back wonderful memories.

2. A couch covered in hot, sticky plastic. Ah, the good ol' days - if I ever talk about covering my couches in plastic, please slap me.


3. An Orange Ash Tray. I love the color. It matches the orange on the wood carvings. No wonder I love bright colors. However, I don't love that it was actually used to put out cigarettes, my poor little lungs.

4. Look at how beautiful those wood floors are.

5. I was 4 years old here. Wasn't I cute? This pose reminds me of one of my daughters. I have a photo floating around somewhere of her in the same pose.

Summer Fun

At the beginning of summer I posted about my goals for summer, and now summer is almost over and man what a summer it has been. Amazingly we've almost done everything on my list. I've blogged about a lot of those adventures along the way, but here are a few fun activities I missed blogging about.

We toured the Oquirrh Mountain Temple -

Visited with friends we knew while we lived in Jamaica -

Took my Mother-In-Law to Fisherman's Wharf -
This video clip of visiting the Sea Lions at Fisherman's Wharf makes me laugh.

Met my Sistah's new doggie, Wes -

And had some fun with Wrigley, Elliot, Wes and Dexter (not pictured)

Went to the Farmers Market on a chilly San Francisco Day -

Played in the ocean -Ate some funnel cake (excuse me while I wipe the drool off my computer) -
And rode some fun rides.

This picture is my absolute favorite of the summer: Bright colors, blue skies and happy children.

To Dye For

Before we went off on vacation I finally rinsed out the fabrics

I dyed at my quilt guild's dye party.

Aren't they pretty?

The bright blue up front is a piece of silk organza and the rest are 100% cotton. I love the way the silk takes the color. Actually I think one of the greens in the back is also silk organza. I'm looking forward to playing with these new pieces.

After having so much fun with batiking and dying this summer, I decided to take a side trip while I was on vacation to Dhrama Trading in San Rafael. My friends and I have ordered from their catalog (I bought the silk from them) but until last year none of us realized they had a stone and morter store as well. It's amazing how excited a person can be about something so simple (and let me tell you I was not the only one getting excited.) I just had to go and experience everything I had seen in the catalog and online.

The store was simple and amazing. It contains practically everything the catalog does. The main section of the store if filled with yarns and knitting supplies. A room off to the side is filled with all sorts of dyable fabrics, and the third room in the back is filled with clothing items ready to dye as well as dyes and paints. They also have fun books and lots of beautiful samples hanging up. The staff was very friendly and helpful, answering many, many questions for me without getting tired of me. Or at least not acting like they were tired of me!

I was a bit overwhelmed by everything but after a look around I decided that I would take the plunge and buy some dyes to use on my own. (I've never dyed without the help of Anne, the Batik Queen.) I picked out 6 dyes (random colors that I liked the looks of), a few other dye materials I would need, a couple pieces of clothing to dye, and a canvas bag to dye. I was very excited by my purchases. However, after I left and I was half way back to my Sistah's house I realized I had not only forgotten to look for the paintstiks I wanted to buy, but I also forgot to buy fabric to dye.

Good grief!

Oh well, next time I go to visit Sistah I'll just have to make another side trip to San Rafael.

Picnic in the Park

I remember going to the Forest Preserves in the Chicago area when I was little. We seemed to always have a picnic for Memorial Day, Independance Day and Labor Day as well as any other occassion we could think of inbetween. This tradition was obviously started long before I was born because here is a picture of Mom when she was sweet 16 at a family picnic. (She is up front on the left)
I say "Family Picnic" loosely because I don't recognize ANY of the other people! The woman standing could be my cousin MaryJo, but it's difficult to tell. Now that I look a little closer it's possible that the man on the right is my Grandmother's second husband, John. Perhaps this is mostly his family and that is why I don't recognize anyone.

Despite really only knowing one person in the photo I love this photo. I love the sense of place that is preserved: the beautiful trees, the 1950's cars in the background, the people at the other tables, and the light and shadow caused by the trees. Mostly, however, I love the sour look on Mom's face. She doesn't look very happy that her picture is being taken. She didn't like her picture taken if she didn't look perfect. (Who doesn't?!) But even with the sour look I think she looks sweet and beautiful.

Feeling 10 Again

I'm not much of an amusement park person anymore.

I get incredibly dizzy when I go on rides and feel very sick afterwards.

In fact, I can get sick to my stomach just watching the rides,

so when we went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk a week ago

I did not even think twice about not buying a ride pass for myself.

Sistah and I watched the girls ride and talked about all the times Mom had taken us to amusement parks when we were children. We wondered how many times we actually went to each amusement park because in our memories we always went to amusement parks all the time. As we watched the girls laugh and shout on the rides we knew we were creating memories for them. We hoped that when they are grown they will think they always went to amusement parks too.

When Sistah and I saw the Tilt-a-Whirl we laughed and both said that it had always been one of our favorite rides with Mom. Suddenly Sistah decided that despite my nausea issues we should use a few tickets to ride the Tilt-a-whirl together in memory of Mom. I instantly agreed.
We felt a bit awkward standing in line because we were surrounded by children but none of them were ours. The girls were off waiting for a different ride. When our turn finally came to get on we ran onto the ride feeling like 10 year olds. Saddly the last car was snatched up by a real 10 year old who wanted to ride all by himself. Where is the fun in that? The ride hardly spins with one person in it. But I guess he was too young to know that secret yet, so we reluctantly went back to the front of the line and pouted. Sistah complained like a 10 year old the whole time we waited.

When the ride finally finished we anxiously waited for the children to leave so the attendant would let us in. One child stopped at the top of the stairs to look at the ride next to us. I had to keep Sistah back so that she would not run in and physically remove the child from the ride. Finally after an eternity of about five seconds the child moved and the gate was opened.

We ran to one of the cars.
It was all ours!

We took a picture to commemorate the day.

You can see how excited we were.

We had been at the beach all day

and so you can also see that we were a bit crisp.

The next few minutes were pure joy.

We leaned hard to make the car spin and reel.

I laughed so hard I thought I might actually throw up

or wet my pants.

Thankfully neither happened.

With each spin around

I could see the people in line and around the ride.

They were watching us.

Each grown up had a big smile on their face.

I knew they were jealous of the

"two old ladies on the Tilt-a-Whirl" (as sistah dubbed us).

We had let our inner child loose and boy did she have a blast.

Recycling Furniture

My Sistah lives in a city that loves to recycle.

They are very environmentally conscience.

She has four, or maybe it is five, separate garbage bins

to separate her trash into for pick up.

It only makes sense then that she would want to recycle her couch and chair rather than buy new when she became tired of the look. Not to mention, the cushions are very comfortable because they are comprised of down and if it weren't for the time my son collapsed into the couch it would also be very structurally sound. (Sorry about that Sistah.)

A few months ago we devised a plan that I would come visit her and make some new slipcovers for her couch. I've done a lot of sewing in past years and I have made slipcovers for a few simple upright chairs but I've never taken on such a big project as this. I was a bit nervous. Especially with all the zippers. Zippers are not my favorite. But after taking a deep breath (and watching this entire tutorial a couple of times) I dove in. I worked about 3 1/2 days making the slip covers for the chair and couch but I didn't get one made for the ottoman (another vacation perhaps?!). And thanks to some tips on the tutorial the zippers were a breeze.

The fabric on the chair is very soft

(it looks so shiny in the photo but it really isn't this shiny in person).

I think the couch turned out beautifully too -

Even the puppy loved it.