Creativity With Corinna

Bibs for Thadeus!

2009-03-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a whole month and a half since I've seen these people. :o(

But soon, very soon I'll be seeing them again.

And of course I can't come without gifts. What kind of auntie would I be? :oP

So I made some bibs.

Thadeus drools....alot! (See the picture of him with the monkey)

So I'm sure these cute bibs will come in handy.

See you soon Thadeus!

I had to move some of these photos around because they didn't upload in the right order. I apologize if you can't enlarge them.

Don't worry kiddos, spring's coming...eventually!

2009-03-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

I just had to show this picture I took in early February. SB and GH are looking longingly in the side of the summer toy bin. They haven't played with those toys since Oct/Nov.

Sadly there's just as much snow on the bin now as there was in Feb. *sigh* I know spring is coming any day now but it sure is taking its time! I guess there's not too much I can do about it is there?

Oh well!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

My Knitting donations

2009-03-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

I've finally taken pictures of all my knitting so that I can show everyone! I stumbled across a blog that was taking donations of knitted items to give to orphans in Botswana. Apparently it gets a little chilly there in the winter. Who knew!

I managed to get six hats, one scarf, and two pairs of booties finished. I didn't realize how long it would take to get them to the collection place in the states though and now I'm not sure they'll get there in time to go with the rest of the items to Botswana. I'm sure they'll be put to go use somewhere though.

These three are chunky beanies. The white one is new born size.

This scarf and hat set are teenager/adult size. I did it scarf with my own made up pattern. About 12 rows of garter stitch and then 3 and a half inches of seed stitch. It's four feet long.

This is a pixie hat with booties. About 4-6 mths size although the hat nearly fit my 22 mth old daycare girl.

And lastly another hat and bootie set. The pom pom turned out a bit bigger than I would have liked. lol

So next I'd like to knit a couple hats for myself. I just have to order the yarn and then wait for it to come.....I'm still waiting for my double pointed needles that I ordered nearly two weeks ago. Can't wait until they come!

The sewing machine got turned on!

2009-03-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

I finished Thadeus' bumper pads in time to take them with me on my visit to the Big City a few weeks ago. They'll fit better once the mattress is lowered I think. Over all I was pretty pleased with my first attempt at bumper pads. :o)
Yesterday I whipped these up at nap time. My cousin Charlene, her husband, and their two children were coming through town for a quick visit. I'd never met their youngest, who's one and a half, and I kinda missed the boat on a baby gift for her when she was born.

So using some seersucker fabric I got for a dollar or two at a garage sale I made a sundress and a pair of shorts. I dressed up a shirt to go with the set and Voila! a couple lovely summer outfits.
I've had those buttons for years and finally found the perfect use for them!

Then I decided to make something for their oldest. I had this extra shirt left over from the daycare Christmas gifts so I made him a tie shirt. Nice and simple. :o) Too bad the picture is so bad. The tie is made out of a dark green plaid.

To top it all off I threw a couple books in the bag to keep them busy on the long drive back home. I love being able to throw together a gift like that from things I have around the house. I didn't have to go out and buy a single thing - not even the books because I have a whole rubbermaid container of books to give away as gifts. :o)

Nope, Nope, Nope...

2009-02-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

I haven't forgotten about this blog. :o) I just haven't been up to too much on the creativity front that's all.

I've been knitting and have 4 hats made and half a scarf but no pictures of them yet.

So instead here's a four generation picture of my family taken at Christmas.

Dad, Grandpa holding Thadeus, and my brother.

How to dress for a Canadian winter

2009-02-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

This is how we dress for the outdoors here. You need a winter jacket, ski pants and winter boots. Mittens, wristwarmers, two scarves, a toque, and a "neck warmer" (which I had to put on her head because her toque didn't cover her forehead lol)
As a result of all that you get a one year old who has a blast outside even in the -15C weather (that's pretty warm for us) and she did NOT want to quit when her mom came to pick her up. :o)

Today it got above freezing even! Very warm! I could get used to that but I'm sure it'll be back to -40 again at least once before spring.

Ya mean you're supposed to update a blog? :oP Sorry it's been so long!

2009-02-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

Well I haven't been up to too much the last 10 days it seems.
I did make some bean bags for a friends 3 yr old son's birthday though.
These are so cute! I've had a few people ask if I'd sell them. I'm not sure if I want to get into that or not.

This time I made a bag for him to hold them in.

Last saturday (Jan 31) I got together with the quilting club ladies to make quilts for our local Crisis Centre. The Crisis Centre is a temporary home for women and their children who are escaping abusive situations. They often come with nothing but the clothes on their backs so a nice cosy comfort quilt brings a little happiness to the children.

We've done this for three years in a row now. This year we're using fabric that I found at a garage sale. A lady was selling 4 boxes (BIG boxes!) of flannel squares. It was nearing the end of her sale so as I was paying for the other stuff I'd bought I mentioned that if she wanted to get rid of the squares she could donate them to the quilting club and we'd use them to make comfort quilts. The nice lady thought that was a great idea and let me have the boxes on the spot! Very generous!

Here's all the squares all layed out on the tables.

No pictures of the finished quilts yet. We'll get together in a couple weeks and take a picture or two I'm sure. We still have a whole box left so we're talking about doing another saturday in March. Should be fun!

Other than all that, I've been knitting. I've moved on from dishclothes to hats! Imagine that - progress! lol No pictures of them yet but I do have to say they're pretty darn cute. :o)

A knittin' fool!

2009-01-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd show everyone the knitting I've been doing. Just dishcloths but I think they're pretty nice. :o)

This nice purple woven looking one is for mom.

The following pictures are the ones I made for mom's co-worker. When she heard I was knitting dishcloths she offered to pay me to make her some.

This one's huge. 10"x10"

And a sun! Just what we need to see on these cold winter days. :o)

So.....now what should I knit????

Update on the sewing or lack thereof

2009-01-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Okay so since I started knitting my sewing/quilting time hasn't been happening.

I have finished a couple projects in the last couple weeks though.

A friend gave me a bunch of fabric that her boss was giving away. It's mostly garment fabric but there was a large piece of quilted material. So I used that to make a carrying bag for my cutting board and rulers to take to quilting club nights. It's not the prettiest thing but it'll do the job!

There was some left so I made a pillow for the cats to lay on.

PJ's giving me a dirty look for disturbing her while she's on her new favorite sleeping spot. lol

To stuff it I used all the bits and scraps that were too small to do anything else with. Most of it fit in the pillow.

And that's all folks! Nothing too exciting. I really need to get Thadeus' bumper pads done. I hope I find my sewing mojo soon!

Whirl Into Winter Giveaway Winners!

2009-01-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

The winners have been picked and they are:
1.) Janice
2.) Peggy

Congratulations ladies! I'm sorry that not everyone could win but I don't think I'm up to making 120 crayon rolls! lol
I wonder if Debi has a giveaway for the spring up her sleeve? hmmmm

This is for you Myra!

2009-01-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

Myra was showing pictures of her in ringlets as a child. She was wondering if anyone else ever had ringlets.

Yeah, I had ringlets. Ringlets that facinated the other girls. They all wondered how it was done.

Here I am at about 3 or 4....probably 3. Yep, sportin' the ringlets.

Here I am in Kindergarten. Ringlets are getting longer. I was sick this day so mom took me in to school to get my picture taken and then we went back home. Hence the green tinge and the lack of smile. Oh and mom made that dress for me. Probably while she was pregnant with #3.

And here I am in grade two. Look at those ringlets!!! Wow are they ever long. lol I think this might have been the last year I let mom do the ringlets for picture day.

Ahh the memories...of going to bed with the hair up in the foam rollers and trying to sleep with a lumpy head. And then mom taking them out the next morning, trying not to pull my hair. Good times, good times. :o)

Oh and the other 364 days a year? I wore braids, braids and more braids. I didn't start wearing my hair down until grade 6 or 7.

Ahh, that's better!

2009-01-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

Lookie, lookie! Eyelets all the way around! The nice ladies on the Knit and Chat forum suggested a different pattern with the decreases on the beginning of each row, not at the beginning and end like the other pattern. And the results are much better! This one is about three inches square - for the kids to "wash" their dishes in the playroom. It's already been put to good use. :o) Thanks for the help everyone!

Something's not right here.

2009-01-11T21:13:00.001-08:00

See how the holes aren't showing up properly on the bottom and right side of my dishcloth? Yeah, no idea what I'm doing wrong. I'm following the instructions right...I think. Maybe the ladies at the Knit & Chat forum can help me. I hope, I hope!

Oh I could just cry! Whhhaaaaa!!!

2009-01-08T20:12:00.000-08:00

In preparing what to put in this post I realized that I'd deleted ALL of my Christmas '08 pictures on New Years Eve. *sob* I hadn't taken many but there was a great one of Grandpa, my brother Jody, and Thadeus. And another one of my sister holding Thadeus. And they're GONE! I thought I'd put them on the computer but I guess I didn't cause they ain't here no more!
We needed more room on the camera to take pictures of this....

and this.....

I had 9 yr old Logan (former daycare boy) and 8 yr old (current daycare girl) Shaylin over for a New Years party. Ohhh what fun we had! We baked bread, ate large amounts of junk food, watched the new Narnia movie, and exploded pepsi.....alllll over the wall and the ceiling. I didn't realize that semi frozen pepsi turns into a rocket when you try to open it! The kids and I were covered in Pepsi as well. We all had a good laugh over that as we cleaned it up. :o) No harm done except the calender was ruined - good thing it was the last day of the year!

Logan's older brother Tyler (12) joined us at a bit before 2 am (he had his own teenager party to go to first) and then we stayed up a little longer before finally falling asleep. I took them back home at noon New Years day. We had alot of fun that night and I'm sure the kids won't forget about the exploding Pepsi for a long time to come!

I also want to show some of what I've been up to lately in the crafty department.
I got some knitting needles that I'd asked for for Christmas and I started knitting these. I did the pink one first, then the orange and then the blue/green one. It was nice to see progress being made as each one got a bit better.

I haven't knitted since the summer I was 13 and I was amazed at how quickly I picked it back up. I still have sooo much to learn yet though.

I also finished my matryoshka dolls. I clipped and clipped and clipped those darn seams before I turned them and the edges still look lumpy! But they're cute anyways. I actually made a smaller one that was about two inches high but it seems to be MIA. I'm blaming the cats on that one. It may show up one day. I sure hope so. It was the cutest one. :o)

They're just the right size to stick in a little girls pocket. Awwww.

Free pattern can be found on this blog HERE.

And that's all folks! Maybe I'll get more done this weekend - you never know!

Whirl into Winter Giveaway

2009-01-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

I think winter whirled in here quite a while ago but now it's time for the Whirl into Winter giveaway hosted by Debi!
My giveaway is going to be a crayon roll...which is yet to be made. It will hold a dozen crayons and will be trimmed with ric rac. I may make two and give them both away - we'll see!
So leave a comment here, telling me what your favorite winter sport is, sometime by the 15th of January and I'll do the drawing sometime that day.
Oh and don't forget to click on the snowflake on the right of the blog to enter in all the other 60+ giveaways!
As soon as I get the prize made I'll be posting pictures. :o)

ETA: They're finished! I even found some cute coloring books to go with them.
1st place winner will get first pick and 2nd place winner will get the other one. Good luck!

And the winners are.....(drumroll).....Janice and Peggy! Congratulations ladies!

Christmas Crafts

2008-12-27T09:01:00.000-08:00

While cleaning up from the daycare party I noticed that a few of the kids had left the shirt boxes behind. They had such nice Christmas pictures on them that I couldn't just throw them out. So our Monday morning craft was making puzzles out of the leftover box tops. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

I also started an ornament for mom's stocking Monday night. They have such a colorful tree that this one fits in nicely. I found the free pattern at www.abyquilt.blogspot.com

And I can't believe it but that was the only handmade gift I gave to any family member this year! I think I spent too much time on the daycare gift to even think of making anything else. Everyone seemed to like their storebought gifts anyways. ;o)

My brothers, sisterinlaw, sister and nephew (who's two months old now!) are here until monday so I plan on getting some more visiting in before they all go back to the big city and things return to normal here. I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Daycare Christmas Party

2008-12-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

There has been a whirlwind of activity around here lately but things are starting to calm down now so I finally have time to blog!

On the 21st, a sunday, we had the daycare Christmas party. I kept it short and sweet this year. First we had a snow ball fight. I saw the idea for the snowballs online and figured out how to make them myself. They'll stay here at daycare for future indoor snowball fights. :o)

After the snow was all cleaned up the kids opened the books I'd given them. Everyone got a different Usborne book. Next year I won't be selling Usborne so I think I'll put the kids in different age/sex groups and buy multiple copies of the same book from Scholastic or Amazon. That might make picking the books out easier on me.

Then we opened the shirts I'd made them. They were a hit!

The buttons are all the same even though it doesn't look like it.

The girls got the snowmen, with the melting snowmen on the back, and the boys got tie shirts. I wanted to get pictures of all the shirts together before I wrapped them but in true Corinna fashion I was sewing the last few buttons on the snowmen when the first family walked in the door! With all the part timers I have I made 4 snowmen shirts and 5 tie shirts. I had one girl who couldn't attend so I left her shirt undone and I'll finish it next week maybe.

There were still a few kids that hadn't arrived yet (an hour late!!) so we did the pinata. I didn't get a picture of it but we had to take it down and rip it apart with our hands before we could get it open. lol I guess I did too many layers of paper mache!

When the last kids arrived we finally got to the kids gift exchange. They give each other toys to make up for the fact that I gave them books and clothes! :oP After playing with the toys and a few group pictures, which didnt' turn out well, everybody went home and Corinna spent the evening recooperating and cleaning up.

Quilt Hanger

2008-12-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

Way back in September, in my second post, I mentioned that I had ordered some quilt hangers online. Well they took about a month or so to arrive because they are custom made. And then it took me until last Sunday to put one up! I'm not sure what I was waiting for because it looks great. I'm really pleased with it.
Displayed here is the quilt I made two years ago....I think it was....or maybe it was last year. hmmm Nope pretty sure it was two years ago. Anyways, it was a mystery quilt on QuiltingPassion.com and I turned it into an advent calender. Each day the kids take a turn picking out an ornament to hang as we count down to Christmas. This picture was taking on Sunday....really there's only 8 more days until Christmas!!!!!

I've got the boys Christmas gift shirts finished and I'm working on the girls now. I'm also tossing around the idea of making a pinata for the party and kitchen towels for the parents. We'll see if I have time!

Gingerbread House Party!

2008-12-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

This morning the daycare kids and I invited two of my friends and their kids over for a gingerbread house making party. And then I had an extra daycare girl here because her school was closed due to buses not running because of the cold. -50F with the windchill or something crazy like that. lol I'm not going outside to see if it's true or not.

Here are the houses we came up with. Our little friends had already taken theirs home so I didn't get pictures of theirs.

We also read the story of the gingerbread man and danced and marched to music while we were waiting for the icing to dry. The kids all had fun ...and the adults did too! lol

Emily's quilt and Sara's wallhanging

2008-12-15T11:28:00.000-08:00

Here's the pictures of Emily's quilt. Nice soft colors and a nice soft batting. :o) Quilted with an allover loopy meander.
The back was a nice purple with clouds.And here's the wall haning I made for my sister Sara's small apartment. This will be her first Christmas where she has her own place to decorate. I hope she likes it!

The back with a label sewn right in the backing.

The Weekend's here again!

2008-12-12T17:34:00.000-08:00

I was going to post about Emily's quilt on Thursday so that it would be a surprise for her mommy when they got it in the mail (she reads my blog), but then I forgot. And when I went to put the pictures on my computer today the batteries in my camera were dead! So once they're charged by tomorrow I'll post those pictures. :o)
I used cotton/bamboo batting on Em's quilt and it turned out lovely and so soft. That batting has excellent drape for sure and I do believe I'll have to get some more next time I go down to Winnipeg. I have enough left to do the quilt for S, my daycare girl. Her quilt is cut out, maybe I'll actually get at it one of these days!
I will also be posting about a Christmas wallhanging I made for my sister to hang in her little apartment. I wanted to mail it out this week but it just didn't work for me to get to the post office on time. I wish they would stay open until 5:30 or 6 just ONE night of the week! It would make my life alot easier.

This weekends plans include making bread, making gingerbread house parts and working on the daycare kids appliqued shirts for Christmas. Our party is going to be on the 21st so I've got just over a week to finish them (and I haven't even started yet! lol)
This cold weather just makes me want to sleep though. It's gotten to below -30C which is -24F several times this week. Too cold for me! Perhaps I'll put on my slippers and get my fusible stuff out and get at them tonight.

Nearly finished!

2008-12-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I managed to finish everything on my list except Emily's quilt! I even wore my new pjs to bed last night. ;o) I'll post pictures later on...maybe tomorrow.
And now to tackle Emily's quilt!

Another finish and a weekend to do list

2008-12-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

Here's our oreo penguins! The kids and I have studied penguins all week and this was our craft/snack today. Aren't they just darling?

It only took 40 mins to make the apron for my daycare girl who turns 5 tomorrow! For some reason I thought it would take longer. huh. Anyways she liked the apron and was willing to model it for me. :o)

See....a yellow apron - just like she asked for! And I got to use up some yellow that's been in my stash for a while now. It's very nice looking but every time I tried to put it in a quilt there was nothing that would go with it. It must have known it was meant to be an apron all along.

I made it a double layer for extra durability.

I put ties on the neck as well as the waist so that it's completely adjustable. The neck ties are a bit long. ;o)

So...there's another thing to cross off the list! This afternoon I sat down and made a somewhat ambitious weekend to-do list.

1.) ~~Mend Denise's pillow~~ Finished it while the kids were sleeping.

2.)Finish client's pj pants

3.)Finish my pj pants

4.)Quilt and bind Emily's quilt

5.)Let out Tyler's dress pants (Tyler is a former daycare child. These pants were too long on him in June and now they're way to short. He's 12 yrs old and 5' 10 1/2"!!!!!)

6.)Add some fabric to the bottom of one of GH's pj tops to lengthen it. (Not one of the one's I made him)

There you have it folks! We'll see how much I actually get done. Oh and I also have to do lovely things like house cleaning as well. bah humbug

One down....

2008-12-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

I just finished the bean bags for my daycare boy who's turning three. I'll give them to him tomorrow. I hope he likes them!

And now I'm going to bed!

Operation Christmas Child

2008-12-02T11:24:00.001-08:00

I forgot to mention this yesterday. Every year the daycare children and I work on making boxes for Operation Christmas child. This year one of the girl boxes had room in it still after we'd put everything we had in. So I decided we should make a pair of pants to add to it.

My nearly 5 yr old daycare girl looked through my fabric and patterns and decided maybe we should make a skirt instead. AE picked out the fabric but she chose some thin polycotton that was too see-thru so I decided to sew a lining in it.

Well.... that soon turned into trying to figure out how to make a reversible skirt that would look good worn either way. The result turned out really well. It's a size 4 skirt modeled by a 2 yr old which is why it looks so big on her. I can totally see myself making more of these in the future.

This bread here.....

is the result of today's activities. A few weeks ago I discovered that I could in fact, make my own bread. And it wasn't even that scary. :oP We made bread with mom alot growing up but as teens making bread became Jody's thing (aka Thadeus' daddy). I do declare that I shall never buy bread again. Seriously people, home made bread is a bazillion times better than the store bought stuff! This time I used a recipe I found online here.

292 people left reviews and nearly everyone gave it 5 out of 5 stars - and they weren't wrong! It's totally a 5 star bread. :o) I just need to work on my loaf shaping skills. The middle loaf was way smaller than the other ones. And the third one was a little lumpy on one side.

One trick that worked well was to brush them with melted butter after they come out of the oven so that the crust doesn't get too hard. That's why they look so glossy in the picture. I can't wait until the kids wake up from their naps to have some.

Opps it's been a while eh?

2008-12-01T12:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long gap between posts! It was a crazy week last week and a busy weekend as well.

I managed to cross G's pajama's off my October list. lol Somehow they kept getting dropped down the list. But now they're done and he's quite pleased with them as you can see.

I shortened the pants and lenghtened the top on the second pair.

On Saturday the family got together to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's 65th wedding anniversary! Wow, eh? That's alot of years! :o) In those years they've had 7 children, 26 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. (Thadeus was #13)

Here's the cake. I was so busy visiting I didn't even take a piece....well that and there were so many other goodies to choose from. ;o)

After the come and go tea at the personal care home where grandpa lives we went out to supper. Our family took up most of the restaurant and we enjoyed a good meal together. I got to see some cousins I hadn't seen for a while so that was very nice.

On Sunday after the cousins who stayed here left I did absolutely nothing. Wasted the whole day really. :o( Oh well it was nice to relax and take it easy.

I'd better buckle down this week though. I've got four daycare kids with birthdays on the 5,6,8, and 10th of this month. I have to make an apron and some bean bags for two of them. I have no idea what to get/make for the two others. They're both girls. One turns 8 and one turns 7. I'd make aprons....but that's what I made them for Christmas last year. lol

I also need to have a pair of pajama pants finished for a client from my weekend job. He's a 19yr old with FAS and I've drawn his name for our gift exchange. He says camoflage pj pants would be the best so that's what he's getting! I've got the flannel washed and that's it.

I have a quilt top made for my cousin's little girl who was here this weekend. I planned on having it finished for them to take back home with them but I ran out of steam. So I'll need to get that finished this week as well....hopefully....maybe.
I also have to figure out a date for our daycare christmas party. And get the gifts done for that. I think I may wait until next weekend to work on that.

I'd better get at it!

He's alive....somehow!

2008-11-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

Last night, around 12 my brother Mike was getting off work. On his way home he hit a patch of ice and rolled his car into the ditch. God must have been watching over him because his only injuries are a bruised thumb and knee and a sore shoulder where the seat belt was.
This is the drivers side door. The glass was smashed on the drivers side. He had to climb out the rear passenger door.

This picture was taken from the road. I couldn't believe how far into the ditch he went!

In this one you can see the path he took into the ditch. He must have rolled more than once.

The back hatch was open and his stuff was scattered all over the ditch. If he hadn't been wearing his seatbelt he might have been scattered all over too!

And yes, I made sure to hug him when I saw him today. :,o)

Happy Birthday To Me!

2008-11-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Yep that's right folks, it's my birthday today! I'm a whole 28 years old now. Gosh, when did that happen?

To celebrate I thought I'd better get around to posting the fall giveaway prizes I won.

First I won a Amy Butler fat quarter pack from Danetta. Wow! Looooovvvvve it!

In fact, I loved it so much I decided to use some to make myself a tote bag for when I went to the big city. :o)

Then I won this from Lavinia. A huge pincushion, a scissor holder designed by Lynette Anderson, a fat quarter pack, and some wooden buttons! There was also a lovely note book that got missed when this picture was taken. Just call me spoiled! Oh, and didn't I feel special picking up a package from Argentina (where Lavinia lives)!

Soon it will be time for the Whirl into Winter Giveaway. I wonder if I'll be lucky again? :o)

Happy 29th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

2008-11-17T19:42:00.000-08:00

My wonderful parents have been married for 29 years as of today! I think dad said something about fixing his truck together to celebrate. Pretty sure he was joking! He's not quite that red neck.
This isn't a great picture of them but it's the best one I have. They're a little haggard looking from traveling to see their new grandson. And actually I didn't even take it. I stole it off my sister in laws facebook page. :o)
Anyone have suggestions on how to help them celebrate 30 years next year?

To the big city and back and all the clothes

2008-11-12T19:40:00.000-08:00

Here are the promised pictures of all the clothes I made for Thadeus. I had a great weekend with Thady and his mommy and daddy. It was a bit crazy getting there though. It normally takes about 5 hrs but I turned it into 8 because the roads were sooo bad. Ugh. My brother Mike came with me but he didn't drive so he wasn't much help! We ended up stuck behind an accident for a hour. Lots of the time we had to go 30-40 km/h because the roads were covered in layers of ice. Not fun! Oh and I nearly hit a deer a couple times. No it wasn't the same deer! lol Finally we made it there around 2 am. We stayed up visiting and didn't get to bed until 4am. :oP
This is a taggie ball made with fleece and ribbons. I also put a bell inside.

Booties!

A monkey shirt. I appliqued it on a onsie. This picture shows the monkey better and then next one shows Thadeus better so I had to post them both. :o)

Pants I made while I was visiting. The strippy ones didn't turn out as planned. I made a mistake on the pattern because I was just looking at the picture and not reading the instructions. *sigh* The green pair turned out much better.

Pants that match the booties. 0-3 mths and 3-6 mths. Neither pair fits him yet. All the patterns seem to run a bit big. Well more than a bit. Apparently that's a common problem with baby patterns. But he'll fit them before too long!

Awww....here he is in a sleeper I bought him, lying on the quilt I made him.

And here's auntie Corinna holding him after church. He's wearing the 0-3 mths tie shirt I made him that morning. Basically cut out a tie shape and applique it onto a shirt. He was quite the hit with the ladies at church!

Huh. These are in a weird order...the next to pics show close ups of the pants. I made fake pockets to jazz them up a bit.

A sleeper sack, a blanket, and a hat. This time the hat fit!

Bibs made with leftover scraps and backed with terry cloth.

This jacket should fit Thadeus next spring.

This is another sleeper sack, pants and two hats. These hats are way too huge for him!

I love these! They're 3-6 mths so it'll be a while before they fit.

And that's pretty much it I think. There were a couple of other sleepers that I bought but never got a picture. As far as patterns I used, they were mostly Simplicity and McCalls. I bought them over 10 yrs ago so I don't think they're around anymore.

The drive home was much less eventful and the roads were great, thankfully.

Now maybe I can get back to quilting! Not that I didn't enjoy sewing baby clothes it's just that I have a daycare girl who's been waiting since Sept to get her napping quilt. Right now she's using ...*gasp* a plain ol' blanket!

Baby Clothes!

2008-11-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who congratulated my family on the birth of Thadeus! I'm still on cloud nine and I can't wait until the weekend to see him. :o)

I've been sewing up a storm only it hasn't been quilting at all. I've been making baby clothes! I used to make baby clothes when I was a teenager with the thought of selling them. Like most of my get rich schemes, that plan failed. But I still have all of my baby clothes patterns.

So far I've made: a 6mths jacket, 6mths sleeper, 12 mths pants, swaddling blanket, and two hats.

I also have cut out a 0-3mths sleeper, 0-3mths pants, 6mths pants, and two bibs.

If I manage to get all that put together I have plans to make at least one more bib and then applique some onesies and maybe some booties.

I'd also like to make myself a totebag to take to the city. I'm not sure what design or colors I'll use yet though.

I haven't taken any pictures of the clothes I've finished yet so I'll get that done in the next couple days. And just so this isn't a picture"less" post here's my new favorite picture of Thadeus. :o)

Monkey toes!

Halloween Costumes

2008-11-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

Here's some more of the halloween costumes I made this year. I was commissioned to make the witch costume and I think it turned out nicely.

The other two "costumes" were my own bright ideas. :oP Some of my daycare kids bring their stuffed animals to daycare. Here we have "Cookie" the cat sporting the latest in fish wear. We HAD to have a ruffle "cause she's a girl cat, Corinna".

Next we have "Frosty" who's life long dream was to have a bone cape to wear out on the town. All the lady dogs will be very impressed with him I'm sure!

Thaddaeus....Thadeus

2008-10-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my sister (who got to hold the baby for 25 mins, I'm sooo jealous!) and she says they're spelling baby's name Thadeus. Jody (my brother) said this morning that "it was like the apostle in the bible" so I assumed that meant they were spelling it that way. Apparently not. lol

And now I have pictures!

This last one is my brother with his new baby. I'm sure he's just yawning here, not crying. ;o)

How to make a quilt in 24 hrs

2008-10-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

Friday 5pm - Phone call from mom to say a cousin, Tim, that I haven't seen in 4or 5 years is coming to visit. Tim has a baby girl who turns 1 in Nov.

6pm - I decide I want to make baby Jessica a quilt. Decide on a design and go check out my stash of pink

6:30pm - Start cutting random strips of pink and sew them together.

8:30pm - Decide that just plain strips are boring and think of something I could applique on one of the strips. Elephants come to mind.

9pm - Find a elephant outline on google images. Print it out and get the elephants cut out and fused on. Do a blanket stitch by machine around each elephant. There were three. Finish piecing the top.

10:50pm - Go to weekend job. (not to worry, I get to sleep there)

Saturday 9am - Leave work and go buy a backing fabric. Bring it home and wash it.

11am - Start basting. Take phone call from Mom. Realize that Tim has a step daughter who's six that came as well. Crap. Forgot about her.

12pm - Decide to make a My Little Pony tote bag for the older sister Madison

1pm - Go buy ric rac for the tote bag. Finish tote bag. It looks great.

2pm - Start quilting the quilt. Loopy meander with a flower here and there.

3:30 pm - Attach binding.

4:15 pm - Throw the quilt in the wash.

4:45 pm - Take the quilt out of the washing machine and take it to mom and dad's to dry because that's where we're having supper.

4:50pm - Realize you don't have your camera to take pictures of the quilt.

5:30 - Give the nice warm quilt to the baby. :o) And the tote bag to the sister.

5:31pm - Realize that you may just have to make a quilt for the older sister after all!

The quilt pictures were taken with Dad's camera and he was kind enough to e-mail them to me. Thanks Dad!

It's a boy!

2008-10-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

Looks like I finished the baby quilt just in the nick of time! Yes that's right I'm offically an auntie now. Thaddaeus Edward was born Sunday morning around 4 am. He's 7lbs 13oz and it sounds like it was a pretty smooth delivery. No pictures yet but I may phone my brother and see if he'll take a picture with his phone and e-mail it to me.

The quilt was finished late friday night and yesterday I took it to Mom and Dad's so they can take it to Winnipeg when they leave today. I think it turned out really well. I just did random lines across the blocks. They were supposed to be straight lines....but most of them are a little curved. lol Oh well, we'll just pretend I wanted it that way. ;o)

I must say I'm pretty excited about being an Auntie. I feel like I should go shopping for boy clothes now. lol

Another gifty

2008-10-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

I decided last night that I needed to make a gift for a little daycare girl who turned 2 in Sept. She had just started coming here when her mom unexpectantly had to take two weeks off work. Her birthday was in those two weeks so I kind of missed getting her anything.

So I wanted to make her something educational, fun and cute. Hmmm a doll? Stuffed animal? Think, think, think. Bean bags....with letters...and numbers on them! And ric-rac! Perfect!

So at 11pm I started these. I found a nice font on Word to use as a stencil. Fused everything on and then did a bit of a stitch around everything with embroidery floss just to make sure the letters stayed on...and to make it cuter. I didn't have any blue ric rac and I wanted to try the piping to see how it would look. I like it. I finished them up this afternoon while the kids were sleeping. :o) They're so cute! My poor photography doesn't do them justice. I'm going to give them to her tomorrow with a printout on activities to do with bean bags.

And now I must, MUST, MUST get that baby quilt finished! Baby's coming any day now. Ack!

Mom and Dad's 25th Anniversary

2008-10-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

Moneik has posted about the signature quilt she made for her parents 25th anniversary. I found it funny/interesting that MY parents had their 25th less than a month after hers and I also made my parents a signature quilt!

I paper pieced all the blocks, bought the special markers and then mailed them out with the instructions to all the relatives. Everyone mailed them back promptly and I finished it in time to give it to them at the party. It was a lot of work but totally worth it. It still has a place of honour on their wall nearly 4 years later. :o)

Weekend update....on a Tuesday. :oP

2008-10-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

I managed to get three and a half things crossed off my October to-do list this weekend.

First I managed to replace the weather stripping on the side door. I'd only had the new weather stripping for a year! lol It's still drafty under the door though so it looks like I'll have to do something with the threshold bumper yet.

Next I finished a puppy costume for a daycare boy (GH) to use for halloween. His mom has also commissioned me to make is sister a witch costume.

(Pictures posted with parental permission)

Isn't he so cute! :o) He liked it so much he would have kept it on all day but it was just too warm for that. I love the white tipped tail. Oh and ignore the mess of toys behind him.

Gh's 2nd birthday is on friday so I've made him a pillowcase with the fabric he picked out the last time we were at the fabric shop. He loooves tractors! I also had just enough to make him a little pillowcase to put on his napping pillow for daycare. The kids use little travel pillows for naptime here.

I also half finished the binding on the wallhanging panel I bought over a year ago. I finished it this evening. I'll hang it whenever one of the kids is having a birthday.

Then I pulled out all the summer shoes from the entrance way. No need for the lawn mowing shoes for a long time! lol Nor the soccer cleats, baseball cleats and all those sandles. Now there's lots of room for winter boots. ((shutter))
Now I have just 4 things to finish on my October to-do list.
1. Two pairs of pj's for GH (the pattern I ordered came today finally)
2. Baby quilt for my niece or nephew (need to finish that this week)
3. AH's witch costume
4. Special quilted bag to take projects in to quilting club

Only #2 and #3 HAVE to be finished this month but I'm optimistic that I can finish them all by the 31st.

2008-10-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

Holy moley, guacamole! I can't believe that someone could be this generous but Liz of Pigtails and Snails is giving away a quilt! Not just any quilt a one of a kind, designed by herself quilt! It's sooo nice so head over there and getch'yerself entered in to win.
I'm feeling lucky today because I won TWO of the fall giveaways. I never win anything! ....but you know how they say things come in threes? I'm sure my third winning will be this quilt. hehe I can always hope can't I?

We have some winners!

2008-10-15T13:24:00.001-07:00

I did the draw for my Fall Giveaway this morning. I had one of my little daycare girls pick the winner out of the over 150 entries in the halloween bowl.

1st place - a lovely tote bag and a kitchen towel - goes to Winona! Lucky you. :o)

2nd place - a kitchen towel - goes to Valerie!

I had a lot of fun with this so I just may do the Winter giveaway that Debi is planning as well. I think it'll have to be something I can make two of so I won't feel so sad giving it away. lol

Turkey Day!

2008-10-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Well folks there's just a bit more than 3 hours left of our Canadian thanksgiving and it's been a pretty good long weekend.

On friday I got this lovely thing from one of my daycare moms. :o) So nice!

Earlier in the week the kids and I made this for one of our thanksgiving crafts. They colored the leaves and then we wrote things that they were thankful for on them. My name made it on there twice. hehe Don't I have the sweetest daycare children? lol It's hanging in the narrow stairway so it's impossible to get a head-on shot.

Saturday I spent napping and not doing too much as I was feeling out of sorts. Pretty sure I was PMSing and I really wasn't fit to be in civilized company. Not to worry, I got over it. lol

Sunday after church we had thanksgiving dinner. Yummy, yummy! That evening I went out to mom and dad's for a heated Scrabble game. Mom beat dad by just a few points and I came in third because I got stuck with the Q. Normally my favorite letter seeing as it starts the word quilt. Alas it could not be used because dad was hogging the last U. lol

Today I've been puttering around. I slept in until 10! Whoot! Because of my weekend job there's only about 5 or 6 days a year where I can sleep in so I really enjoyed it.

I'm nearly finished the halloween costume for one of my daycare boys. He wants to be a puppy so his mom has commissioned me to make a puppy costume. All I have left to do is put a few white patches on the body and then it's done. I'm also making a witch costume for his older sister.

I've also cleaned out the exercise room. This involved moving the jumperoo from that room into the laundry room. I'll be glad when I can ship that off to my brother's house for his baby! None of my daycare kids are little enough for it anymore.

Oh and it snowed today. :o( But I refuse to acknowledge that with a picture. :oP

I hope everyone else enjoyed their Thanksgiving/Columbus Day!

D9P Baby Quilt

2008-10-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard yet I'm going to be an auntie at the end of the month! As the only auntie who quilts I'm in charge of making the baby quilt.

Sister in law picked out the fabric when I was in Winnipeg visiting, Sept. long weekend. She picked a plaid and a polka dot! The only thing I could think of that would work off the top of my head was a Disappearing Nine Patch. I showed her some pics online and she approved.

This is where I'm at so far. I really like it! It's only 28" by 39" though. Do D9P's usually have borders? Or should I make it bigger by adding more blocks? Hmmm Anybody?

Kitchen Towel Tutorial

2008-10-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd put together a little tutorial for those who asked how my kitchen towels were made in my Fall into Fall Giveaway.

If you need a quick gift that you can make in less than 20 minutes this could be your thing!

First get in your car and drive down to a store that sells kitchen things. Pick out a small towel with a coordinating pot holder. They often come as a set sold together.

Then drive over to your grandma's house and ~~steal~~....borrow her button collection. If you happen to have your own button collection visit your grandma anyways and give her a hug.

You'll need a button with a shank like this.

Take your towel to the ironing board and fold it in half width-wise and press the fold with the iron. This will give you a guide on where to put your gathering stitches.

Next get about 40" of thread on a sewing needle. I used my hand quilting thread but any good tread will work. If you don't double your thread 20" will be plenty.

Either knot the end off or double your tread, put the cut ends through the eye, take a stitch and then put the needle through the loop that's at the end of the thread. Clear as mud right?

All you need is to make sure your thread is secure at the side of the towel and isn't going to come out when you gather the towel. Does this picture help?

Take some stitches all the way across the towel on the fold you made.

When you reach the other side of the towel pull the thread until the towel is gathered. You can either measure your pot holder (mine was 6") or just lay it on top of the towel and make sure the towel is gathered the to same width. Once you've got it the right size make a knot in the thread, close to the towel.

Center the middle of the pot holder on the gathered part of the towel. Take it to the sewing machine and stitch down the middle of the pot holder and towel. Back stitch at the beginning and end.

Snip your threads. If your gathered stitches show pull them out. They shouldn't show unless you used that bright pink thread you've been saving for something special. ;o)

Track down your button and sew it to the side of the pot holder that was opposite the loop.

Fold the pot holder up and loop the loop around the button.

Now go back to your grandma's to return her buttons and use her oven door handle to model your lovely towel. You were making it for her anyways weren't you?

My oven door handle is completely attached to the oven so these towels don't work for me but they make a great gift for others!

And there you have it, a lovely gift! Wouldn't these be great with Christmas towels?

A Crib Rescue!

2008-10-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

One of my daycare moms found a lovely doll crib at a garage sale this summer. She bought it and of course washed the bedding before she let her daughter play with it. Much to her horror the crib mattress cover shredded in the wash! :o( So she brought it to me to see if I could rescue it.

The former mattress consisted of two layers of poly batting covered with pink satin. It was the satin that came apart at the seams. It was a mess let me tell ya! All I could salvage was a piece that I used as part of the top on the new mattress.

I didn't want to mess with the old batting so I went to the upholstery shop and purchased a piece of 2" thick foam remnant for $3. Add some pink broadcloth and a little time and voila! A new crib mattress that looks better than the original I bet. :o)

The little daycare girl has been waiting for hmmm ....at least 3 weeks for me to finish this. I can't wait to see the look on her face when she comes back from school tomorrow!

Fall into Fall Quilter's Blog Giveaway

2008-10-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Debi over at http://debiquilts.blogspot.com/ for coming up with this great idea. There are 40 quilters involved in a huge fall giveaway. We've each come up with something quilted/quilt related/crafted to give away as a prize.

I decided on Sunday that I wanted to be involved in this and stayed up until after midnight last night creating this.

I'm quite proud of my efforts and to be honest it's going to be hard to give this away! lol

There's a little pocket inside.

And a nice vintage button taken from Grandma's button collection.

To sweeten the deal I made a couple of these as well. (Table runner not included)

They're made to hang on the oven door. Perfect for fall decorating!

The winner gets their choice of one towel and then I'll have a second draw to give the other away as the 2nd place prize.

Sooo, in order to be entered in this fantastic draw you need to leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite SMELL of fall is. Anyone can leave a comment but if you don't have a blog be sure to leave your e-mail address in your comment so I can contact you if you win! The draw will be done on Oct 15th to find out who the lucky winners are. :o)

Don't forget to check out all the other blogs for more great draws. Just click on the scarecrow at the right of my blog for a list of all the other blogs with draws you can enter. Good luck everyone!

New Fabric

2008-10-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

On monday I only had one daycare child, G-man, so we went off to the fabric store to see what they had for new fabric. G-man spotted the tractor fabric right away so I HAD to buy a meter of it to make a pillowcase for his 2nd birthday that's coming up. He proudly carried it all the way to the till with a huge smile on his face. Sooo cute. :o) His parents own a tractor dealership so this is right up his alley. I've never seen John Deere, New Holland and Case tractors all on one fabric before.

The other funky fabric was a remnant. I'll likely use it for a backing someday.

Theodore Teddy Postcard

2008-09-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

A member of the Childcare and Beyond forum recently had surgery to remove a tumor and the kidney it was in. She asked that other members of the forum send postcards to her preschool for the children to enjoy. I couldn't just buy a postcard now could I?

On the back I put:
Hi Kids!
This is Theodore Teddy. He's all dressed up for our cold Canadian weather, in his toque and sweater. He sees the leaves falling from the trees and knows winter is coming. The trouble is Theo doesn't like the cold! So we're sending him to you where he'll be nice and warm all winter long.
From Corinna and the kids at Kids 'n' Crayons Daycare

So tomorrow we'll be going to the post office and mailing Theo all the way to California. Who says bears have to hibernate. :o)

Fall Wallhanging and a new way to hang

2008-09-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finished a fall wallhanging using four of the fall sampler swap blocks exchanged on quiltingpassion.com last year. I still have many blocks left that I hope to make into a fall lap quilt one day.

Here it is hanging on the wall using a dowel and hooks.

In four or five weeks I'll be hanging it with one of these! I'm so excited because I've been wanting something like this for a few years now.

I got it from http://www.robinsonswoodcrafts.com/ for a very reasonable price. I ordered a pine one like the second one in the picture and also a smaller cherry wood one.

My First Post and a Dragon Quilt

2008-09-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe I'm blogging! I'm sure this will be fun. I've been reading blogs for months now and decided a while back I should join in. It was just a matter of finding the right time to do it. Looks like today was the day!

For my older daycare children I've promised them each a quilt on their 10th birthdays. So far I've made three with two more to go. One in '09 and one in '10. Very managable....unless you leave it until the last minute like I did with the third one here.

I managed to finish it from start to finish in about three weeks! I even amaze myself sometimes. I finished it the day before his birthday.

I found the patterns at http://www.fatcatpatterns.com/ for free! Check it out, Sindy has lots of great applique patterns.

Please excuse the poor photography. I took them in the evening, outside because I had to give the quilt away the next day and rain was in the forcast for that day. I don't have a space big enough to take pictures inside.