Polka Dot Peek...

Now that my brother's wedding is all done and my babysitting weekend has come to an end, I can focus on my polka dot swap stuff. Nothing too exciting to show right now; I just picked which fabrics I'm going to use in my creation. I really wanted to incorporate some cherry fabric I had in my stash so I shopped and shopped for the right polka dot fabric. This is what I came up with.

My husband and I are going away to New Hampshire this weekend to take in the foliage and he's going to do some work on his parents house. I will be hanging out at the hotel with my sewing machine. I'm really looking forward to getting some things done since I haven't even looked at my sewing machine since late July.

Want to see what we have hanging around our house?
Every year we get a flock (are they called a "flock"?) of turkey hens and their chicks. I couldn't get a picture of any of the chicks this year but they are sooooo cute. So fluffy looking. They walked around the yard, looking for food and then disappear into the woods. You should see the Tom Turkeys when they puff themselves up. That's a sight to see too. I hope that I can get a picture of them one of these days.

That's it for now. I'm beat. A 3 year old and a 15 month old for 2.5 days really wipes you out! I don't know if I'm ready for a second one just yet!

Have a good night!
Jen :)

Fa La La La La... well, almost

On my way to my ceramics class yesterday after work, I had some time to kill so I decided to stop at the Christmas Tree Shop in Waterford. The Christmas Tree Shop, for those who don't know, is a New England "chain"... they pretty much sell anything and everything to clutter up your home. I visit it about once every two months or so, just to check out what I can get.

I spotted these...
Aren't they cute Christmas buckets/tins?? I bought 31 of them. 17 large and 14 small. I'm going to use them to fill with my homemade Christmas treats to give out to my extended family and friends. Oh and Punkie's teachers. Can't forget about them. There were 6 different designs but I only got 4. The other two I didn't care for. And the way "cute" stuff sells out over there, I stocked up. I showed the girls at ceramics and now I have to go back on Monday and grab more. I took some orders. LOL.

Speaking of Christmas treats, I also stocked up on this...

$1.69 for a bar of Ghirardelli baking chocolate is a good buy. I'm going to get more. Stock up for my marathon Christmas baking.

About a month ago, I picked up some Halloween buckets/tins. Aren't they cute?

I just got finished reading Sharon's post for today and I wanted to share the weather we are having today since she's saying it's in the triple digits in Cali right now.....

Cold, raw, wet and rainy. Can you see all the raking I have to do soon?! We still have lots of green on our surrounding trees so I'm going to wait on the raking for right now.

Enjoy the weekend! I'm babysitting for a friend of mine for the weekend. Should be fun. Evan just stopped crying. Hopefully I can get him to eat some lunch. Amelia is being a great hostess and sharing her toys.

Jen :)

Collector of "stuff"

I don't know what it is about me; when I want to start a new hobby, I go crazy buying "stuff" without making sure I would really enjoy the hobby itself.

Couple years ago, a friend of mine was teaching some of us how to do beading and making our own jewelry and all that. I get all into it and buy up all the beads and supplies I can get my hands on. The joy of learning how to do beading quickly faded and now I'm stuck with a basket (Longaberger of course) full of beads... big beads, little beads, seed beads... you name it, I probably have it.

Cookie baking and decorating, another hobby I bought out the stores with. However, this is a hobby that I do still enjoy but figured that I can't do all the time because my butt can only grow so much. So I only do that for special occasions. But I still have every decorating tip and cookie cutter out there.

And scrapbooking - don't even get me started on scrapbooking!

Now sewing/quilting. I really enjoy it but I was looking through all my stuff last night to re-organize it a bit since it was all over the place. Look at the all patterns I have...

I'm a novice at the sewing machine. Do I truly think I'm going to make something out of each and every one of these patterns?!? I'm sure the experienced sewer/quilter out there has a lot more patterns than I do but I'm looking at this from the perspective of a person who has only owned her sewing machine for almost 6 months.

Sigh. Looks like I better get cracking!

Jen :)

Special Day Today

I'm on pins and needles over here! I'm very close to a few of my cousins and one of them went into the hospital this morning to have her baby via c-section; he is/was breech for some time and did NOT want to move. She was to be at the hospital for 7:30 a.m. and into surgery by 8:30 a.m. It is now 10:06 a.m. and I have not heard anything yet!!! Her sister was supposed to call me, text me, email me (she has a blackberry) as soon as "something" happens. Of course I'm afraid to leave my desk for fear I will miss the phone call.

Sigh.... I guess I will just have to keep waiting. I will post the good news when I hear it.

UPDATE: HE'S HERE! Baby Boy (the parents haven't decided on a name yet) was born at 9:05 a.m. today! I have no other information then that. No vitals yet, no name. Just that the baby is doing very well and has a full head of dark hair. My cousin is doing very well too. I hope to get over to their house early next week to see my cousin and her baby boy.

Another UPDATE: Here he is! He's just beautiful. His name is Joshua Edward and he was 8 pounds, 4 ounces. Just precious! Mama, Daddy and Baby are doing just fine. I can't wait to see him on Monday!

Jen :)

Wedded Bliss

The wedding is all done! I'm so grateful that it is. I was working on the cookie favors for 13 hours on Friday. I quit about 11:00 p.m. Friday night. I still had 38 cookies to package up but they needed some drying time so I finished up Saturday morning. Good thing the wedding was starting at 5:00 p.m. and not any time sooner than that! I was going to punch holes in the plastic bag of each cookie and add a ribbon bow just to give the cookies a little more dressing up but I just didn't have the energy or time on Saturday. So they went without. Here are a few pictures of the cookie favors...

These cookies were done at the start of the whole decorating process. The ones that I did at 10:00 that night are a bit sloppy so I won't show those. :)

Punkie wanted a special sprinkle cookie just for her so Mama and Punkie did it together. Of course I only did one and my cousin spotted it and was digging through the basket of cookies for another and was disappointed to find out that I did only one, special for Amelia. Mind you, my cousin is 32 years old. LOL.
My brother and sister in law had a beautiful day for their wedding. Warm and sunny but a cool breeze. Perfect. Worked out well because they were having an outdoor ceremony and reception. Amelia did a great job as a flower girl and sprinkling rose petals before the bride as she walked to the ceremony area. Here's a picture of Amelia in her party dress. She picked this dress because she could twirl around in it and it flaired out and she liked the little shrug it came with because it was soft like a teddy bear.

I'm so happy to have a sister!

Now it's time to be humble. I spoke to my brother on Friday, asking how the reception set up was going since I could not be there to help because I was up to my eyeballs in royal icing. He said it was going well and I asked what Charlotte (the bride to be) was doing. He told me that she was at the spa with a couple of her friends. I commented on how nice that was for her friends took her out for a day of pampering before the wedding. My brother corrected me and said that No, Charlotte took THEM out as a Thank You for helping with the wedding and just being there for her. I didn't say anything but I was very upset to not have been asked to join them. I would have declined because of the cookie prep but it would have been nice to have been asked.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon... I got to my mom's house (that's where the wedding was happening) and I was chatting with my brother as to what needed to get done and Charlotte called me into the house. They slid a big box in my direction and told me to open it. THIS was inside...

They gave me the blanket basket from Longaberger as a Thank You for helping out with the wedding and taking the time to do the cookie favors. They felt that I would have enjoyed and appreciated more the basket than a couple hours at the spa. They were soooo right. They both know I'm crazy about the Longaberger baskets. I was so stunned and surprised at their gesture, I cried. I could not stop thanking them for the basket. As soon as I got home, I filled it with all my fabric. I just love, love, love it!

That's it. Wedding is over and I can relax and try to get all the royal icing off my counters. That stuff sticks to anything like concrete once it's dry!

Jen :)

Just a quick post...

To say HI! It's been busy and hectic over here. I'm trying to get the cookie favors done for my brother's wedding this Saturday (yes, I will post pictures when they are done) and my full-time job just got even busier. We're hiring another person to help me since I will be swamped for the rest of the year come mid-October.

Haven't even looked at my sewing machine. I can't wait for the wedding to be over and done so I can get back to sewing! I have to work on my polka dot and rick rack swap project!

Hope all is well with everyone! Will post again in the next few days.

Jen :)

And how was your weekend?

Mine was (and still is) busy, busy, busy. Saturday was spent totally out of the house. Punkie and I hit the road after breakfast (9 a.m.) and our first stop was the carwash. My car is now squeaky clean. Well, at least the outside of it is.

Next, we drove about an hour to the shoe store to get Punkie's feet measured for some new sneakers and dress shoes. Once that chore was done and we had about 45 minutes to kill before our next appointment, we went to Joann Fabrics and walked around there for a while. Nothing really caught my eye to buy fabric-wise. I'm looking for a particular "look" for the polka dot swap. Nothing floated my boat.

3 chores done... 3 more to go.

Punkie and I went to get our hair cut. We need to look our best this coming weekend for my younger brother's wedding on the 20th. My mom met me at the salon so that she could take Amelia to her house once Amelia's haircut was done because I'm usually there for about 2 hours getting the works done (cut, color, highlight and eyebrow wax).

Okay, haircuts DONE. Next... some retail therapy. I hit the Hallmark store for a wedding card (before I forget) and took a ride to Kohl's to see if anything good was on sale. Nothing really there so I went to my mom's. Hung out there some and then got Amelia ready for her 3 year picture appointment.

Got to the mall on time and, of course, had to wait. Finally after waiting 20 minutes into our appointment, we got in there and Amelia got her picture taken. They came out very cute. Can't wait for them to come in. The three of us went into the mall so that my mom could go to Talbot's and see what they had on sale for pants as she is leaving for week long business trip to Sweden the day after my brother's wedding. Got that taken care of. Drove my mom and Amelia back to my mom's house, said my good-byes and left. Amelia spent the night at my mom's so that I could have today to work on my brother's wedding favors (more on that later).

On my way home - it is now 6:00 p.m. - I decided to hit another Joann Fabrics because I know they had the fabric I wanted about a month ago. Drove completely in the opposite direction of home - mind you, I live an hour from my mom's house - and did some shopping. Good thing I stopped because they had what I wanted.

Now, I still have to go to the grocery store before I go home. I get to the store and do a quick trip through, sticking to my list. 7:30 p.m. is a good time to go food shopping. Nobody is in the store.

I was home by 8:30 p.m. and still needed to eat dinner. I was starving. All I eat all day was my breakfast. Thankfully my husband thought ahead and got dinner started.

Passed out in bed by 10:00 p.m.

Today (Sunday), I'm busy working on making 75 wedding cake shaped sugar cookies. I have 62 cookies cut out and stashed in the freezer for baking on Wednesday and Thursday night.

Phew. I'm exhausted! I can't wait to go to work tomorrow so that I can RELAX!!

So? How was your weekend?

Jen :)

Mail Time!

I just wanted to share with you the prize I won from Vickie's 200th post giveaway. I got home late last night from my ceramics class... yeah, that's another hobby I do. I've been taking this ceramics class for 6 years now. It more of a "get together with friends-stress reliever-and if you want to clean/paint/stain/glaze your piece, go right ahead" type of class.

But I digress - I got home about 10 p.m. and there was a package for me on the table from Vickie. Look what I got!

A flower-shaped pin cushion (very cute!)

Mary Engelbreit stickers and soap

mini note pad

little box of buttons

Thanks Vickie! I love my prize!

Jen :)

We will always remember

Lazy Girl Miranda Bag, Princess Punkie and Feeding the Ducks

Here's one completed project that I did for myself. I followed the "Miranda" bag pattern from Lazy Girl Designs and made myself a tote. I just love it. It took me about 20 days to complete because I've never quilted before so it took me 6 hours to quilt the bag itself and when that was done, I walked away for some time. I finally sat down 3 weeks ago, determined to finish it and I did (well, I have one more piece to finish). I just love this fabric combination. It's totally "me". What I DON'T like about it is the handles. What I really wanted was a vintage beaded purse handle but I can't find a really good tutorial on how to create one. So I purchased these metal purse handles. Nope, they aren't doing it for me. Back to the web I go to search! I found nice faux tortoise-shell looking handles. Nice shades of brown. I just got them in the mail over the weekend. Much better. I will be (hopefully) changing the handles this weekend so that I can use my new tote.

I love the fabric I used for the "pocket in the round". It's so whimsical and colorful. Love it!

Punkie had her 3rd birthday 2 weeks ago and she was given a simple fairy costume as a gift. I stashed it away and forgot about it. She discovered it over the weekend and wanted to model it around the house.

On Friday afternoon, Amelia had a playdate with a new friend. We met the playdate and his mom at a new park. Well, it's new to us. We've never been there before. It's a nice park. Great sized playground. The kids had a really good time running around chasing each other, climbing and sliding down the slides. Another thing this park had was a pond with ducks so we all took a walk to check it out. I had some Cheerios in my bag for Amelia if she wanted a snack (what Mom of a toddler/preschooler DOESN'T have Cheerios with them?!) so we had to feed the ducks the Cheerios. As you can see, Amelia just insisted that she had to be IN the water WITH the ducks to feed them. Dirty feet and everything, we all had a good time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jen :)

New Hampshire Getaway

Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, husband and daughter along with my good friend from high school with her husband and daughter, went to Bartlett, New Hampshire for a little getaway weekend. We stayed at the Attitash Mountain View Resort. We had a BEAUTIFUL condo. It was huge. I mean HUGE. Of course I took no pictures of the place. It slept 12 people. We had two full kitchens, 2 master bedrooms with king size beds, jacuzzi tubs (4 total), 4 fireplaces... the list goes on and on.

When we pulled in, my friend Julie met us outside the place to help us unload the car and she says "There's a BEAR! A black bear!". Low and behold... a baby black bear was by the dumpster.

We never saw him again but what a sight! Hey Sharon! How's that for some "fauna", huh??

We took the girls to Story Land while we were there and Julie and I did some "retail therapy". Just the "big" girls. That was nice. Here are few pictures of my little girl, Amelia - sitting on a chicken, sitting in Cinderella's chair and after just having her face painted like a pink kitty.

My in-laws are building a vacation home in Littleton, NH - about 40 minutes away from where we were staying to so we took a ride to see the progress of the house and to catch the sunset from their land. Across the way, on the other side of the CT River, is Vermont. Not sure where in Vermont though.
Another thing we did was take a train ride and the four adults rode the zipline down WildCat. That was COOL!

On our way home, we drove through Center Harbor and we found Keepsake Quilting. My husband did stop for me (what a guy!) but I took no pictures because I had packed my camera away. But I did get myself 2 books and some fabric.

All and all we had a good time and we're already planning another trip together for next summer.

Jen :)

Welcome to Preschool!

Since I have nothing currently on the sewing front, I thought I would share with you my baby's first day of preschool. Or as she tells me "Mama, I'm not a baby! I'm a big girl!" Yes. Yes you are and I'm SAD that you are growing up so fast!

Here she is, walking into school. She looks so SMALL, walking towards those big double doors!

And walking into her classroom. I can't believe she's old enough to go to preschool now! She's really enjoying it. She only goes 3 hours a day (mornings), 5 days a week.

My MIL is having a hard time adjusting though. My in-laws have been watching my daughter since she was 4 months old when I went back to work full time. My husband and I are truly lucky to have them around and for them to do that for us. They've enjoyed her and Amelia loves hanging out over there. But she was ready to go "play with the kids" on a daily basis. Amelia goes over to their house after school until my husband or I can pick her up.

I can't believe my baby is going to school!

Well, I've decided...

to jump on the blogging bandwagon and create one myself.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Jen and I'm addicted to reading quilting blogs! You all keep me entertained while I'm at work and have a minute to surf the web. I'm a wife and mom to a 3 year old girl. My blog is named after her (well, her nickname anyway). I hope to post as often as I can.

I'm a novice at sewing and quilting. I got the "bug" while making a shower curtain and matching valance for my daughter's bathroom out of a queen size sheet earlier this year since I found nothing in the stores I liked. With the help from my good friend's mom to guide me (and help me sew a straight line!), I decided this is a hobby I could enjoy! I went out and bought myself a pretty simple machine and off I went! I sew when I can but I haven't worked on anything in a while. The end of summer has been pretty busy for me.

Give you some more insight on me... I'm an avid Longaberger basket collector. I have about 85 baskets in my collection along with some of their pottery. I've been to the Longaberger Homestead in Ohio 4 times in the last six years and I'm thinking of becoming a Longaberger consultant - because I have oh so much extra time on my hands. LOL.

Since I have a decent commute to work (40 minutes one way), I listen to audiobooks more than music on the radio. They are ADDICTING! What I like to listen to is murder-mystery. My favorite authors are as follows: Janet Evanovich (the Stephanie Plum series is hysterical!), Nora Roberts and Margaret Maron. I'm currently listening to "Hard Row" by M. Maron. I think it's the 13th book in the Deborah Knott series.

What else? I live in a rural community and we have a "mini farm"... 3 goats, 3 pigs and 1 cat. My husband wants to get some chickens. I haven't made up my mind about that yet. We had 3 cats at the beginning of the summer but we lost 2. Buddy doesn't know what to do with himself. We're going to be getting him a friend soon. My husband is a career firefighter and he also owns his own construction company.

That's about it. I look forward to make new "virtual" friends. It was nice to meet you!

Jen :)