Gathering Apron and a Little Catching Up

I know I've been missing in action for a while now.  It has been a busy time here.  The whole month of February was full of sickness.  February is behind us now, and spring is on it's way so here's to better things to come!

We've have had several birthdays around here, Pooh Bear is three now, Sweet Cheeks is five, and my daughter and myself are a year older as well, but I won't give out the digits on those two.

My daughter has been wanting a gathering apron for quite a while now, ever since she saw the one here.  Quinn, from Reformation Acres, did a lovely job of showing and telling just how to make one, but I generally work from a pattern so I wasn't very confident about trying it out.  To be honest, I don't really trust myself much when it comes to measuring.  However, I knew it would tickle my daughter to have one made from that very tutorial so not long after she told me about it I bought this piece of Mary Jane's Farmgirl fabric.  I just knew I had to work it in some way. It took me a while to find just the right fabric to use with it, and to get my courage up to try it without a paper pattern.  I finally decided this birthday was just the occasion to get my gumption up and do it.

I chose to use this square for a pocket.  I'm sorry for the wrinkles and poor picture, but you get the idea.

Nice roomy pocket

It really wasn't hard to follow the tutorial, like I said it was written clearly, and the pictures documented the steps nicely.  The only real problem I had was my button holer wasn't cooperating.  It made a nice little mess that took me forever to pick out, and when I finished I decided I would work them by hand rather than go through that again.  Other than that it came together pretty smoothly.

The apron is so neat because it can be worn as a regular apron when the skirt is down, or you can use the ribbon at the waist and run it through a series of button holes at the bottom of the skirt to scoop the whole skirt up into a gigantic pocket to gather produce.

Okay, so where are those seeds?  It's time to plant something so we can fill this baby up!

If you think you would like to make one for yourself you should check out Quinn's tutorial.  If I can do it I'm sure you can!

Needlework with Children

Spidey and Belle spent the night last week, and Spidey wanted to work on a piece of embroidery that he had started on a previous visit.  He's making a surprise for his mom.

Belle saw what he was doing and asked, "Mimi, would you teach me to sew?"  I  quickly drew off a heart on a  little scrap piece of fabric just to give her a feel for it.  

She quickly went to work.

I had no idea how quickly she would catch on.  I showed her a running stitch once, and she was off and running with it.

Here's Spidey showing his work.  I think he's pretending to be camera shy.  

Belle never hesitated until she had the whole heart finished.  I think  it's backwards in this picture.  You can see the knots.  I think this is pretty good work for a 5 year old!

I also think I'd better find her a bigger project next time.  

Cameo or Silhouette Machine Cover

I've been working on my sewing/guest room.  This is my new sewing machine cover.  In keeping with the silhouettes on the bed I decided to try and make to tie in with the whole little shadowy theme.  It reminds me of a cameo.   

I also covered my bulletin board and added more silhouettes to it.

This little cubby was a thrift store find.  It works great for holding a gamut of sewing paraphernalia.

I plan to come back and show you a little of how I did the silhouette in another post.

Sweet Bedroom Silhouettes

Please forgive the poor quality of these pictures.

About a year ago on a visit to Lucy's I found this sweet bed in a antique store.  I fell for it right away, and ended up buying it and bringing it home.

See those sweet silhouettes of children on the bed?  

(Okay, I know I seriously need a new bedskirt.  I just haven't found the right one yet.) .

I love old things, especially things that tie into childhood somehow.

I had bought the platter on the same trip,  before I even saw the bed.

I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it spoke to me so I took it home.

Serendipitous!

I think it and these precious little reversed painted silhouettes fit nicely together.   Now the rest of the room needs a little making over.

 

A Christmas Card that Wasn't

For the last several years my daughter and her family have sent out a Christmas card with family photos.  This year we tried a couple of times to take pictures for her cards.  The last get together for this purpose left us with some pretty pictures, but it was getting mighty close to Christmas and since they went to the mountains for Christmas this year the cards just didn't happen.  I thought I'd share some of those photos here.  My son-in-law was still at work, and it was dark before he got home so I didn't get any shots of him.




My daughter has the ones from our first try on her camera.  It was late that day and cloudy to boot, so I don't think many of them turned out.  It was quite a fiasco as we were trying that day to depict a nativity scene with various children as Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and angels.  Our littlest angel kept making a run for it,  Joseph's clothes kept falling off,  the other kids kept making funny faces, and the dog was determined to stand in as a stable mate, and he wanted center stage.  It would have made a hilarious video.  I did get a little clip of part of it, but I couldn't figure out how to get it from the phone to here. I'm not very tech savvy.

Anyway, here a few of my favorites from our last little try.

New Year and Late Christmas Post

I've never been one to make bold new starts in January.  Sometimes I make a resolution, sometimes not.    This year I'm really giving the new year a fresh start in my life.  I plan to be more proactive in several areas and I'm off to a good start.  Okay, I know we have just finished the first full week of January, but I'm feeling optimistic.

I'm not making any commitments to blog more yet.  First, I need to work on getting my life in order, then I can work on consistently chronicling it.  

Moving backwards for a moment,  I didn't take a lot of pictures this year during Christmas.  It somehow seemed a whirlwind this year.  I'll share a few of those I did take though.  I hope your family enjoyed a wonderful holiday season and are off to a wonder filled new year.

My beautiful mom 

My daughter's family went to the mountains for Christmas, but I did get a shot of them in the Christmas parade before they left.

Here is Belle telling Santa secrets.

This gumdrop tree at my brother and sister-in-law's house is a sentimental reminder of the ones my Mimi used to have at Christmas when we were growing up.  The gumdrops we sneaked off those trees always tasted better than any others.

Here is Pooh waiting to see Santa.  He later decided that he didn't want to talk to the "big hairy monster."

This is part of my husband's family that we got to visit with during Christmas.  I so hate I didn't get a picture of my nephew and his fiancee before they left!  It's been a while since we got to be together with all of them for Christmas, so that made this year very special.

Lots of smiles here with my son and three of the kids.

These little cars were really a hit!  To tell the truth, I want one. 

This is as close to snow as we got in our part of Dixieland.

Here our daughter-in-law and our sweet grand baby share a snuggle before Christmas dinner.

Instead of Cleaning House

I'm supposed to be cleaning house and getting ready for Christmas, but I sometimes tend to procrastinate.  Here are a few of the things I'm enjoying instead of cleaning these days:

Silly pranks that involve a shirts filled with dirt,

dirty little faces,

handsome little smiles,

pretty smiling eyes,

piano recitals,

impromptu parades,

trips to the farm,

park visits,

feeding the horses carrots,

funny faces made by horses when the carrots get dropped on the wrong side of the fence,

sweet little bakers,

making Christmas cookies,

and little tree climbers.

My house may be dirty, but my heart is full!