Nearing the end of day 3...

Still no power.  According to the energy outage map, 97% of my town is out of power... still.  Areas around us, close in numbers as well.  Thank you everybody for your well wishes and happy thoughts about the power being back soon.  Sorry I haven't answered emails but we lost our landline phone which is also our internet 9 a.m yesterday and we got that bit back a couple of hours ago.  Ahhhhhh, feels much better.  I wonder if I would ever survive during Little House on the Prairie time?  My guess?  NO!

So, generator is still running and we can talk on the phone again.  My husband's guess of a week without power is looking pretty close to true.  The utility people aren't even in my town yet.

I did get some sewing in today.  I just couldn't take it anymore.  I hope to have a finished top to show you soon.  Need to hit the fabric store for my border piece.  I didn't get a chance to do that before the storm and now they have no power either.  Oh well.

That's all for now!
Jen

Phew! It's over!

Hurricane Irene is now gone from my house.  Headed north.  It wasn't too bad.  Actually, by the time it hit in New England, it was down-graded to a tropical storm.  Still.  60 mile an hour winds are nothing to mess with.  We are living off of artificially generated power right now.  Power left my house just about 6 am.  I had JUST gotten up to hop into the shower and POOF.  No power.  My husband wasn't going to fire up the generator until most of wind died down but I pleaded with him to turn it on so that I can at least shower.  He needed coffee so it was a win/win for both of us.

The winds never got that bad for him to turn off the generator so we had power all day long.  But it will be off for the night.  I'm losing my lovely power at 8:30 tonight and it will get turned back on in the morning if the "real" power isn't back by then.  By my husband estimates, as he drove around the area after Irene left, it will be a week at least before power is restored to our area.  Lots of down trees, power lines and poles.  We just have lots of raking to do in the yard.  Only a few big limbs and one tree top fell.  But nothing on the out buildings, house, cars or equipment.  Chris and his dad spent some time earlier in the week cutting down all the dead trees that could fall in a big wind and do damage.  Good thing that they did.  I'm sure if they didn't, we would have it much worse.  My neighbor has a few trees that were uprooted and leaning but nothing near her house.

I didn't do any sewing though.  Didn't want to put the extra strain on the generator.  So I worked on my June birdie block.  Almost done.  Other than that, nothing.

I'm glad the weather is calmer and COOLER.  Ahhhhh, no need for the AC for the next week.  That the only good thing with this hurricane.  It brought some much cooler weather with it.

I hope that others that were in Irene's path faired as well or better than we did.

Enjoy your day!
Jen

On this day...

My life changed forever.  I was now officially a Mama.  Today is Amelia's 6th birthday.  Happy Birthday, Punkie!!

We partied hardy this past Sunday.  And I'm grateful for that because it seems like Hurricane Irene isn't going to turn and we are going to have some wild weather on Sunday.  Here are a few pics from the big bash....

Birthday girl and her cake

BFFs

feeding frenzy at the pinata

Slip and Slide fun

guest shot

And I have to add this one: my grandmother.  She looks SO THRILLED to be at the party.  LOL!

Happy Birthday, Amelia!!  You are an awesome little girl and SO READY for 1st grade!

Love you!
Mama and Daddy

Birdie Stitches - April and May

I'm only 3 months behind now (soon to be 4) but I'm getting there.  I bought myself a new gadget to help me with my stitching.  An OttLite LED flip light.  It's nice because there is a clip on the back.  I can clip it to the front of my shirt and get extra lighting to see what I'm doing.  ONLY fault of this handy gadget, the clamshell is HARD to open.  I broke a nail trying to do that.  And you can't keep it open because the light stays on.  Instead of an on/off switch, it's a push button inside the flip top.  It's only engaged off when the light is completely shut.  But that's my only complaint about that.

Okay, I worked on my April and May Birdie stitches blocks.  June is in the hoop, ready to go whenever I'm ready to sit down and start.

April

May

No real sewing going on here again.  Sunday was Amelia's 6th birthday party (her actual birthday is Thursday) so yesterday was a chill out day.  Today, I'm not feeling very well.  My head is heavy and my ears are blocked.  I'm just going with the flow and easing through my day.  I am taking Amelia bowling this afternoon.  Just to have something to do.

I started (briefly) my new Bliss tote.  Quickly realizing that I really need to replace my walking foot (it's broken) or I will be swearing at this new tote.  Sigh.

Enjoy your day!
Jen

Amelia's Bennington

Slowly I've been working on blocks for Amelia's next lap quilt.  Amelia picked "Bennington" out of the Schnibbles Times Two book and I'm using "Amelia" layer cakes of course.

I have 10 more blocks to make.  This one is slow going for me.  And then I have to make the scrappy border.  The block is super easy to make.  Not sure why I'm putzing along with them.

Anyhoo... here are the blocks that are done so far.

not the final layout.  ;)

Now that I'm looking at these blocks, one is bothering me.

Do you see it?  I made a note above in the picture.  It's a black with white dots.  And it's the ONLY solid black in the quilt.  There are some white with black dots in the quilt but they don't stand out like a sore thumb. 

Yup.  I think it needs to go.  What do you think?

Enjoy your day!
Jen

FNSI - What I worked on

I was pretty productive yesterday during the FNSI.  I started in the afternoon before Amelia got home and finished up after I got her to bed.  She had a fabulous time on vacation with her grandparents, by the way but gave me the biggest hug when she walked in the door.  :)

I finally finished the 6 pillowcases that have been staring at me for weeks.  I think it was some time late last year, Jenn was admiring some pillowcases I made and had asked if I ever made any "Happy Birthday" ones for Amelia.  I hadn't and she shared a yard of fabric with me to make Amelia a pillowcase.  I found more yardage of the same and made her two for her bed.  The other two are just CUTE and I had to have the fabric.  The yardage is Now We're Goin Places by Monica Lee.  The VW fabric is my favorite.  I would love to have more yardage from this line and fussy cut the fabric into blocks.  Maybe... Ruby comes first!  It was high time I got the HB pillowcases done since Punkie's birthday is on Thursday!  I'm going to put them on her bed tomorrow.

Next I worked on my September gift for Melissa in our Santa Sack swap.  I can't show you the whole thing since it's a SECRET and Melissa will be opening the gift at Christmas time but I'll show a sneak peek.

Oooo.  I wonder what is it?!

Then Amelia walked in the door and I had to focus on her.  While we were catching up and just relaxing together, I worked on finishing my May Birdie block.  SO CLOSE!  I don't have much left to do on it.  I'll show you that soon.  Only done as far as May and September is right around the corner.  Such a slacker!

Once Amelia was in bed, I was going to forget about the rest of the night and just veg out.  But I got restless and ventured back into the sewing room.  I have 10 more blocks to work on in my latest quilt top but I wasn't feeling it.  Sooooo, I pulled a new project out of my hat.  I picked out my strips and got them cut to length for a new.... TOTE!  I need a new one like I need a hole in my head!  I purchased the Fresh Treat Fabrics book a while back and this tote really caught my eye so I got started on it.

I may have a little problem finding yardage for it in Bliss.  Well, yardage on SALE.  I'm not spending over $8.00 a yard when I know this is an older line.  I've seen it online for almost $11.00 a yard.  No thanks!  I may just do red and aqua dots or something. 

So there is it.  My FNSI results.  Now I can get outta here and finish grocery shopping for Amelia's party tomorrow!

Enjoy your day!
Jen

Party Favors

The day is getting close.  My baby is going to be turning 6 soon.  Sigh.  6.  SIX.  AND going into 1st grade.  Double sigh.

Well, her party is this weekend and I had a couple of cute ideas for party favors.  I saw this on MBS for the 4th of July and I thought they would be fun to give the kids.  I filled them with some candy.  Pink for the girls, purple for the boys. 

Bottlecap necklaces and magnets; I didn't think the boys would want a "Tangled" necklace.

House is clean.  Party favors are made.  Cake is ordered.  Groceries are half purchased.  I think I'm ready.

Enjoy your day!
Jen

More Baby Gifts

I made a couple more sets of the wipes and pacifier holders for gifts.  The dino set I'm selling to Chris' cousin.  She spotted the set within my pictures on Facebook and asked if she can purchase a set for a baby shower she's attending next weekend.  Since I was going to bust everything out for the baby shower I'm going to in a couple of weeks, it wasn't a bit deal to make 2 sets at once.

Since you can't really see the super cute monkey fabric, here's the back.

One more sleep and my Punkie comes home!  I'm missing her a LOT.

Enjoy your day!
Jen

Mail Organizer

I'm not sure how I initially bumped into this tutorial.  I have a habit of checking out other bloggers "followed" blogs if the title of the post or picture shown catches my eye.  I click and click so many times, not sure where I found this one to begin with.

First I had found this post and fell in love with it.  I love it made out of Verna.  Bonus for me, the tutorial was linked.  I wasn't a follower of Noodlehead but I am now!  Making one of these was on my mind for about 2 weeks.  I finally broke down and bought the canvas and set to get it done yesterday afternoon.  Took me less than 30 minutes to complete (not including the cutting of fabric and interfacing).  I eliminated the labels and ribbon from my pockets.  Reasons being that I couldn't find the right label holders and my b/w polka dotted ribbon didn't have much left on the spool.  I think it looks just fine without them.

I hung it in our entry way off the front door.  Not sure why I did that because I carry the mail in from my car and the garage is attached to the kitchen.  Regardless, it's cute!  It may stay empty forever.  Just brings a nice pop of color to my entry way.  I have a feeling I'll be making more as gifts once some of family sees it. 

One project down, 2 more to do before Punkie comes home on Friday.  I'm on a roll!

Enjoy your day!
Jen

New Hampshire 2011

A few weeks ago, our family and my husband's cousin's family hit the road for New Hampshire for a nice little vacation getaway.  We had a super time.  The kids got along fairly well; as best as two only children can get along.  Some sharing of toys was an issue and being that we were at "Amelia's" red house, her house - her rules.  Overall, we had fun and we will do it again.

Did some relaxing, did some fun stuff.  First stop on our vacation was the Hobo Railroad.  We took an hour long train ride.  There was Choo Choo the Hobo clown on board and he told stories, did magic tricks and made balloon animals for the kids.

Our "big" adventure was going to Santa's Village.  That was really fun.  Chris and I enjoyed it so much that we're planning on going back over the Fall.  The park is open on weekends through Christmas so that will be a treat.

Chrissie and I rode the Ferris Wheel together while Tim took the kids.  Chris was on the ground, in charge of the backpacks.  Chrissie and I are afraid of heights.  Two dopes afraid of heights riding the Ferris Wheel together.  LOL.

overhead view of Ferris Wheel

NH view from top of the Ferris Wheel

Amelia and Connor on the Merry Go Round

 We fed "reindeer cookies" to Santa's reindeer.

Hi there, Mr. Reindeer!

And Amelia got to see the big man in the red suit!  Amelia was stressing out in line because she had no idea what she wanted for Christmas yet.  Santa asked her what she wanted and she told him that it was too soon to decide.  He told her that he would bring her something special then.

While waiting in line to see Santa, I tried to keep the kids amused.  So I had them do funny faces.

LOL.  It made the time go by faster. 

Gingerbread People

The weather we had was perfect.  Chilly even.  But by Friday, the heat and humidity came back so we spent some time chilling out in the CT River.  Kids had fun swimming and splashing.

And that's that.  Last big hurrah before school starts again.  Next event?  Amelia's 6th birthday.  I don't know where 6 years went already!

Enjoy your Sunday!
Jen

Wow

Hello there!  Miss me?  Sorry.  I didn't mean to take a 3 week bloggy break on my own blog.  I just have nothing to show you right now.  My sewing mojo has gone out the window.  Nothing creative being done over here.  Nada.  Zip.  I DID get my April Birdie Stitches block done.  I know... April!  I am so behind with that one.  But I will finish out the year because I just think those birdies are super cute.  I'm working on May's block right now.  Almost finished.  But that's about it.

I've started a quilt for Amelia out of "Amelia" layer cakes.  I think I have 16 blocks completed.  I could show you that.  Or I can show you the pillow cases that I started 3 weeks ago.  I'm making 6 of them.  3 are only half done.  The other 3 are just waiting to get started.  But I'm not feeling it.  On top of all that, my Ottlite bulb burnt itself out and I have to get another one.  The corner where I sew and cut in my sewing room can get dark and shadowy.  If I don't do anything first thing in the morning, I have a hard time seeing what I'm doing.  Never mind doing anything at night.  I did find that Lowe's carries the bulbs for a super CHEAP price.  Much less than Joann's or even Amazon.  But the Lowe's in my area is out of stock.  The one near my mom's has 2 of them (according to the computer).  I'm headed that way tomorrow so I'll stop and get one if they have it.

That's it here.  I hope to get some sewing done next week.  Amelia is headed north for most of the week with her grandparents for one last hurrah before school starts.  I'll have the week to myself.

Until then...

Enjoy your day!
Jen