Babies coming...

Two of my AmeriCorps *NCCC team members announced that they were pregnant a little while ago. First is Jodi who announced she was having a baby boy, he is due February 29. Next was Anna who is evening out the boy/girl ratio with a baby girl due three weeks later in March. 

What better reason to get busy sewing and make some baby quilts! I chose the Baby Lattice Quilt by Amy Smart through the Moda Bake Shop using Lily and Will and Lily & Will II. I did not take many in progress pictures but I was really happy with how they came out.

Before quilting:

After quilting and binding:

A closer look at the binding and the back fabric:

After quilting and binding:

Another look at the top:

A closer look at the binding and back fabric:

Hopefully these will keep the new babies comfortable and warm.

Throw the bean bag...

Recently my Mother saw the bean bags at her library and decided to to try cleaning them. When you think about it bean bags at the library can be a little disgusting after hundreds of storytimes. She took them apart, discovered rice inside, cleaned the fabric then put them back together. Katie was very excited to have the bean bags around. I had been meaning to make some bean bags for awhile but never gotten around to it. Well the cleaning of the library bean bags was motivation. We went to the fabric store looked for some fabric, we found a remnant of a very Katie fabric. It is an outdoor canvas and very heavy duty.

My Mom cut the fabric, sewed bags then filled them with rice.

Katie really likes her bean bags, she throws them around and dances with them. Olive likes them too.

Happy Birthday Katie! Part 2

After returning from Disneyland it was Katie's birthday. I did not plan a big party this year because of our trip so the plan was for a small party at home and to invite Grandma, Papa and Uncle. There were still streamers, balloons and helium from last years party so I brought those out and decorated. Katie really liked the balloons.

Katie had a small pile of gifts and one large one that she was really interested in.

When she finally got to unwrap it, she was thrilled that it was a kitchen from Grandma and Papa. (Mama and Grandma had frantically put it together while she took her nap)

I got her a pink fluffy dress up skirt which she really likes and would never take off if I would let her.

Next came the cake. Katie had debated between pink inside, brown on the outside and pink sprinkles or brown inside pink outside with pink sprinkles. Finally option two won. I consulted with the Food Librarian and went with the Devil's Food Cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours and a  butter cream frosting dyed pink.

She was very happy with her cake.

After the cake it was back to her kitchen

Happy Birthday Katie! Part 1

My little girl turned three this week, hard to believe she is already three! To celebrate we went to Disneyland for three days, this was her first trip.

The first ride we went on was the carousel.

Of course we got a pink mickey hat with her name on the back.

We checked out the huge tree.

And of course the castle, this was what Katie was looking forward to the most.

Katie got two buttons, one for her birthday and on for her first visit.

On our second day we were finally able to get on Its A Small World which Katie really liked.

We visited Tinkerbell's Fairy Woods.

Katie stole my sunglasses.

We went to Minnie's Character breakfast, Chip and Dale, Eeyore and Rafiki all tried to talk to Katie but there was only one character she was excited to see...

Luckily Katie did not get swept up in the princess over load, she did get a pink princess pen but she also got a baby Minnie.

And the highlight of the trip was getting a balloon with a flashing led light inside.

On our last day Katie's cold was really wearing her down so we did not stay too long but we did ride Pirates (no fear from Katie) and the steam boat.

It was a great trip, I did not think about it being one of the busiest weeks of the year at Disneyland but we managed the crowds fairly well. 

Spiders

As you might remember I made Katie some bright napkins a little while ago. They have been very successful, she loves using them. They also cut down on our paper towel usage which I also wanted to do. On a trip to the local quilt store I let Katie pick one yard of any fabric she wanted to make more napkins. We looked at the pinks, watermelon prints, cherry prints and all sorts of colorful fabrics. Suddenly she saw the Halloween fabrics at the front of the store, she saw spiders and we looked no further.

Katie has a great love of spiders, people keep thinking she will be afraid of them but she likes them. She has been given several plastic spiders which she really enjoys, so I was not too surprised she chose the spider fabric.

Like before I cut squares but then I zigzag stitched the edges.

Katie likes using her spider napkins which makes us both happy.