Steppin Out With My Baby - Date # 2

Harrison took me out on the town this evening. First we headed off to the Apple Store in down town Walnut Creek to buy new ear buds for my i-pod. As we walked to the store we passed by a Le Creuset store and saw some great items in their Caribbean color! So we had to pop in! And we came out with some great buys for our kitchen!

After Le Creuset and the Apple store we went to Suisun City to our favorite Greek restaurant called the Athenian Grill. The food and scenery was amazing! After a relaxing dinner we headed off to Borders for some great book finds! I ended up getting 2 great books! Harrison got some great books too, which I am sure he will mention on his blog.

My First Great find is titled: Amy Butler's In Stitches: More then 25 simple and stylish sewing projects. This book has some great, fun and easy sewing projects! I highly recommend this book!

My second great find was in the bargain book section titled: Better Homes and Gardens, New Cook Book, 11th edition. I can tell this is going to be a great book! It has so many must know recipes, tips, and information.

Date Night at Barnes & Noble

I always love a date night to Barnes & Noble! Harrison heads off to the bargain books and I head off to the quilting magazine, craft books, and Christian Fiction! Then it's off to the cafeteria to sit together, soda in hand, and sort through our prospective buys.

Harrison always find great books! I on the other hand have to search very hard to find books that I want. But as always, at the end of the date we have some great buys! Tonight's date we walked away with a few goodies.

My Finds:

1. I bought that very needed book light! No more Book Owl LED lights for me! I found the perfect book light! Granted it is quite big, but it is the best I have seen. It is called the FlipLite. I absolutely love it!

2. I then got a Christian Fiction book titled: Oregon Brides.

Harrison's Finds:

1. How to Be President - What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in Office
Harrison loves this book! He has already read most of it. It gives a guide to the formalities of being president. A few Examples of the topics would be: How to get snacks, how to order out, secret passage ways, or how to get your laundry done.

"You've won the election and you wake up on your first day in the White House - Where's the bathroom? How do you get breakfast? Where do you sit at a cabinet meeting? When can you use Air Force One? This essential, illustrated employee manual explains the real nuts and bolts o being the President of the United States."

2. Always Grace - A Novel , by Tim LaHaye

Happy Easter!

Quilting Away and Pincushions!

First I want to share with you the first pincushion I made! I got the pattern in a better homes and garden's quilting magazine. It was created by Heather Bailey, so I had to try it. I didn't use her fabric line for it, because I am saving that for a quilt. By the Way! Thank you Heather Bailey for commenting on my blog! That was really cool! I am such a fan!

The fabric I used for the top of the pincushion is from Anna Griffin's Line. It turned out really great!

My Current project is a quilt, well 2 quilts to be exact! My first quilt is my practice quilt. I decided to try everything for the first time on this quilt. I have never done the quilting before! So keep your fingers crossed! For my practice quilt I am just doing a simple patchwork quilt. Polka Dots and Flowers! I have already sewn most of this together, which I will share with you when I completely finish the quilt top.

Practice Quilt


For my second quilt, I am using a layer cake by Moda. The fabric line is Simplicity. A Layer Cake is a pack of 10X10 fabric squares. In the pack I get one Fabric square from each fabric in the line. For the pattern, I took each 10x10 square and cut it on the bias/diagonal and then paired each triangle with a different fabric and sewed them together. I then arranged each block on the floor as seen in the photo below. I am now in the process of sewing together each square.

Last night Harrison and I decided together how it should be arranged. And we are very happy with the result. Below is a picture of part of the quilt. I cant wait until it is finished, so I can show you the end result. Until then....

Quilt #2

Lots to Blog!

I have sooo much to blog about! But for now, I will make this one short. Just wanted to share with you a couple of necklaces I got! Harrison bought me the Heart one just for fun! Isn't he great?


I blogged earlier that I am trying to make a charm necklace of Rosie the Riveter! So with lots of help from my mother, I am well on my way. I have my picture, she has the glass and the silver tape. Now all I need is the time to do it! She started practicing and came up with a first necklace design and gave it to me? Isn't she great too? :) That's all I have for now. Will post more later! I'm off to the Concord Sewing Center to get myself a quilting foot and a 1/4 foot with guide for my brother sewing machine!

Knitting, Knitting, and more Knitting!

While buying yarn for the patriotic scarf I promised to make Harrison, I found this lovely Blue, Brown, and Cream yarn. So I decided to make a scarf for me too! The yarn is so soft!

For some odd reason the scarf is turning into a zig zag pattern. I am very happy with it! This pattern is super easy. Using a size US 11 needle, I cast on 25, then *knit and pearl* to end then repeat until it is at the desired length! Then Bind Off.

Harrison's was a little bit more difficult. He wanted a patriotic scarf. He wants the colors to be in bands of Red, White, and Blue. He searched for the pattern and found just what he wanted. A scarf that was ribbed. I haven't got much done on it yet, but am swiftly working on it in between getting ready for a garage sale, house and bird sitting, quilting, and fabric hunting.

The pattern for the scarf I am making Harrison is as follows: Using Size US 8 needles cast on 35 stitches. Row 1: K3,*P1,K3* Row 2: K1, *P1, K3*, end with P1, K1. Repeat rows 1 & 2 until desired length. Bind off. This one is pretty simple too!

Overwhelming Crafting Desires

These past 2 weeks, I have become aware of a new addiction. I have a fabric addiction! Yes, I can't get enough of fabric. I love fabric! But what good is fabric if you don't do anything with it. So I have decided to remedy that and take up Quilting. I like to sew, but hate sewing clothes. I can get by with the basic clothing sewing such as costumes for our church Harvest Festival and the occasional pajama bottoms. But that is not my forte. I think quilting just might be my forte. We shall see.

I love shabby chic and retro fabric, but never knew where to find such fabric that didn't cost a fortune. I grew up only knowing about your local Joanne Fabrics and your typical craft/fabric store. But what I didn't realize is that there are all sorts of quilting shops that specialize in stocking the newest fabric lines and quilting! I am now addicted!

I found one quilting store in Danville thanks to the world of blogging, which caused me to look up other quilting stores! I found out that there are 3 really good quilting stores within 30 miles. I have their store websites on my links list or at the end of this blog.

I have 3 absolutely favorite lines of fabric. The first would have to be Fresh Cut by Heather Bailey, second would have to be Swell by Moda, and third would have to be Simplicity by Moda! Below are pictures of some of my fabric finds!

I have been searching far and wide for any store that carries Heather Bailey's line called Fresh Cut. It has been like a scavenger hunt. Many of the stores are out of her line and since her new line comes out soon, they will not be reordering. I will post all of the fabric I purchased from her line in a later blog. I went back to the quilting store today searching for anything I can find by Fresh Cut. I came to the realization, that I would have to order some of her fabric online. That is if I can still find it online.

Just when I decided to give up, I started talking to one of the employees and found out she has some extra fabric that she doesn't need! So we are meeting on Thursday and she is going to show me her fabric to buy. I cant wait! Isn't the Lord wonderful?! He dropped it right in my lap.

I found 3 great quilting stores in my area! The first is in Danville, The Quilters Inn. The second is in Concord, Thimble Creek. And third is in Lafayette, The Cotton Patch. I was able to get some great fabric and quilting idea's from these stores!

Screen Cleaner

Thanks to my friend Marian for this great new cleaner! Great for cleaning your dirty computer screen. Click on the link for an easy way to keep your screen clean and germ free! Thanks Marian! ;)

New Great Product!

Pictures

I will be posting a blog soon on my fabric spree and all of the new goodies thanks to tax money returns. But until then, I wanted to post some pictures of my Grandfather and I.