You Got to Know when to Hold um and Know When to Fold Um

We leave for CA today to see some of my all time favorite folks and their wee ones.
I have been burning the midnight oil trying to finish Miss Amelia's quilt until Sunday night when I realized, on my 3 try to back and quilt it that I was having no fun. In fact I was having the opposite of fun and sounding awful lot like a truck driver in the process. And so I took a deep breath and realized this was not meant to be a marathon it is meant to be a gift of love. I was pushing so hard to get things down that I was cutting corners in ways I didn't like. I was using a sheet as the backing rather than quilting fabric because I didn't have time to get out to a fabric store, I was also using cotton batting because that is what I had even though I thought this quilt needed loft.
And so I stopped. I do not need to finish this before we leave. It is a quilt meant to wrap a little one in love not frustration. So I pulled off the back, gave it a good shake out and folded it up. When we get beck from San Fransisco I will finish it and enjoy it. I will have the right tools for the job and a few deep breaths.

Grace and Nyla's goodies

I have several very cool projects that you all are going to have to wait to see because they are in the top secrete status. All I can say for now is that they are very cool and you will all like them a lot once you see them.
As I try to crawl out of the hole of 33 babies in a year I have turned to one of my favorite crafts stencils. This outfit is for Ms. Grace born this year to two friends from college.



Now Grace has a big sister named Nyla and because i don't believe in leaving out big sister's and brother's I made Nyla a sweatshirt...


...and yes I understand that this makes the hole of 33 grow exponentially.

Amelia's Quilt

For those I have not complained to about this I know 33 babies born in the last 14 month. Yes that is right 33. There must have been rolling blackouts or something that i didn't know about cause there is a population boom! To be fair I also blame facebook. How does a social networking site make more babies you ask? Well I wouldn't say that facebook is causeing folks to cuddle up more, however, it is causing me to know about more of them. I have friends from college that I had lost touch with only to find them and there soon to be offspring on-line.
This baby boom has cause a wee bit of crafting stress in my life. There are several little ones that I would have done something but the craft debt is getting pretty high. It is almost bad enough that I want to just hide my head under the covers until these kiddo's go to college. But alas some of them are very special much anticapated bundles of joy that I really want to make something for. So slowly but surely i am crawling out of the craft debt. It isn't easy, especially because the longer it takes to make something the bigger the kid gets which means the bigger the item is...do you see the issue here people!
I am traying to stick with the motto of "keep calm and craft on". At the top of the list is a quilt for Miss Amelia. She is now 8 months old and my guy and I are going to visit her for the first time at the begining of August. Her folks are some of my favorite people on the planet and so I put my noise to the sewing machine and got cranking. And after a long weekend of patch work I have a top.

Etsy

Some of you may know about the wonderful land of Etsy and others may not. For those that don't know it is a place where crafter and makers of all kinds can sell their wear. I have a site, sadly with nothing on it at the moment but that is another story.

One thing you can do on etsy is post what is called a treasury which is a collection of things you like all together. I decided to do one on call The Not so Permanent Love of Tattoo's

which you can check out here

Craftacular Room

We moved 3 months ago and for the last 4 months I haven't been able to find a single crafting item. Why is it the thing we love is always the last to get our attention?
Well no more, yesterday I removed ever single item, yes you heard me right, every ball of yarn, stay needle, piece of felt and scrap of paper with an idea on it and got organized. The result: my very own Craftacular Room! Yipee! Crafting here I come

Sheep! Wool! Maryland!

A

Katy's surprise yarn for me

B
mega sale cherry hill yarn

C

Cotton with black threads

At the beginning of May Mary loaded Molly, Katy and I into her car and trucked us off to the wonderful land of Sheep, Wool and Maryland: AKA Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. We all desperately needed some good girl time and some and had a blast. Now for those who don't know it the Maryland Sheep and Wool is the Big Bertha of sheep and wool festivals. It is huge! and on that May weekend it was also really hot. I admit that touching yarn in 90 plus weather is just no fun. Somehow we all gravitated to fine wool, go figure.

Above is some of my bootee. I am happy to report that I have several projects going with various sheep and wool yarns.

My favorite is A Katy's surprise yarn for me. At breakfast of the second day Katy and I decided to exchange $20 and see what yarn the other picked out for them. We had a few things in the mix for example I hate knitting mohair so no 100% mohair for me. What I got was the lovely hand dyed, hand spun yarn above. Currently the yarn and I are in conference about what it is suppose to become. It isn't a ton of yardage. At first I thought leg warmers but I would have to add another yarn. Fingerless gloves for a overly AC office? I am not sure but will keep you all posted on the plan. Any ideas are always welcome.

Been Gone for Awhile

Life has been a little too much of too much lately which has meant it is hard to keep up with my blog. But rest assured I am still making lots of stuff! And i might even managed to tell you all about it now that my camera cable is permanently living in my office drawer.
In the mean time...I got a package in this box and when I went to recycle it this little note is what I found- I love it! and it pretty much sums up how I feel right now