Things I am working on...

Christmas gifts for my niece Alex (4 1/2) and cousins Hayley (7) and Lindsey (5). I just need to flip the pocket, cut batting, sew the layers together and make sew the individual pockets. A box of 24 Crayola crayons plus fabric scraps = a crayon roll! Total cost = 25 cents. Luckily for me they all like princess and mermaids. Plus Ariel is Aunt/cousin Jennifer's favorite Disney princess and hot pink is her favorite color so they get little choice :-)

I won this book Kanzashi in Bloom by Diane Gilland in a Craftzine giveaway! I NEVER win anything. Anyway, I plan on making pins and other accessories for the women in my life for Christmas. Total cost = minimal. I plan to use fabrics I have on hand but need to buy some pin bakcs and maybe a few other notions. The blue/green flower pictured about is my first attempt. This is an AWESOME book and super user friendly.

This weekend I have girl/craft time scheduled with Wendy. I haven't seen her much since the school year started (she teaches 7th grade and I work for Northern Arizona University so fall has been busy for both of us). I found some terra cotta gnomes in the dollar spot at Target a couple months ago so we're going to paint those. Not sure what other crafts we'll do but Ghost of Girlfriends Past is on it's way in the mail from Blockbuster :-)

Finishing momma's birthday quilt

I'm nearly done with mom's birthday quilt - just the 2 red borders to sew together and add the section I mailed her for her birthday. Her birthday (also our anniversary) was July 24th so I mailed her what I had done at the time. All 120 blocks were sewn but I only managed to get 3 of the 12 rows sewn together before her bday.

I don't have a copy of the magazine with me but I am making her the "Scrappy Star" quilt from the June 2006 American Pathcwork & Quilting magazine. I did find somene's finished version of the pattern on Flickr so this will give you an idea of what the finished piece will look like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pioneerquilter/3711455443/

Here's the cover of the issue of the magazine featuring the quilt:

I don't have any in-progress photos to share but I will share the finished product. I just need mom to mail back the section of the quilt I sent her :-)

This is the largest quilt I've sewn so far. It's a little larger than a standard twin size and is made to go on the bed in Mom's guest/craft room, which until a few years ago was MY room. Mom took a completely different decorating approach than I would have approved. It's a kind of country, red/white/blue star room. Much different than the pseudo-retro 50's vibe Dan & I have going at our house and different than the intended bedding set she showed me before I moved to Oregon for grad school. Oh well, it's not my room and the quilt will be a perfect match.

Attempting to be witty and crafty

In my free time, there are a few things I like to do. In general, I used to consider myself pretty crafty. Then I got a look at what the real crafty people on the web can do! I aspire to someday be able to do a portion of the creative crafts and blogs that I have seen.

Yesterday, I found this great "how-to" on converting old t-shirts to yoga pants. The second I get in the house after a day spent in work clothing (a.k.a. business casual), I usually throw on my favorite pair of yoga capris. Of course, once I realized how much I loved my yoga capris I ran back to Old Navy and tried to buy more pairs but they had already changed the design :-( The photo in the how-to looked a lot like the yoga pants I love so I figured I'd give it a try.

Within an hour, I made my "pattern" and sewed 2 pairs of yoga capris. I searched through Dan's XL t-shirts and took a couple old shirts he never wears. Now I have a yellow pair made from his Hattery-Nelson-Orr Reunion t-shirt and a black pair made from his "Mike's 50th" t-shirt. For some reason, his mom's family made t-shirts for events we came to the riverhouse in Iowa a couple of years in a row. And now they are yoag carpis. I didn't even have to sew a hem - the bottom t-shirt hem is the bottom of the legs.

I am also trying to secretly work on Dan's Super Mario Bros. quilt for his birthday - which is Saturday. I hope to have Mario and a 1-up mushroom done by the time he gets home from work around 12:30pm. Mario is probably another 30min-hour away from being complete and I just laid out the pieces for the mushroom this morning. My excuse for being so far behind is I can only work on it when he is not home - meaning about 1.5 hours when he is at the gym or when he works Saturday mornings when I get home from my 8, 10, 12 or 14 mile runs. Oh, I got the idea for the quilt from here but I am making all the different objects & characters from the NES games so I am making them a LOT smaller. I will have different versions of Mario & Luigi, Princess Peach (as a redhead!), and some of the goombas and other "villians"