zzzzz.....

Anyone else out there like to sleep with their head resting on their feet?

Little Elephant

The girl LOVES splashing in the tub. It's hard to keep her still for washing during bath time these days. MY favorite part of bath time is cuddling my little elephant bundle afterwards - even though daddy is the official baby-washer most of the time :)

Chubby Chicks

I go back to school this week - boo!! and classes start Aug. 22nd. It's like waiting for the roller coaster to leave the station. You feel like you should be doing a few things to get ready, but things will be flying along before you know it - there's nothing you can really do to be totally "prepared." So I'm taking my last few days to deliberately NOT get ready. That means - quilts!


Here's a little preview of my chubby chicks. I just worked out how I want to do the beaks since I'm avoiding fusible applique which the pattern suggests. I hand appliqued (is that how you spell it?) all the chick bodies already, and now I'm zig-zagging on the beaks which will be flapping free in the breeze :) I hope that will hold up to tugging by Bea.

They also suggest buttons for eyes, but I don't want buttons on my blanket so I have to think about what to do instead.

Speaking of Bea... She went to a little swim "lesson" this weekend and took her first ride on the big train, CalTrain. Choo choo!

Sailing on Gull Lake

Here we are in action aboard Gramps' Laser 2 in Ontario. We're back now from our relaxing vacation. It's nice to get back to sunny, dry, mosquito-free California, but a bummer to be so far from family again.

Trying New Things

Here's my very first machine-quilted quilt (er... baby mat). It was just for practice, and I learned a lot. My binding is fatter on the back than the front, the quilting lines aren't that straight, and the design was just thrown together, but I think it came out pretty well anyway.


It'll be a handy thing to take along next month on our trip to Wisconsin and Ontario. I won't mind if it gets dirty and it's pretty small, about 34"x34".

Something else I learned about this week: you can't freeze prune juice - not the kind I bought, apparently. Just tuck that little tidbit away in your memory for future reference :)

Dress is Done

Don't look too closely! I think the dress turned out pretty cute, even if it's a bit rough in some spots. Attaching the bias strips around the insides of the armholes and neck was tougher than expected, but it's alright for a first try. It's a little big for Bea still, so we'll save it for the end of the summer.

My favorite part is the print - the perfect thing for a little girl dress :)

No Future as a Dressmaker

I took the plunge and got a new sewing machine on Friday. The thing is amazing, and I was so eager to start playing with it that I started making a little dress for Bea from "Simple Sewing for Baby" - the same book I got the drool bib from. Well... I got off to a bad start as you can see.

I guess I was so excited about getting to the sewing part that I goofed on the cutting. But I re-cut, and now I'm working away on it and having fun, and learning a lot about my new Bernina, woo hoo!!

ps: The little grammar nazi inside of me made me edit the previous post to fix the excessive use of the words "this" and "awesome." I'm sure no one noticed :)