pinterest is dangerous.

Have you heard about Pinterest yet?  It's amazing.  A visual feast of all your favorite things.  It's like a room full of corkboards for you to pin all of your favorite pictures on.  It's addicting!

look at all the fun things I've found!

source: sugarlaws.com

The ottoman above and this glorious table and chairs can be found on my furniture love board.  When you look at someone's pins, it shows the orginial source. so cool!

source: hometowngirl.typepad.com

I have a board devoted to dish love too.

source: northerncottage.blogspot.om

source: bhg.com

yep, definitely a theme.  And that last room!! I can hardly breathe looking at it! (appropriately in room love).  Good grief!  I would never leave.

If your interested in what I'm obsessing over lately, just click on the Pinterest tab at the top of the page and it will take you to my boards.  But only if you can handle an assault of turquoise on your eyes.   :)

To be clear, I didn't take any of these pictures.  The original sources can be found by clicking through on the links to my pinterest page.

Sew & Tell moved to next week

Hi everyone!
For a couple of reasons, I'm using my reserved right to change my mind and move Sew & Tell to next Friday.   :)  I actually have something to share, I just have been so busy this month, I haven't had time to get the post written.  SOOOOOooooo, instead of stressing out today (the first day of a long weekend) we'll just do it next week.

Besides, as you've all heard, there are more important things going on in our world this week.  Like the recovery effort from the tornadoes that hit early in the week.

Please go read Dana's post about how you can help.  There might even be something in it for you.

Dana's A Notion or Two Bee Quilt, yes, she's giving it away.

Each 1$ donation buys you one chance to win this quilt.  So, shelve your sew & tell posts and get over to Dana's!  Thank you.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Spring 2011

Hello fellow blogging quilters! I'm so happy to share this quilt with you today!

This was my first quilt made by me from an online quilting bee.   But I can't really say it was made by me since I had 11 other awesome folks help bring the picture in my head to reality.  And really, I think that the reality is better than the picture in my head.  Lovely Amy, organizer of Bloggers' Quilt Festival, did the block in the middle of the bottom row. Of course, she did something fantastic and unique!

This is the first quilt I have ever quilted on my own little machine.  It was not easy.  In fact, I kind of loathed it by the time I was done.  It was just so hard maneuvering all that fabric through a tiny throat space.  It doesn't help that I've been spoiled and used my my mom's long-arm. (Well, it was only once.  And about 10 years ago.  But I LOVED it.)

I liked doing loop-de-loops  (I think it hides more mistakes).

I love this IKEA fabric on the back.  I'm going there this week and stocking up.

I love the requisite binding shot.  And the cherry red Amy Butler dots!

I know there are so many other quilts to go check out!  Enjoy!  If you are interested in seeing more photos and read about all the lessons I learned making this quilt, you can go HERE.

sewing with friends

Remember my challenge from the last Sew & Tell post?

Well, I couldn't very well challenge you to spend some time sewing with friends, letting out everyone's inner sewer, without doing it myself!

this is the best kind of mess, no?

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I got together to motivate and inspire each other.  And I converted to her to a hand-sewn binding!  Yeah!

So we will have Sew & Tell on 27 May - in just over a week!  Get ready to share the fun you've had sewing with friends!  You'll still be able to link up if you were stingy and kept your craftiness to yourself, but really you should go have some fun with a friend!!! You have some time still to pull it off!

a look back

We've been a little busy around here celebrating stuff this week.

7 years ago, we were doing this.

And even though I don't feel like 7 years is that long, we've done a lot.  Moves, deployments, vacations...

But mostly this.

#1

#2

and #3

Who just happened to turn one last week.

Didn't I just give birth??

And, these three are the reason I sort of had a day off yesterday.

But I don't want you to think things are idyllic around here.  They are most certainly not.

This is a more realistic representation of every day.

Hey #2, I'm totally with you.

a trip to the fabric store

Joann's is over an hour from my house.  All this talk about Denyse Schmidt's new line there had me curious.  And I heard they might have some Farmdale . . . But I couldn't justify that long of a drive just to go to Joann's to look.  So I also went to Costco!  Because the nearest one is also over and hour away,  but just down the block from Joann's.

They did have the DS Quilts fabrics.  Well, some of them.  But not the dots which is really what I wanted.  But they did have the Farmdale!

I'll add these 2 yards to the yard I already have.  To have and to hoard until death do us part.

The patterns were cheap and I'm using them as templates so I don't have to reninvent the whole wheel, just part of it.

I want to make a yoked skirt like the ones I've been making for my girls.  And I have a tunic that I want to replicate, and this was the closest thing I've seen.  I'm hoping to be able to change the raglan type sleeve, to a set in one.  We'll see how that goes.... Wish me luck!

dying a little inside

You have to go see this wonderful shoot of Amy Butler's home.

A-mazing.

That is all.