UFOs no mo

You probably never knew one seamstress could have so many projects started, work all week finishing a bunch, and still have some left!  Well, now you know.

I pulled out a stack of recently and not-so-recently started  pieces and stitched like a mad woman, debt-snowball style.  If you're not familiar with a debt-snowball, it's a term coined by financial planner Dave Ramsey who suggests when trying to get out of debt, you start with the bill that has the highest interest rate and the least to pay off.  Then when you get that one paid off, you attack the next one.  Getting the smallest ones finished motivates you and frees up cash to put toward the next bill.

Let's just say I had a lot of sewing bills to pay!  Lots of you played along with my little guessing game, which was highly motivating to me.  I hardly set one down before I was picking up the next one to finish.  It's Friday afternoon and I'm aware that I could have probably forced myself to complete another one before midnight.  But I stopped.  Because as Caleb would say, "I tire!"  I got a lot done and finished a few pieces for my poorly neglected little baby store in the process.

So, without further ado, here we go from start to finish.  Hang with me, so you can find out who won my little guessing game challenge.

1 

Innocence

You already saw this one.  I completed it last weekend.  I still like it.  A lot.

2

 Eliza Jane 

This bunny was a team effort.  Crocheted by Lacy and dressed by me, she is wearing a little frock made from Ellee's nursery fabrics.  Lacy raised the cute factor really high by adding the shrug and headband.   She's the first of the Ellee creations.

3

 Jeremiah's Alphabet Quilt

This small wall-hanging is the first installment for Jeremiah's nursery.  Hannah wants a Noah's Ark, two by two theme.  But the homeschool mom in me thought he needed an alphabet quilt first.   Sorry, Hannah.  I briefly considered stitching two of each letter, but didn't want him to be dyslexic.

The hand quilting around each letter......

....makes the back almost as cute as the front!

4

 Maggie's Pillow

Maggie and I started this a year or so ago.  Maggie did all the appliqué by machine and embroidered the words by hand.   It's been sitting around needing a back and stuffing all this time.  Finally, it's at home on her bed!

5

 Frolic

I pieced this gender-neutral crib quilt top during my frenzy last fall.  It still needed to be quilted and bound.  

  The backing is gray with tiny stars.  The binding is aqua blue.  38" X 44"  

 It's for sale.  

$80 

6

Spring Fever

This one has been a UFO the longest.  I designed one similar to this as a give-away several years ago.   The pieces were all cut out and tucked in a zip lock bag, just waiting to be pieced, hand quilted, and bound into a mini quilt.

7

 Fawn Vintage Pillow

After she discovered how much fun it is to play with colored thread, Abby went "cracker dog" with the needle and floss.  She left several embroidery pieces here and told me to do whatever I wanted with them.  The first  I turned into this vintage nursery pillow.  Hand embroidered and hand-quilted pillow slip with removable pillow form.   $20.

8

The next is this vintage baby giraffe pillow.  

Hand-embroidered by Abby, hand-quilted by me.   Removable pillow form.

 $20

The back view shows the envelope style closure.

9

Last but not least is this vintage style tote.  It measures about 8.5" X 9" X 1.5". This would make a great little tote bag or purse for any little girl.  I lined Abby's embroidery and made it into a pocket for the front, then trimmed all the way around the top with lace.  The back looks just like the front except without the pocket.  $20

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the answer to the trivia question:  How many UFOs can Laura Lee finish in one week?

NINE!

So who guessed nine?

NO ONE!

Did I plan it that way?  Of course not!  I just worked until I couldn't see straight and threw in the towel.

Which means...I had to assign everyone a number and put them in the handy dandy number generator and let some computer out in cyberspace choose a winner!!

Alyssa Romano,

That someone is you!

As your prize, you may choose any one of the five items pictured below.  Just send me a message telling me which one you want.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Love,

the first of mini

Designing that last tiny quilt for the give-away created a monster.  I have had mini-quilts on the brain ever since, using much of my free time the past couple weeks dreaming up the next one.  These are great for me because I can go gang busters on them and they are highly portable, allowing me to work on them almost any time I have a spare minute.  Last week I put together this mini which I believe will be the first of many, the inspiration coming from a 1960s era children's book appropriately titled Little Girls.  I've adored the line drawings in that book from the moment I found it several years ago.  I knew some day I'd turn one of them into a quilt.  I call this one Innocence.

A little lassie with a lamb evokes wonderful feelings of fresh air and country life.  I believe if I could, I'd pick up and move right into this happy scene.   In my imagination I fancy that this sweet girl has just gathered a fresh bouquet for her mama.  Running and playing without a care in the world, she stops for a few moments to have a conversation with her woolly friend.  She wears a simple blue sundress and sports a red-checked scarf over her nut brown pig tails.  She's the picture of innocence.  I would be her friend.   Wouldn't you?

I will likely offer this for sale.   I need to figure out how to price items such as this.  While it and others like it may be small, (this one measures just 10"X11") they still take hours to put together.  Nearly everything I quilt is original, which means I'm not following anyone else's pattern.  I delight in drawing out the scene, deciding on fabrics for appliqué, designing the embroidery, etc.  And obviously, since it is original, there isn't another one on the planet like it. Such is the beauty of truly original artwork.  The more I've designed, the more I find myself eschewing patterns altogether.  Funny how that works.

I'm also trying to settle on a name for my non-baby related creations.  Cradle Moon is solely for baby gear; I need something else for the other stuff.

I started this wee pink cottage after I finished Innocence.  I got the idea from a vintage 1950s greeting card.   It won't be as small as Innocence,  but I'd still consider it a mini.  I have more to go on it; later I'll show you the finished piece.  Under the cottage I'm going to embroider "Bless the roof and chimney tall.  Let Thy peace lie over all."  I love that verse from the hymn "Bless This House."  We had it sung at our wedding.

My inspiration comes from various places as you can see.  Story books, greeting cards, almost anything.  The problem is that the inspiration comes way faster than the fingers can stitch.  I have at least half a dozen more mini quilts brewing in my head.  The challenge is going to be finishing one before pulling another from my swirling gray matter and putting it into fabric.

Which brings me to my next topic: UFOs.  These aren't "unidentified flying objects", they are unfinished objects, sometimes also referred to as WIPs, or works in progress.  You don't want to know how many of them are tucked around in my sewing room.  As a conservative estimate, I'd say I have at least 20 of them in varying stages of completion.  A constant but never achieved goal is to get them all finished.  Every once in a while, like this past weekend,  I get my motivation on and pull out some to complete.  I take the "debt snowball" approach, finishing the ones that need the least work to complete, providing almost instant satisfaction.

Needing a shot in the arm and a challenge, I thought it might be fun to ask you how many UFOs you think I can complete this week.  Want to play along?  Tell me how many you think I'll finish in one week.  I'm counting what I did this past weekend, and I'll add to it what I finish this week through Friday.  Take a guess and let me know.  I'll have a little gift for the winner.  If there is a tie, I'll draw from the correct guesses to choose a winner.  If no one guesses correctly, I'll just draw a name from all the entries.

Love,

a winner!

This afternoon I delivered the mini-quilt to 

Jenny!!  

She said she has the perfect spot for it in her kitchen.

Thanks to everyone who played along.

Love,

Easy to quote, harder to do.

We all know the verses.  Most of us can quote them by heart.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ~1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Quoting them and doing them are two different matters.  If you're at all like me, you can use a constant reminder to be patient and kind.  Sometimes I just need to see it in writing.  Or in this case, stitched right onto fabric!

If you'd like this little piece of stitchery let me know.  I'll draw for this give-away tomorrow.

 Love,

love is patient, love is kind

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought I better get stitchin' on a little give-away.  I started this on Saturday, but didn't have time to work on it yesterday at all.  So, while Caleb completes his seatwork this morning, I'm hand-quilting a little mini-quilt for one of you.

It's small, measuring only 10X13".  I pulled some sweet vintage fabrics and drew a little happy scene with bird, and flowers, and butterfly.  While the sentiment speaks of love, there's nary a heart in sight; so it can be displayed year round!

Let me know if you want in by leaving a comment here or on FB.  Or you can email to:

thomas temple @ bell south .net

(remove the spaces)

I'll draw a name on Wednesday.

 Love,

Good Morning {a catch-up post for the new year}

Here we are nearly at the end of January.  My plan to post once a week hasn't met with reality.  I thought after the first of the year life would slow down enough that I could pop over here more.  Hasn't happened.

We started Caleb on the ABeka 1st grade DVD curriculum a couple weeks ago and I'm happy to say that he is doing very well.  Granted, he needs almost constant supervision, but that is pretty much to be expected with a boy his age.  Long gone are my simple days of quiet little girls calmly doing their school work.  Caleb would rather wiggle and move while he does his.  That's ok.  We deal with it.  As long as he understands what is expected of him, he works with enthusiasm.  I love that about him.  He is learning to write in cursive, learning to read, doing math (read: yelling the answers at the TV screen to beat the other students), and singing the Bible songs with complete abandon.  Ask him what his favorite class is and he'll tell you it's Bible.  He's a kid after my own heart.  I had the mistaken notion that the DVDs would free me up for other things.  Instead, I'm spending more one-on-one with him than I have since he first came home.  But it's great and I'm loving it.

Our school day is way longer than I like this way.  Charlotte Mason would not approve.   The girls work on all their independent work in the mornings and don't get time with me until after the lunch dishes are done.  Some days we are still working on their phonics, spelling, or literature until nearly four o'clock.

Meanwhile, Lacy is in her last semester of homeschooling.  Quite honestly, that seems impossible!  She's the most diligent, self-motivated student I've ever taught.  Why didn't I get a whole houseful of Lacys?  I have to constantly remind her to not put too much pressure on herself.  I don't set deadlines for her.  She sets them for herself.  The big news for her is that she's been accepted to Pensacola Christian College for the fall with a plan to study nursing.  It's a long haul over there from here, but the quality of education she'll receive is going to make that sacrifice worth it in the long run.  I have no idea how I will keep this household running with both Abby and Lacy gone.  So I just won't think about it.

On the sewing front, I've taken a major step back from Cradle Moon projects.  My goal there was to help Abby and Jonathan with their outgoing expenses.  God brought in a huge amount of funding for them and my contribution was a rather small part of that total.   At some point I'll get it cranked up again with the sales going toward another good cause....possibly a plane ticket to Lesotho.

I found and ordered the fabrics for Ellee's crib quilt.  Jeremiah's are being a bit more elusive.  Hannah and I are working on that.  With the girls at 21 and 20 weeks pregnant, there is still time.  Abby wants sweet, girly, and cottage-y for Ellee.  Hannah wants a light, bright, simple nursery with a Noah's Ark theme for Jeremiah.

Ellee's crib quilt fabrics:

Hill Farm by Lecien

   

                                               Hannah-20 weeks                            Abby-20 weeks

Now the recipe for the coffee cake you saw up there.  This is from the newly revised Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that Abby left at our house.  I wanted to bake a simple coffee cake for breakfast and this one looked exactly right.  We inhaled it.  Shamelessly.

Buttermilk Coffee Cake

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9X13 baking pan; set aside.  In a large bowl, stir together flour and brown sugar.  Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the mixture to sprinkle over the batter.  Stir baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg into remaining crumb mixture.  In another bowl combine buttermilk and egg;  add to crumb mixture stirring just until moistened. 

Spoon batter into prepared baking pan.  Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture and chopped nuts.  Bake for 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  Makes 12 or more servings.

Love,

• 
  

A Higher Purpose {Goodbye through a sister's eyes}

 Lacy and Abby 

{The following post was written by Lacy as we drove home from saying goodbye.}

As Abby, Jonathan, Kyle, {and little Ellee Renée} leave for Africa my heart is heavy and my eyes overflow with tears. The thought of them moving halfway across the world saddens me greatly. However, I take comfort in the One who is sending them: Jesus Christ. It’s because of Jesus Christ that I can face tomorrow. It’s because of Christ that I continue to live and have motivation. It’s certainly not easy to see my sister and her family leave, but God has done so much to prepare me, as well as my family, for this.


Mexico was Abby and Jonathan’s first destination as missionaries. I still remember saying good-bye to them the day they left. My heart was torn in two as I watched them go. I wanted them to stay here, yet at the same time I wanted to go with them. I also remember my mom being worried about communication. I remember the anxiety I felt as they left for a place that I was not very familiar with. Even though it was only for nine months, it was still hard to see them leave.


You want to know the best part though? I remember God hearing our prayers and comforting us during that time. God allowed us to Skype with them on an almost daily basis. I can assure you that the Internet connection wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing! God healed our aching hearts and brought comfort through Skype, a future trip to Mexico for my parents, and His peace.


Nine months later they felt called somewhere else. So they packed up all their belongings and moved back to the US. They found an apartment about 3 minutes away from us. Abby was pregnant with Kyle during this time. Oh my! That was such a joy! I loved watching Abby get bigger and bigger every day. I loved being able to feel Kyle kick, and it was pure bliss when I was finally able to hold that little bundle of love in my arms!!! I’ve loved watching Kyle grow from a helpless babe to a toddling car-obsessed little boy!


As they leave for Africa, it seems like a part of me is being ripped away. I’m excited for them, but at the same time I wish they could just stay here. I LOVE my family and I love it when the WHOLE family can get together under one roof and just laugh our heads off! Sadly, that’s not going to happen again for a while. Today was our last time together. We drove to the AIM headquarters in Atlanta to have a farewell luncheon with all the missionaries that are leaving today, tomorrow, and in the next few weeks. It was a wonderful time of fellowship as we heard the newbie missionaries express their goals/desires and prayer requests with us. Seeing all of them with a heart for missions and personally knowing what they are leaving behind encouraged my heart even more for missions.


After the luncheon we went to Abby, Jonathan, and Kyle’s hotel room. Everyone wished time could have just stopped for a while, but sadly time kept moving and eventually we had to face the dreadful good-bye.


It was hard hugging my sister one last time before she left. I probably would have clung to her much longer, but I knew we had to leave and others were waiting for their last hug. I’ve always looked up to Abby. In a way, she’s my best friend. Just because she’s moving halfway across the world doesn’t mean our friendship will end; in fact, it will keep blossoming and growing. It’s because of Abby that I have the passion for missions that I do now. Abby has been the perfect role model for me when it comes to my faith. Seeing Abby grow into a mature married adult, a mother, and now a full time missionary has had such an impact on my life. To see her with only nine suitcases of their belongings tore at my heart, but showed me how much they were sacrificing for Christ. I’m so proud to be able to call her my sister.


Next I said good-bye to Jonathan. It filled me with joy to see Abby go with her God-given man! It was such a blessing to see that Abby and Kyle were well cared for while they were here. Every day Jonathan would wake up and go to work. Even though his job wasn't mission-centered, he was a faithful worker and a wonderful example for me as I wait for my future husband. Their faith has amazed me. As they prayed for a specific amount of support money one month, I watched God double that amount! What a blessing it has been to be a part of their lives!


Last, but certainly not least, I said good-bye to my little Bambino Kyle (and Ellee). Words can’t describe the feelings I had when I hugged Kyle one last time. How much fun it has been to watch him grow from an infant to a toddling babe. Hearing him say “Bye-bye” felt like a needle piercing my heart. I will miss my sweet Kyle's voice, I’ll miss his baby chatter, and I’ll miss watching him grow up. And to think that my little Ellee Renée may be someone I never personally know saddens me.


In Christ, however, there’s always comfort and peace. I may miss them terribly but God has told them to go, and they have followed faithfully--to the point of sacrificing basically everything they have, leaving behind family, and leaving the comforts of the US. To dull the pain, Christ has given us another little blessing through my brother Bradley and his wife, Hannah. They are expecting a baby the same time as Abby which gives me something to look forward to right now. I’ll miss not holding Ellee Renée when she is born, but having little Jeremiah around will be wonderful! We serve such an amazing God who will not give us more than we can bear! Even in the midst of trials, He gives us blessings.


Abby and Jonathan are truly living life with a higher purpose.  I pray if and when God calls me to that kind of life that I will be able to sacrifice everything I have and follow Him!


“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
~Matthew 27:19-20


“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
~Acts 1:8

Click this link to watch the video of our last day together.

Goodbyes