Saturday, January 22, 2011

I Spy - Quilt Swap

New is good, right?  I've seen something called a "Quilt Swap" on a few blogs and it caught my attention.  I am by no means this fantastic quilter.  (I'm just finishing up my first quilt) but I've taken an interest in the rag top quilts- they seem a little more my style (for sewing at least - Have I mentioned that my mom makes heirloom quality quilts????)  I've also seen great ideas for "I spy" items like these :

 First, Obsessivelystitching shows these great story telling blocks.

 Than, Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy  gives one great idea for place mats . . . .

 And, Child of Mine gives another idea for place mats.

 Obsessivelystitching also gives a tutorial for making an ABC book - use I-Spy fabric to increase the use of the book!
And, of course, Oopsey Daisy shows how to make these great bags!

All great ideas but I'm, opting for the quilt first.  So today, I started the process:

 I picked up 10 different "boy themed" fabrics.  Technically you only need 1/4 yard of each but, this being my first one, I went ahead and got 1/2 yard of each.  (good thing - I REALLY messed up my cutting on the first one and almost didn't have enough!)
Than, once it all came back to me, I made quick work of all that fabric and here is my stack. 

So, what is next?  I have to ship these off on Monday to the person "in charge" of this one and than wait for my 200 blocks to return!!  I'm excited. 

I plan on using this quilt more for learning - I like to keep quilts in the living room for the boys that have distinct things on them (they have a space one and a dinosaur one my mom made - both with buttons - we call out colors and count the buttons!)  This one, we can use to find things, colors, for counting, and more. 

When I get my fabric, I promise to share :-)

Check out the following blog to learn more or just see her other great ideas!
Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy!

Happenings in this House

It's that time of week again - time to share the Happenings in this House!  It's been a busy week - my sister-in-law had major surgery to have a portion of her lung removed due to cancer, the boys and I made a trip to the "city" to meet my husband for dinner, and we just seemed to have needy kids this week :-)  I still managed to snap a few shots of our week!


Josh loves to play with his trains :-)  He lays the track and just plays for hours.

Nate is going through the seperation anxiety stage and just likes to be cuddled for a bit inbetween playing.

And than out came the bean bags - as you can see from the next few pictures - the boys had fun!


See that little car?  That was one of Josh's favorites - he chose not to crawl for a long time but he would use this car to get around - he would sit on it and scoot all over.  He is FINALLY allowing Nate to sit on it LOL  When we brought it back out for Nate, Josh took it back over.  So cute!
My parents came by on Friday to pick up their car and we snapped these pictures


Josh adores his Papa - during dinner, he had to move his plate so he could sit next to Papa - and he carried on a full conversation with him.  Than, he took Papa to his room where they played trains.  It was so cute!

So, there are the basics from our week :-)