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!

this little girl

This little girl loves oatmeal. And peas, prunes, and sweet potatoes.

This little girl has a beautiful smile. And an infectious laugh!

This little girl is grabbing anything she can get her hands on. And then sticking it in her mouth.

This little girl loves tags. So much so that I made her a litle lovey (not shown) that has tags and ribbons on the sides. I introduced it during our trip and she loves it! She seems to find the tags on everything and focus on them. I had started cutting them off her toys but when she discovered them I had to stop!

This little girl has the most beautiful blue eyes. I've been watching them transform over the last seven months from a really deep blue to a lighter shade with a ring of dark blue around the edges. Mesmerizing! (I know this photo was in the last post but you can see her eyes so well! Plus the tag blanket I made is peeking out of the bottom left corner.)

This little girl speaks! "Da da da da da da dadadada". "Ahhhhhhh GAH!" "Ay yah yah yah ahhh da!" She has opinions and she wants you to know them!

I love this little girl.

Dang. I knew I was going to cry.

there's no place like home

We've just returned from an eleven-day trip away. First we flew from Denver to Orlando and stayed at a beach house on New Smyrna Beach with my dad's side of the family. It was so nice to see him and my sisters and brother... and it was my dad's first time meeting Emma!

We took her to see the ocean and I dipped her feet in the water. She lasted about fifteen minutes on the beach before she'd had enough!

After about five days in Florida, we flew to Massachusetts and stayed with Hubby's parents. They came to see us a few weeks after Emma's birth, and then again in December, so they marveled over how much she's grown. We also spent time with my brother-in-law and Hubby's paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother, both of whom were excited to meet our little (but getting bigger every day) girl.

Emma was a trooper during our trip. She (naturally) didn't sleep well on the trip and our routine was all out of whack, but we did our best and things went pretty well. She's an excellent flyer, though! All giggles and smiles during all three flights, except when she was really tired.

We didn't buy her a seat but were lucky that the flight wasn't full between Denver and Orlando so she got her own seat and slept nicely in her car seat for about two hours. We've learned our lesson there! Buying a ticket for a little one is definitely worth the money!

Our trip was nice... and it was wonderful to see our family, but it's SO good to be home! Even with dirty laundry and grocery shopping and other chores to do, I love sleeping in my own bed with my own pillow, and being in our own space.

mod star mini

I've had this idea for a quilt design floating around in my head for a few months... I decided to make it into a mini quilt to enter into the Modern Mini Challenge that is currently being hosted by Ellison Lane Quilts.

My idea is based on a star-within-a-star motif... I'm sure someone somewhere has done this before but I haven't seen it. I think it would be awesome in a black and white combo, or red and white. I wanted to work from my stash, though, so here we go!

So I look at the calendar yesterday (early afternoon) and I realize that the deadline is today! Whoops. I got busy working out measurements for my mini quilt and pieced the top. Today I was able to (between naps, baby feedings, and a Target run) quilt and bind the top. It's about 27" square and I'll use it as a stroller/car seat quilt for the baby.

I used various Kona solids, as well as a Mini Mike's print (because I ran out of the teal, oops!) for the top. The back is Ruby and the binding is an unlabeled fat quarter from my stash. :)

Now that I know the measurements for the stars, I think I'm going to use the same pattern for a baby quilt.