I was VOLUN"TOLD" !!

Look what happened in our yard!!

YES WE HAVE THIS MUCH SNOW!!  AND MORE!!!

 Well, I am back to the computer at last!  I have been crazy busy with the kids school council.  I was "voluntold" to be on the playground committee for the new school that the Ministry is building for us.  Almost 800 students and NO PLAYGROUND equipment!!  YIKES.

Any way so 2.5 weeks ago I was appointed the lead on planning a craft fair and small business vendor event they wanted to have to raise money for the school.  WHY?  Because I sew.  I must know a lot of crafters....NOT!!!  However, I am good at last minute magic!  Pulled together a small committee of "go-getter" girls and we organized 23 participants, a bake sale and a silent auction!! WHEW!  I ended up being a vendor too because a few of the other Moms have some of my reusable snack bags and they thought those would sell well at the event.  So whilst I was planning the whole thing I had to put my Christmas sewing on hold and sew a bunch of things for this event.  Can you say time management issues!! Haven't been to bed before 2am for weeks!  But I did get some things sewn for the event so that was good.

                  

These are my version of crayon rolls.  I don't like ties because the kids want to do things themselves so I put a tab with an elastic and sew a button to the back of the tab and there you go! Toddler Friendly! If you click on the pictures you can see better detail.

The kids each sewed a stuffy as well.  Bean made his own pattern for a fish which he wants me to put into a tutorial, so I will try to get that together as well soon.  You can see his fish in this picture along with some of the other things we made.  The fuzzy things are dust cloths.  You can see here that we added pupils to TREY as his blue eyes look a little spooky in the picture below!!

Moo made a TREY owl from this pattern.  It is copy righted so we emailed and asked permission to donate the owl to the fundraiser silent auction table and she said YES! Moo was very happy that she contributed and the owl went for $8.00.  Two little girls had a little bidding war over him, it was cute!  All said it was a great event but it certainly put a crimp in my holiday sewing.

Fabric Give away! One on NOW....One coming up!

There is a really sweet give away over at Retro Mummy!   Beautiful fabric is the deal of the day...Quick quick!  Go See!

Bean's fish creation!

We are sewing up a storm here for the craft fair.  It is all small tedious stuff though so I don't feel like I am getting too much done.  We are making reusable snack bags, sandwich wraps, crayon rolls, stuffies that the kids are dreaming up!  Nothing has a pattern and I am just cutting and sewing and hoping that it all works out!  I would like to try a few mug rugs too, they just seem like a great teachers gift!  I can see one on each desk with a peppermint tea in a cute mug to ward of the headaches that must threaten their everyday!  You can see I am NOT teacher material!  I don't do noise!

I do do fabric though!  And the sound of the machine is sweet.  But I have a task to do, and that involves the fabric that I received from a dear friend. I have to sort it out because the snow is starting to settle in here and I have to park my car in my garage for the winter months or it will refuse to start in the morning!  My 30th post is coming up soon and I am hoping that I can do a give away.  A lot of the fabric is small pieces (Hazel was a quilter!) so I am sure there will be some scrap bags.  It is not designer fabric, but a good lot of it is certainly vintage!  Hazel is 86 (or so!).  It is all very clean and neatly folded, or it was until I tried to sort it all out! There is also a fair bit of fabric that is not quilt fabric, I think it is more clothing type fabric.  Is anyone interested in a grab bag of surprise fabric?  There are some pretty laces and a stunning silver sparkly type piece and of course florals and well really just a whole variety of things! Does anyone make quilts for the Alzheimer's Society that need multiple textures and types?  Anyone have little girls to sew costumes or play things for? There is definitely lots to share?  Anyone sew for charity?  It would really be a delight if some of the fabric that Hazel has given would go into a piece made for a good cause.

I'd love to hear from you any ideas of what you would like to see in the give away...the aspect of variety is definitely covered!

 This was my first sort of the fabric onto tarps in the garage. Some of the piles are 18" high at least. The yellow recycling bin holds a bag of tiny, tiny pieces!

 This is the pile of random craft projects and UFO'S all individually bagged. There is even a bag of smocking pieces.

This is a bin with vintage patterns and small pieces of baby printed flannel and a few others like that shiny purple one!

 Thanks for stopping by!

Another Go Give Away and the Mistletoe Make and Bake Blog Hop!!

Just wanted everyone to know that there is another GO! give away over at Simply Solids Blog.  Thanks to Lucky Duck Dreams for the heads up on that one!

There is also a very neat Blog Hop happening!  The Mistletoe Make and Bake 2010 Blog Hop Started today!  It looks like it should be a great week for Christmas treats!  Thanks to Paulette for the invitation to share in this one! This list is copied and pasted...I am not that great with making such snazzy posts just yet!  As you can see I can't get blogger to "un-highlight my first" lines!  It started typing in red and I didn't know how to fix it so I accidentally highlighted it and now, well I can't get it off!  Yep, still learnin'!

November 15th-20th, 2010

Here is the line-up~

November 15th

Sherri K. Falls of This and That Patterns 

November 16th

Heidi Kaisand of Chicks & Hen

Monique Dillard of Open Gate Blog

November 17th

Celine Perkins of Perkin's Dry Goods

Patrick Lose of The Latest News from Patrick Lose

Kelly Ann Richardson of Kelly Ann's Quilting

November 18th

Lissa Alexander of Moda Lissa

Julie Stewart of Quilts 4 Julie

November 19th

Roseann Kermes of Rosebud's Cottage

Brenda Riddle of Little Acorns

November 20th

Vickie Eapen of Spun Sugar Quilts

Melisa Morrison of Sweet Home Quilt Co.

November 21st

On the seventh day, we’ll rest. And eat cookies!

 So mark your calendar and get ready for a fun week filled with cookie bliss, wonderful projects and awesome prizes!!

Hope you all had a great Monday!

Gotta catch up!!

Hi there!
Again time goes by so quickly!  This week and a bit has been crazy like the rest.  Kids and Hubby have been sick, my son....the one with the cast on his hand...was sewing his dog beds for the humane society (we stuff them with fabric scraps from sewing!) and he sewed through his finger!  Right through! A finger on the hand that is in the cast none the less!  Then two days later just as we had gotten the puncture all doctored up he got hit with a ball at school and bent the pinkie finger on that "cast hand" back!  It was really swollen in the finger and down into the knuckle which was inside the cast so the pressure was painful as well.  It took me a while to decide whether I wanted it x-rayed or not.  I hoped it wasn't a broken finger or dislocated knuckle, so we waited over night and the swelling went down considerably, but the pain is still there.  He can move it today though so I hope that things are settling.  He has had so many x-rays lately I really didn't want more for another break on the same hand!

In the mean time we did get some sewing done!  I have been asked to co-ordinate a craft fair for the school playground fund-raising event so I made several snack bags and sandwich bags.  I also hope to get some baby burp cloths done and maybe a ball or two.  I would love to make aprons and mug rugs and so many more things too but as we all know time goes so fast and I do have to sew my Christmas presents up too!  I have decided that I can't do it all.  I will do what I can.

I did finish Beans sweater:

I also found these at the thrift store:

These sweaters are for felted wool mittens I hope to make for the craft fair (if time allows) if not the mitts will make great Christmas gifts as well.

I also picked up this jar at the thrift store to keep my laundry soap in.  I am trying to make the shelf look less cluttered and more pretty.  I hope that encourages more laundry doing!!!  In any case the jar is beautiful!

Here is a peak at what we are up to and will discuss in my next post:

This is Bean's first pattern creation! I had to entice him back to the machine after he sewed through his finger!  So I helped him come up with something he wants to sew...and that....was a fish!  He so needs to grow up to be a marine biologist!

Well, back to the sewing room for me, hope you all have a great day!

Time Management and another Give Away!

All week I had so many things I wanted to say, but again...it was one of those weeks were things don't go as planned.  I am wondering if there is a message in all of this some where?

I did manage to finish Bean's Christmas present, which I will try to post a picture of tomorrow. It is from the Fall 2010 Stitch Magazine. (Then I will have to tell the small people NO PEEKING at Mamma's blog until after Christmas!)

I also managed to score well at the thrift store this week and got a few sweaters to felt for some mitten projects Moo and I have been working on from here. It is so great to be able to teach them that presents don't have to be the newest gadget on TV...they can be made with love by your own crafty little hands!

However, speaking of gadgets....there is another GO! give away at Lavender Ridge.  I would really like a GO!  but so does everyone else in quilt blog land!!!  I am not dismayed though because visiting all these sites has really given me a great opportunity to see new ideas and meet great new people so all is not lost!  I have been visiting so many peoples' sites though my sewing machine is getting lonely and I have not had time to put together a proper post!

Our Costumes!

I know this is late but my children are wondering if I posted their Halloween costumes on my blog so I better do it before they wake up and ask again!

So here they are, I forgot to take pictures before we left! ( I always do that!)  Moo is a princess, I made this dress for her in the spring for a Masquerade Ball birthday party she was invited to. Well she really didn't have a thing to wear!  So, I made this little number!  What a leap from quilts to clothing!  Let's just say I forgot to start small!   

Bean is a Lolli Pop,  we blew up a GIANT balloon and paper mached for days!! (3 exactly!) of course he is in a cast that can't get wet so guess who got all gluey and wet!  Yep, me and Moo!  He held the balloon still while we worked though.

This is the dress in the spring, I think you can see the details better (except the sleeves) without the extra layers for frost protection!!

This was what Moo wore to the Halloween Party Saturday night!  I didn't make this one.

It is sure a stretch from princess to this! She is such a shy girl and I guess that she can play vampire on Halloween when the rest of the year she is so the opposite!

None of Beans friends had a party this year so he only needed one costume. WHEW!!!  He has such a great imagination, I don't think I could have made another brilliant idea in the time frame I had!!!

That is it for now, Happy November!!!

A Night Out!

Well, I did no sewing tonight BUT, I did have a really good reason!  My wonderful Hubby decided we were long over due for a date!  He bought concert tickets, he called my sister to babysit, he made dinner, and he took me out to a great Johnny Reid concert! What a great show and it was even better because Hubby took the time to make all of the arrangements.  I am grateful to have such a great Hubby...and now I must go to bed before I turn into a pumpkin!  I don't want to be a cranky wife to such a great Hubby.......