Covert Robin Guest Post

I'd like to welcome Jill from Made with Moxie to the blog today!  She is the wonderful creator of my incredible clutch from the Covert Robin Swap!  


Hi! I'm Jill, aka ThatMoxieGirl, from over at Made with Moxie Today I am going to be sharing the gift I made for Marian as part of the Covert Robin handmade gift swap.


This was my first swap ever so I was totally nervous. I wanted to make Marian something she would love love love. I'm one of those people plagued with the need to give the perfect gift. The fun part of a swap is that you get to stalk a person's blog, flickr account, pinterest, etc to get an idea of who your person is and what they like. Call me crazy, but I like it. I'm the kind of girl who peeks in your medicine cabinet when I use your bathroom. (There go all my dinner party invitations....:P )

Oh, yeah, my gift for Marian. I'm a sucker for bags and I haven't met a crafty lady yet who didn't love them too. Just about the time I got my Covert assignment, Anna at Noodlehead released her new Envelope Clutch pattern. It was a great
excuse
reason to buy the pattern, or at least that is what I told my husband. Seriously, I have very tolerant husband, but I don't think he completely understands the You Can Never Have Too Many Bags philosophy of life. *Note: this also applies to shoes.

I used some of this pretty flowered fabric that I had been
hording
saving for the exterior and a sweet green polka dot for the lining. Inside the clutch there is a good sized zippy change pocket, slots for four credit cards and 2 pockets for a phone or other what-nots. This was the first time I had ever put a zipper in like that so I was so nervous not to mess it up!

To finish it off I added a little hand embroidery in complimentary colors to the exterior flap.

I always think it is nice to have a small bag for daily necessities that you can throw in a bigger bag (because I have an infant and toddler to haul around their "stuff" too.) I really hope you enjoy your new clutch, Marian and thank you for having me over!


Jill you really did a wonderful job, I'm so happy with this clutch!  It's perfectly done and absolutely my style!  I absolutely love it!

Be sure to check out Jill's blog, she's wonderful!

Monsterz and I'm Guest Posting!

Remember that wonderful thing called the Covert Robin Swap?  Well it involved guest posting too!  I've never been a guest blogger anywhere before but today I am guest posting at Little D and Me to talk about what I made for Deanna.

Head on over and check it out! 

I do have something to show you.  I started cutting binding for Ben's quilt and for the Drunkard's Path quilt in an effort to check off my three goals for April...and then I got distracted by this post from Katy at I'm a Ginger Monkey.  Well, I have some of this very same fabric, Monsterz from Cloud9, and wasn't sure what to do with it.  I wanted to show off the fabric and loved Katy's tutorial and how her quilt top turned out.  So I added two other prints (the two yellows you see below), followed the tutorial in the post, and voila! It took no time at all.  The only reason I didn't sew the squares up was because we had to go pick up my husband from school.

I really like it.  It's not going to be as large as the quilt in the tutorial, but I think it will be a great baby quilt perhaps to save for if/when we have another kid. I'm hoping my kids will go to sleep (now) for their nap so I can work on the layout and sew up the top.

In other news the kids and I went to an Easter party today for playgroup and they had such a great time.   

 I didn't think they would "get" why or how to hunt for Easter eggs, but they loved it!

 

 It went really well.

We also had a great craft.  Our host for the party had paper that we drew eggs and bunnies on.  Then we smeared frosting on the pictures and the kids stuck marshmallows on the frosting to decorate the bunnies and the eggs.  So clever! Abby demolished hers in the car on the way home.  

Hope you all have a happy Thursday!  My weekend starts today!  Hurray!

I blame spring break...

...for my severe and ridiculous absence.

My almost 3 year old  has been severely testing limits this week and it's been spring break for my husband so...I haven't done as much sewing as I wanted to, but we're all still alive and well (as I wrote this he was trying to have a conversation through the window with the man fixing the neighbor's roof...).

This same child has recently taken to responding to everything with "Yes Sir!" or for me, "Yes Mom!" and saluting us (thank you Toy Story army men...), and both kids discovered how awesome the Muppets are.  So much that i've been going to sleep with Rainbow Connection stuck in my head. 

 See that yellow spot on the left side?  That's the first flower on the side of our house!

Guess what else.  I went to a tea party yesterday!  It was a fundraiser for the ISU Honor Society (I'm pretty sure) and a friend of mine sponsored a table and had an extra ticket!  There were real teacups and real teas - I tried the herbal huckleberry one - and even finger sandwiches, it was yummy.  Great to chat with adult friends too.

Remember the scarf I won from Rachael at Imagine Gnats? Well...it came in the mail yesterday!  And it's so gorgeous.  I love it and can't wait to wear it.  Of course I did have to pry it off of my little Lady Face first.

Oh boy, she loved wearing this!

Ok.  On to the quilty part!!  I do have one thing I want to show you today, and I think it's pretty great. 

I finished my Dream Big quilt top!  I absolutely love it.  This one is all for me and it's my favorite project to date! I'm trying to figure out what to use for the backing and think I might use the same fabric as the border fabric (California Girl by Moda and Fly a Kite by Riley Blake).  I love those prints.

This is a terrible picture but I'm totally loving this pattern and can't wait to finish this quilt!

Finally, I received my gift from my Cover Robin swap partner!! Holy smokes is it beautiful!  I'm really excited about it.  Stay tuned, you'll get to hear more about it this month, but here is a sneak pic.  It is perfect.  Now I need somewhere to go so I can show it off!

And do you remember those two log cabin blocks I made some time ago for Avery, the gymnast?  Well...they are now part of a gorgeous quilt!  I'm so pleased and thankful to have been part of such a wonderful project.  I hope Avery will enjoy it, and didn't Carrie do a wonderful job!  Here is a picture of the finished product from Carrie's Flickr (my two contributions are top row middle, and 5th row far right)

Happy Weekend!  We're going to make cookies today and get ready for Lady Face's 2nd birthday tomorrow!!!