emma signs!

We've been teaching Emma a limited number of ASL signs. Things like milk, hungry, mama, and daddy. As a former teacher of one year olds, I've seen first hand how sign language helps babies communicate- when they are still unable to verbalize but can understand words.

We started doing it late last year but the only one I've really done consistently is milk. Today, that consistency paid off!

I had Emma on the changing table after her nap. After I finished fastening her diaper, I asked her if she wanted some milk (I didn't sign it when I asked). To my amazement, she made the sign for milk! I praised her and gave her big smiles, then asked her if she wanted milk again, and she made the sign again!

I picked her up and gave her more praise and big hugs. I was so excited! I really want to teach her more signs and I need to be more mindful of opportunities to do so.

 

My little smarty pants with her milk!

i made something!

My sewing room is coming along splendidly and I actually finished something! I'm "in process" with a lot of projects, but hadn't finished anything in a while.

I made a pinafore for Emma!

I love how it turned out! It is very big on her so I plan on going back to make the smaller size, and keeping this one for later, but I still love it.

 

Hurray for finishing!

emma {one year}

This happened a month ago, but my sweet girl turned one year old! The last year has gone by so quickly. We went from this...

to this!

She's crawling everywhere and finally pulling all the way up to her feet (she was stuck at just pulling up to her knees for a while). She takes steps when holding on to a piece of furniture or Mama or Daddy.

Naps are anywhere from 0-25 minutes if I'm lucky. I'm not lucky most days, ha! I think she doesn't sleep well when she's teething, and that is most definitely going on right now. Emma has two bottom teeth and two top teeth, and I know more are on their way in because she chews away on her fingers, toys, and her pacifier. She giggles when we brush her teeth and gums (just water for now, no toothpaste yet).

My formerly bald little babe has lots of hair now! It's growing like weeds. Or maybe it's growing like hair? Either way, it's getting long and she has terrible cowlicks in the back. Poor baby has been saddled with hair that's very fine with lots of flyaways. Just like Mama.

She babbles and chatters like crazy, and she loves music and dancing! In fact, just today she sat in my lap and sang  her own little baby nonsense song and bopped her head. The cuteness factor was off the charts!

She started waving "hi" and "bye" in the last couple of weeks. Now she waves at everyone, especially when we are in the grocery store and Mama just wants to get in and out without stopping to talk to every nice grandma that's shopping that day.

She still loves books and will sit for a surprisingly long time while focusing on turning pages and looking at pictures. Books are among the first things she pulls out of her toy box in the family room. I love that she's a little reader!

Happy birthday, Emma! We love you so, so much!

what i did this summer

I found three different posts in draft form that I never finished (obviously). This includes Emma's eleven month pictures. She's over a year now, so I guess that post is moot. I'll have to post her 12 month pictures soon.

Life the last few months has been insane! We put our townhouse on the market in May and got an offer a few weeks later. Our house hunting intensified and we made an offer on a house about five  miles away from the old one.

Unfortunately, the contract on our townhouse fell through and we had a few very tense weeks of being back on the market before we got a new offer, and we close on the old house next week.

In the meantime, we moved into our new house (about three weeks ago) and are getting settled. I hate moving. I hate packing. I hate unpacking.

I've also realized that I dislike almost every painted wall in the house. Argh.

Emma handled the move with surprising ease, although her napping habits have changed drastically since her birthday. She doesn't like taking them anymore.

I haven't been doing any sewing lately, but I stare at my WIP bag regularly. It involves this...

hopefully I can get back to it soon!

new kitchen towels

I had to put my sewing machine away while the house is on the market and I've been longing to sew something! I thought this would be a good opportunity to teach myself how to English paper piece with hexagons. (I learned to machine piece hexagons last year which I think is fabulous for quilts, but I wanted a handstitching project.)

I bought plain white dish towels a couple of years ago with the intention of embellishing them. They were hiding in the back of my sewing cabinet and finally saw the light of day again a few days ago.

I was concerned that the fabric would shrink a lot in the washing machine and pucker the towel, but it only puckered a little. This was a great scrap busting project and I've already reused the paper hexies to do some more paper piecing, although I have no idea what I'll use them for!

I better be careful... this could be addictive!

emma {ten months}

My sweet baby is ten months old today!

This was the most challenging photo shoot yet. Once I put the sign down near her, she couldn't get enough of it! Oooo, a new toy! Thanks, mama!

Turn it around and around...

Emma has learned some amazing tricks! She can clap her hands together, which is absolutely adorable. She's learned to feed herself and is finally rolling from her back to her stomach (she's been rolling the other way for months now). Her legs are getting strong and her balance is improving, too!

It seems like over the weekend she started moving around more and she's slowing figuring out how to army crawl. She can scoot backwards but not forwards (yet). Pretty soon I'll turn around and she'll be gone!

And, last but not least, we have our first tooth! Finally! It's on the bottom in the front, and only just peeking out of her gums, but it's a tooth nontheless. Good job, Emma!

a lovely gift

My friend Nancy sent a totally awesome package for Emma! Mr. Seaschell came in after checking the mail a couple days ago and I spotted the box immediately.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I don't know. It's for you," he replied. I jumped up, trying to remember if I had ordered anything recently. I didn't think so... then I spotted the return address and knew where it came from!

People, totally awesome doesn't even begin to describe the fabulous things in this box! It was stuffed to the gills with handmade fun. Every time I pulled something else out I squealed... Mr. Seaschell did a lot of eye-rolling, haha.

A sweet hat..

A set of awesome bibs...

A set of stuffed letters!! Love the eyeballs, lol...

A spiral scarf for mama in a color I love!

Adorable animal cards...

I seriously *love* everything so far. But I've saved my favorite for last. Check it out!!

A rainbow mobile! With a sun! And raindrops!! I just can't stop staring at it. I love the little faces and rosy cheeks! :) So, so sweet.

Nancy, you are the best! Thank you so much for all the work you put in to make this gift a great one!

retreat recap {long overdue}

What is this? Two posts in less than a week? It's a bloggy miracle! I've written at least three blog posts recently and none have made it past the draft stage. I actually wrote this post a while back, but it sat pictureless for a while and I ended up publishing Emma's tumbler quilt post first.

We've just put our house on the market and getting it ready for showings has been exhausting. We've had a parade of painters, landscapers, photographers, stagers, and others through here working on various things, and also I've gone through pretty much every nook and cranny to donate, throw away, and analyze every item in this house.

Plus, what's just as hard as getting the house clean? Keeping it that way. Argh. I just have to remember that I'm getting a sewing space out of this whole deal! Hubby agrees that I need it. I think he's tired of me taking over the kitchen table. And the island. And the coffee table. And the living room in general. ;)

I definitely needed this quilt retreat last month... it was so much fun! If you've never been on a quilt retreat weekend, you really should go. There are several reasons...

1. Yummy food. Especially if Tara's cooking. (TR: Next time I'm adding a bucket load of sugar to the tea. You better keep an eye on me.)

2. Time to sew. No kiddos, TV, chores, or other distractions.

3. Making new friends. I love getting to know friends and acquaintances better, as well as meeting new people.

4. Time to laugh. Seriously, there was one point where I was laughing so hard I thought I might wet my pants. If Emma hadn't been a c-section baby I might well have.

5. Did I mention yummy food? :)

Our topic for the weekend was paper piecing. Penny is a great teacher when it comes to designing and constructing blocks. We did a little practice, watched some demonstrations, and then we got to piece Penny's famous Kitchen Aid block!

It's a lovely block but HOLY MOLY did it take me forever! This was most of my day on Saturday but that's okay becaue I really wanted one. I'm debating between making it into a mini quilt for my kitchen, a trivet, or a cover for my Kitchen Aid mixer.

Sunday, I pieced a sewing machine that I'll incorporate into a sewing machine cover. I'm actually debating redoing this block... it's all kinds of wonky plus I realized I didn't reverse the image, so the machine is backwards. Whoops!

i'll tumble for ya...

I've had "quilt for Emma" on my project list forever. I've been collecting fabrics (over fifty different prints  initially, but only about thirty-six made the final cut) but couldn't decide what pattern to make. While wandering around Flickr the other day, I spied a number of tumbler quilts and remembered I had borrowed Tara's tumbler die a looooong time ago. (Sorry I've been hoarding it, friend. You can have it back soon!)

I got a Go Baby fabric cutter for Christmas and finally brought it out for its inaugural run! I started by buzzing through only two layers of fabric and speedily cranking the handle. Totally not the way to go. After a few fits and starts, I discovered that six layers of fabric went through really nicely as long as I cranked the handle very slowly. Despite the slow turning of the handle, it was still way faster to use the fabric cutter than if I had hand cut each tumbler with a template.

I've been playing with quilt designs and whether or not to use a background neutral. I didn't want this quilt to be your typical scrappy tumbler, I wanted more definition and bigger chunks of the same print. These are the options I've narrowed it down to...what do you think?

These are bows:

These are beads:

Rows of bows (with Kona Bone in between):

Rows of beads:

And finally, nested bows and beads:

bee blocks

I've been participating in the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee on Flickr, and the deadline was this past Sunday. I sent out my blocks last week and look at what I've recieved in return! (Actually, I got all these blocks well before I sent mine out... my hive mates were efficient like that.)

The top left block is the one I made and sent out to my fellow hive members in their colors. I love the ones I've gotten in return... the different oranges and aquas play so nicely together! These are the blocks I sent out:

I've already developed two options for next quarter and I'm excited to get started!

I should have posted this photo in February, but these are the blocks I made for the Fort Collins Modern Quilt Guild Bee for Tara:

And these are the blocks I made for Jody in March:

Next up in April are Granny Squares for Jane! I'm excited about these; granny squares have been on my list for a while. Jane's blocks will be good practice. Uhhh... I mean, I'll need to practice before I start Jane's blocks. ;)

This weekend I get to be all quilty with some dear friends at a Spring Quilt Retreat! Love, love, love these weekends. And love, love, love my hubby for taking care of the baby so I can go!