Mini Diaper Bag

Tonight I pulled out the scraps of fat quarters left from a large diaper bag mom made for Mikaela. They are Amy Bradley prints if I remember right and I just loved them when she got them. She made a schlep bag out of them and I carry it on the weekends when we're out and about. With the scraps I was able to cut out a smaller one, with 4.5" squares. I only had to piece the handles and the inside setting triangles are all different, but I think it looks cool. I finished it and realized I put the handles in the wrong place, so I'll take it out and fix it. I'm just so excited to have finished it in one night, start to finish with no pattern. I've made the schlep pattern so often I just go with it. I absolutely love how it turned out!


Tonight after Mikaela's bath I got her dressed for bed and put her in the rubber ducky sleep sack that my co-worker Kim gave her. I think it's so super cute and I've been wanting to take a picture of her in it for Kim. My friend Issac's daughter Lily has the same one. Tonight she was in the mood and I got a few good pictures. She's laying on the blanket her little friend Olivia gave her. Olivia is Jenn's daughter and she was so proud of it. Tomorrow is her 4th birthday. I can't believe she's so big already, she wasn't 2 yet when I met her. Paul's birthday is tomorrow too, so we have a babysitter who's been hinting that she'd watch Mikaela if we wanted to leave her, so we're taking her up on the offer.

She's been smiling like crazy, only not when mommy is taking pictures!

She was off to bed early tonight, asleep a little after 10, so I think I'm going to make it an early night. Any time before midnight is early!

Mikaela 9 Weeks

Mikaela turned 9 weeks old on March 23rd. She's growing so big and getting stronger every week. I figured her Jacks shirt would be great for her pictures. The quilt she's laying on was made by my quilty friend Cindy. I just love the rag quilt and it's so warm and cuddly!

She has the biggest blue eyes. I love how the camera captures the details of he eyelashes and drool!

She got the Kick and Crawl Gym from my friends Amy, Joe, & Jacob. We just put it together this weekend and she loves it! She can reach the two rattles with her hands and they make noise, which she's recognizing more and more.

She gets pretty smiley when she realizes she has hit one.

It has a ball to kick and she is able to kick it, just a little bit. As she gets bigger I'm sure she'll be swinging for it more and more.

She loves to bounce on daddy's knee and ride it like a horsey. She loves bouncing on anything! Look at how well she holds her head up!

We also worked on some tummy time for her. She's very good at pushing herself up and holding her head up.

She'll be moving soon with this pose!

What have I been working on?

The month of March has flown by and while I haven't gotten a whole lot done, I have been sewing. I've been doing a lot of baby related stuff and sewn more with the serger than anything else. I made this pillowcase out of some leftover really soft material, it was between fleece and minkee feeling. I just loved it!

Mom had this komfort case kit from Quilt Corral that she had gotten on shop hop last year, so I whipped it up since I had the serger out.

I also made some more burp clothes with the serger. Here are 5, but I probably made another 10 or so the night before and they were in the wash when the picture was taken.

I made a few more receiving blankets. There are at least 2 others I didn't get a picture of because they were washing.

The big project I worked on from the end of Feb, through March is this double irish chain quilt. It's a gift for some very special friends. It holds special meaning to me because it was the quilt top my mom made in her beginning quilt class 6 1/2 years ago when she was taking radiation for her breast cancer the first time. This class was before she started working at TSC and really was where she learned a lot about quilting. She got the top done and chose to do the harder seminole borders for the challenge. It's from Eleanor Burns book. She had it all pinned, except the backing was too small, so it got put in a tote and set away. I told her at Christmas time to get it out and I'd finish it for her. So I brought it home, unpinned it, made the backing bigger, and quilted it. I have the binding on and now just need to finish the hand work on it.



The backing fabric is kind of a marroon purple and I added the flowers to the top and bottom to make it longer.



I used leftovers to make this tablerunner. It's kind of supposed to be the double irish chain pattern.

Since Regina and Jen are going to quilt retreat next weekend, I've decided to join in the fun from a far and quilt with them. I've decided I'd like to make two quilt tops that mom had started at our retreat in Sept. They basically need to be put together, so that's my goal. The first is a Jim Shore quilt made using the BQ2 pattern. All the blocks are done and layed out and just need sewn together.

The other is a breast cancer quilt. The quilt was supposed to look like this, but she read the pattern wrong and little squares blocks are one block too short. We figured out how to resurrect the quilt, so it's layed out and just needs to be sewn together.

If I have time, which probably won't happen, since I have Little Miss to take care of, I'll work on her Loralie quilt. It's made similar to mine, but she had more fabric choices and a different way of putting it together. She has the pieced backing done and the top is just rows that need the sashing between them. I'm probably over ambitious, but it's so rewarding to finish these UFO's.

Mikaela is 8 weeks old!

Mikaela turned 8 weeks old on the 16th, which was also my first day back at work. So far it is going well. We love the daycare and no crying when I leave. Mikaela is wearing her camo jumper from Uncle Ed. It is so super cute on her! She got this cute blanket from one of the girls at work.

One of the first smiles I caught on film.

I made up a few baby blankets to take to day care so she doesn't have to take her good blankets.

A few burp clothes were made for the same purpose.

For her 2 month birthday we tried to take a picture of her and her sister Missy together. This is the best we could get.

Mikaela is 2 months old!

Mikaela turned 2 months old on Saturday. We took lots of pictures, on several backgrouds. I'm really trying to learn how to take better pictures.
This one is taken on the baby quilt my mom made for Mikaela. It's from a flannel line that was out a couple years ago and my friend Nich's son Mason has the quilt in the baby boy colors. I love the fabrics in this one and actually have a ton of 1/2 square triangles I'm making from the leftovers of this quilt. I should have enough to make a small baby quilt. I'm trying to decide what to do with them, no pattern, just winging it.

This is a camo knit I hope to make a little outfit out of for Mikaela for hunting season. I have 8 months, I should be able to get it done in that amount of time!



The back of the jungle animals quilt. Look at that long torso!

A baby receiving blanket in honor of her grandma, it has breast cancer hope fabric on the other side.

My attempt at cool photography! I really want to get a better one of these, but this is the best I could do with her cooperating. I'd wanted to do it as a newborn, but we were a little busy and overwhelmed at the time, so I figured I could still do it now.

She doesn't snuggle up so well anymore, but we tried! Thank goodness mom had a huge piece of black flannel I could use for backdrop.

The last shots of the day, she was tired of mom taking pictures. This is the first baby gift she got, about a week after I knew I was pregnant, my co-worker Karen and her son Brandon got it for me. He goes to State. She had to support the Jacks, even though they lost in the first round of the playoffs.


Mikaela had her 2 month check up this week. She's now 11lbs 12oz, 23 1/4" long, and 37 head, so she's in the 75th percentile for all 3. She got her shots and even did well with those! I'm so proud of my little girl, she's growing up so fast!

Mikaela is 7 weeks old!

Mikaela turned 7 weeks old on Ash Wednesday. She's wearing one of my favorite sleepers for her. It's a giraffe one that my co-worker Kay gave her. I think it's super cute and every time she wears it, she reminds me of my friend Cindy and cousin Sue who absolutely love giraffes. The brown blanket is from her friend Olivia, the daughter of my friend Jenn. It's so soft and snuggly, I love holding her in this blanket.

She wasn't so sure about mommy taking so many pictures!

The outfit is so cute, but especially the little feet!

Quilty Day!

Today was a rather quilty day, such a great way to start March! I took down all the Valentine tablerunners, coasters, and wall hangings. I had one above Mikaela's bed, so I replaced it with the signature quilt Jenn made for her. I love looking at all the siggy's and remember everyone who came to the shower. Thanks Jenn for the awesome quilt and scraps! I absolutely love it. Mikaela loves to look at it too!

Mikaela stayed in my studio with me while I cleaned and re-organized the closet. It's one of those things that has to be done every once in a while and today it just happened. It looks amazing and I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I bought a project book and recorded all my UFO's as I found them. I don't really want to count the number but there are a lot! Luckily I only wrote down the ones that are cut out. I did find some fabric that I had forgotten I had, so it was like going to the quilt shop all over again. After 6 hours I was done and Mikaela was asleep, so I loaded the snowflake table topper on the frame and got it quilted. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and I have enough fabric to make another one.

I tried to take a close up of the stitching.

Finally realizing I had to find the close up setting. This still isn't the closest, but it gives you a good idea. I'll just have to play with taking more pictures of my quilts. I just love how clear the pictures turned out. I was ready to cut out the binding, but Mikaela didn't think that was a good idea, so hopefully tomorrow I can get that done. I'd like to have it on so I can do the hand work at Groovy Girls this week.

Mikaela is 6 weeks old!

Miss Mikaela is 6 weeks old today and we took a few pictures to mark the occasion. She's now officially outgrown newborn clothes and diapers. She's got incredible strength in her neck and legs and she's growing like crazy.

She's found her thumb for keeping her satisfied.

She's really just our little beautiful girl and so happy and content most of the time. I'm loving being a mom and it's going to be hard going back to work in 2 weeks.