Monday, December 12, 2011

Miscellanous happenings

I decided to give you all one quick post about the last couple of weeks. While hubs stayed home with Sasha over the Thanksgiving weekend, I took the other 2 dogs and kids to my parents house. We thought the forced quiet would be best for that dog and so I sacrificed my and my children's very lives, to travel to see my mother again.
As you see, we made it home in one piece and I'm happy to say she didn't even attempt negligent homicide this year.  (You don't remember what happened? Go here.)

On the most awful shopping day of the year, and even the next Saturday, mom and I went Christmas shopping. We took a leisurely pace since neither of us needed to find door buster deals. We sat down and ate at Red Lobster one day, Olive Garden the next. Just the two of us and we hadn't done that in a long, long time. Usually my sisters are with us since they live in the area but they travelled to Las Vegas this year.

Anyway, Christmas presents almost completed, we went, of course, to JoAnn's.  Mom scored herself a Christmas present (new shears) from me but she will have to wait until Christmas to open them. I scored some fabric and thread on sale.

Guterman and my machine are fast friends. Other than that, I was in a polka dot mood, it seems!
   

Last weekend, I wathced my niece and nephew for a bit. They found one fun fabric in my stash, skulls that glowed in the dark and started looking at the shelves for other fun ones. What was supposed to be my daughter "watching" the kids (she's 15 & I bribed her with order in Italian the night before) so I could sew while they were here, turned into them wanting to "play" in the sewing room.  We all decided to make a game of it and played "Find the Fabric". K (daughter) or J (son) or I would ask them to find a type of fabric. I.e., find a fabric with blue and red butterflies.  Then off they'd go. It was tied 5 to 5 when we were all ready to call it quits. At the last second and with no help, the 4 year old nephew (W) took the victory over the 6 year old niece (S).  W won a nickle, S won a high-five but had a moment of self-pity and annoyance so left the "high five" hanging. We gave that to W, too and told her she could choose to remember the fun she had even if she didn't win or she could be mad about not winning and no one would pity her.  About 1 second later she realized she was going to get about as much attention in our house for that kind of behavior as she does in her own and decided to come get some milke and vanilla wafers. Go figure... :-)

Here are pictures of their explorations:


After snack, they both decided they wanted to sew something and I suggested mug rugs as a Christmas present. Immediately, they picked out fabrics for grandma and grandpa. S set about sewing squares for a Christmas mug rug for grandma and W chose patriotic prints (after I convinced him grandpa probably wasn't as in love with the skulls as he was) for grandpa.  We slowed speed down on the machine, I did ironing and cutting and the kids chose the pattern/layout and sewed the fabric together. Then they quilted the layers. I added the binding.

Here they are working on their projects:


And their finished products:
Aren't they the most adorable kids? I'm not biased or anything.

They went to grandma's  and granpa's house at Thanksgiving and did an early Christmas but I haven't heard how they were received. Knowing the grandparents on that side of the family, though, I suspect they are already properly being displayed and used!

That's it for now, I'll check in again soon.

Cheers!
Beck

3 comments:

Ann Marie @ 16 Muddy Feet said...

What a lovely day had by all. Teach them early, and it should stick with them. My machine loves Guterman too!

Sue Daurio said...

That is absolutely adorable. Goodness look at the smiles of accomplishment on their faces in the last picture. Priceless!!

Shay said...

I was thinking of you at Thanksgiving and wondering whether your Mom had tried to poison you again. I was so happy when I got email from you because it meant you had survived the holiday.

My machine likes Guterman and Rasant. It hates Birch threads (an Aussie brand )

How cool you got to share sewing with your nephew and niece.