Bee happy

Quilting bee blocks make me happy. Happy cause I am doing them. Happy cause it is always a surprise as to what fabrics I'll get to work with. And happy cause I only have to make one block instead of 56.





Sarah wanted a rainbow log cabin. I kept repeating Roy G. Biv in my head while I made it. I even made up a little song. A jingle if you will. And, no, I will not share it with you because it is super dorky.



Amy wanted vintage bed sheet scraps to be made into a picnic quilt. She also wanted a black bird on each block. Viola! I opted against embroidering little black ants marching across the block. I figured that would be cute in theory but not so cute when actually on a picnic.

-dana

Scrappy love for you

The winner of the Amy Butler yardage and fabric scraps is comment number 42. Korbi it is! I just checked out her blog and adorable family and I'm confident that she'll do something wonderfully crafty with the scraps.

Congratulations Korbi! Email me at dana@oldredbarnco.com so I can get your address.

-dana

P.S. I've tried and tried to take screen shots of the random number generator page but, try as I might, I can't seem to figure it out. Blasted technology really kicks my butt sometimes.

Much to do . . . and a giveaway too!

I'm not one for quilt patterns. Not that there is anything wrong with patterns, mind you. It's just I don't have the brain to decipher the cutting directions and sewing instructions.




It's true. When I was a senior in high school my parents took me to Chicago to the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation to find my aptitudes. After a couple of days of groovy tests and whatnot we sat on the opposite side of a gargantuan mahogany desk and listened to the results. Among other revealing insights, they revealed I'm not spatial. My mother has assured me time and time again that I am in fact special. I'm just not spatially inclined.

Hence my phobia of patterns.




Anywho . . .

I've been working on a quilt from a pattern called Bento Box. And I'm making a king sized quilt. It requires 224 small blocks like these.




Which will then be assembled to make 56 large blocks like these. (Somebody shoot me!)




So, the entire king sized quilt is made up of 50+ different Amy Butler prints. I used a small bit of this decorator weight fabric from her August Fields line. But I have four 1/2 yard cuts left over. I thought you might like it.





And making a king sized quilt means lots of scraps leftover. Along with the August Fields yardage, I thought I'd also give away all the scraps. Cause scraps are good. Especially if you are crafty like Amy or AmandaJean. So I'll give you all these scraps too.







And, I'm getting ready to start a brand new quilt made with nothing but the delectable Daisy Chain line so I'll throw in all of those scraps too.






Interested? Leave a comment for your chance to win. I'll let the random number generator pick a winner on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 sometime after 6pm.

Good luck.
-dana



P.S.

Dear Future #3

I'm not very good at the whole after school till dinner thing.

I pick the girls up at 3:00 and we are usually home by 3:15ish. We come in. Everyone takes of their shoes and washes their hands. The girls usually change clothes while I get their planners out of their backpacks and sign everything I need to sign and set out their homework. They both immediately do their homework because, as we say, we like to "knock it out and be done with it."

Homework takes 20 minutes or less. Then they get a snack and chill out for awhile.

I often use that time to check my email and then get dinner started around 4:00pm.

Usually this process is a smooth one. But it is never my favorite time of day. And certainly not how I ever imagined it to be. I always imagined that I would have warm chocolate chip cookies for them to eat. With tall glasses of ice cold milk. I always imagined warm snuggling and happy humming while I whipped up a delicious and nutritious dinner.

Instead, the girls usually have raisins or a granola bar. And I'm sorting and sifting through a mountain of permission slips and book order forms. Or fretting because I forgot to get the chicken out of the freezer and wonder what to fix for dinner. And if I have to quiz one or the other for a test the following day, I am not always as patient as I wish that I could be. And sometimes they rush off to chill out when I want someone, anyone, to sit on my lap and let me bask in their wonderfulness.

Ya, I'm not the picture of perfection in the whole after school thing.

Thank heavens Razor is here in the mornings to help make our before school routine a gentle start to a busy day.


-dana

I can almost smell it

Spring that is. I can almost smell Spring.

I smell other things. Like on certain days I can smell the cows across the road. Well, probably not the cows themselves but rather what they leave behind. And, curiously, that doesn't bother me.

At this exact moment I can smell the roast heavily seasoned with dill in the crock pot.

But what I'm talking about today is Spring.





I can almost smell Spring when I walk into my greenhouse and see these pots.




I know they don't look like much right now but they are starting to rumble and rouse. In some pots I can see the tiniest bits of green starting to surface.




And Razor made a raised bed in the second greenhouse over the weekend. I've already planted kale and three different types of lettuce. Don't worry. He added more dirt since I took this photo. Dirt and old, old cow manure from across the street.

Those cows come in handy I tell ya.




Yep. I can almost smell Spring. And it won't be long before birds will find the new homes we recently painted for them.




And I can't hardly wait.

-dana

Sweethearts

Ahhhh. My own little sweethearts. Wrapped in red and pink.

I'm one lucky momma indeed.

-dana

Not so fast

It has been unseasonably warm for the past several days. I've tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Soaking in the warm rays of sunshine. Hoping (and physically feeling) it wash away the winter blahs.


So we have been skipping rope.


And hanging out.





And hiking up behind our house.




And sitting next to creeks.





And drawing.







I also threatened to break up with Facebook. But instead of breaking up completely we have decided to slow things down a bit. In other words, I gave back his class ring but I'm still wearing his Letterman jacket. I've set clear parameters and expectations. And if he tries any funny business we are over.

For reals.

-dana

Dear Future #2

Sometimes there are crumbs on the counter.




Okay. Okay. Alot of times there are crumbs on the counter.

-dana

Dear Future #1

Soon I will slurp this blog into book form again. I do it yearly so that this blog becomes a hardbound written journal of our lives. "Our" being my family. When my girls are older I want them to be able to look back and see what life was like when they were children. I want them to know what their mother did, thought and saw.

But, this blog is only a small window into what our life is like. Just a pinhole view actually. It cannot capture everything. It cannot capture the routine chores. Or the occasional pandemonium. Or the imperfectness of life.

I'd like to think that this blog is beautiful. A beautiful family. A beautiful life. A beautiful reminder of what really matters.

But life isn't perfect. When my girls are older and perhaps mothers of their own, I don't want them to have a skewed view of motherhood. Of childhood. Of what and how their mother did things.

So, I'm going to spend some time pointing out the imperfections in my mothering.

::Deep breath::

Are you ready?









Closets are sometimes messy.




They usually start clean and organized and stay that way for several months. However, as time passes and we get busy taking care of this or taking care of that I tend to get sloppy with putting things back in the closet.

This particular closet holds much of my soap making supplies and most of the kid crafting supplies. And sometimes after I've taken soap out of the mold at 7:25 in the morning just before I drive the girls to school, I haphazardly fling the empty molds back into the closet. And the oils. And the essential oils. And maybe even a various and assorted box or two.


Then a few months after the calamity takes over I clean it out and reorganize.

Yesterday was one of those days. We took out every stinkin' craft supply we own. And every last bit was then strewn across the living room floor.





Boo and Licious crafted and created and used their imagination for hours. And the mess was totally worth it. Because in between helping them figure out how to attach a Styrofoam ball to a chenille stick or fashion a bathtub out of a shoe box, I got to do some crafting too.










And it was messy. And it was kind of chaotic in my living room. And after about three hours I was kind of tired of the mess and started to lose my patience.

But I think that we all had fun. And I'd like to think that even in my imperfectness we managed to have a pretty okay day.

-dana

Quilting bee catch-up

Boo and Licious were home today due to snow. We broke out all of our craft supplies and got to work. They built homes for their animal toys and I played catch-up with one of my virtual quilting bees.

Two for Cathy.



One for Juliette.




Snow days are fun.

-dana

Still clogging along

Still clogging.





Still loving it.

-dana

Matryoshka family

A few months back Canela and I met. I forget how. Maybe through blogland or perhaps I stumbled upon her Etsy shop. How we met doesn't really matter. All that matters to me is that we did.

She custom made this bracelet for me and I have hardly removed it from my wrist since receiving it. A Matryoska family for my family. ::Swoon::



-dana