thankful

Here are a few things I'm thankful for:

*spending time with my siblings and cousins on the cruise last week
*Grandpa for being so generous and taking us on the cruise
*having a warm house and enough food
*happy and healthy children and husband
*husband doing the grocery shopping--I love that!
*good friends
*good books
*good sleep

What are you thankful for?

I made 4 red capes for a customer (who is also a friend) today. Next up--blue and yellow capes. But not today.

some things I wanted to share

I made these iPod cozies for an "iTunes" themed raffle basket for my son's class. I made the one on the right first, and realized it didn't have a complete monkey on it. So I made the one on the left and sent it in. They are both lined in light blue interlock knit fabric. I guess it is supposed to be a little iPod sleeping bag to keep your iPod nano from getting scratched up (or scratching other things) in your bag. It wouldn't be something you would keep on the nano while in use, though.

I wanted to mention that I met knitting designer Nicky Epstein on my cruise. In the ironing room, of course (no ironing allowed in staterooms, too much risk of fire). I was up there ironing my skirt and Lauren's dress for formal night, and a couple of women came in to press some little knitted hearts and we chatted for a minute. The friend who was with Nicky told me they were on a knitting cruise, most of their group was from Houston, and that Nicky is a famous knitwear designer who has written 19 books or so. I saw them again while shopping in Cozumel and have to say that Nicky didn't remember me until I said, "remember, we met in the ironing room?" Check out her books--the knitted and crocheted flower books look very interesting.

Finally, have you heard about this great flea market fancy giveaway?


Lots of Flea Market Fancy fabric and some books are up for grabs!

Have a great Friday everyone!

UFO finish #1--Wreath of Doves

Yay, it's finished! It could still use a hanging sleeve and label, but I'm calling it finished. Here are some stats:
*Started February 2002 in Provo, UT, finished November 2009 in Kansas.
*Pattern is from American Patchwork and Quilting, I will look up the issue number later.
*Dove appliques were made by sewing the shapes right side to interfacing, then cutting a slit in the interfacing to turn them right side out. This way I didn't need to worry about keeping the edges in line as I appliqued them to the background.
*Berries and leaves were done in a needle-turn sort of method.
*Hand quilted with DMC perle cotton. I prefer quilting with 2 strands of embroidery floss; you can pop the knots to the inside.
*I didn't buy enough binding fabric the other day and I was NOT going back so I found a couple of similarly colored fabrics and did another monochromatic-yet-scrappy binding.
*I wish the leaves were made of lighter greens to contrast better with the blue backing.

Projects on my mind:
*some sort of Advent calendar, maybe made with wool felt stockings and mittens.
*long sleeve t-shirts for me, kind of fancied up.

Prematurity Awareness Day--Fight for Preemies

Today is dedicated to raising awareness of the crisis of premature birth. Every year, 20 million babies are born premature in the United States. You can go here to learn about the research being conducted on the causes and prevention of prematurity, and to learn what you can do.

I love this picture. Lauren at 2 days old.

Lauren was born six and a half weeks early, last October. She weighed 4 lbs 8 oz. I was hospitalized for a week before she was born, because my water had broken. She stayed in the hospital for 12 days and came home November 5, 2008, weighing 4 lbs 13 oz. She was on an apnea/heart monitor for a while and had several visits from home health nurses.

After several weeks, we were getting ready to take her off the monitor, actually we stopped putting it on her for about 3 nights, and then we noticed one evening that she was having some problems breathing. We still had the monitor and put it back on her that night and she had at least 6 serious apnea episodes throughout the night. Like turning blue (I cannot tell you how scary that is.) Did you know babies can turn blue from not breathing for only about 10-15 seconds? I wish I didn't know that from personal experience.

We went to the children's hospital early the next morning and eventually got settled in where Lauren was monitored and treated for bronchiolitis for about 8 days. (She didn't have the RSV virus but did have the same illness that RSV causes.) She was mostly there for monitoring but was also given some supplemental oxygen to help her body fight her way through the illness. After she came home she only had one or two apnea episodes in the next few days and then has been very healthy ever since (she got her first fever, ever, last week while we were on our cruise but she's almost all the way better now). We did decide to keep her on the apnea monitor at night until she was around 5 months old.


I am so grateful that Lauren is healthy and didn't have any lasting problems related to her prematurity. She turned 1 year old last month and is starting to take first steps here and there. She's sweet and easygoing and happy. She loves her baby doll and throwing balls. She doesn't like the vacuum or baths or people putting things on their heads.

I wish I could understand why this happened to us, and why so many babies are being born early. I had two full term babies, and really the only thing "high risk" about me during my pregnancy with Lauren was that I turned 35 the month before she was due. I did read on the March of Dimes website (I can't find a link right now) that having any type of infection during pregnancy can possibly be linked to premature birth. And I did have a not-terribly-severe but not fun episode of food poisoning in July while I was pregnant. Maybe that weakened my system and eventually led to my early ruptured membranes and early labor. I won't ever know for sure. We ended up with a healthy, happy baby, but it was a tremendously difficult experience that I am still not ready to share very many details about. I am glad we had the support of the March of Dimes and I'm going to look into finding out more about how our family can support the fight for preemies.

a few more fat quarters

I just got these babies at the quilt shop. I'm almost ready to finish a couple of my unfinished projects.

I decided to do the sashing for my Figgy Pudding Christmas quilt in the aqua "grunge" fabric. It will be a little blendy with some of the block fabrics, but I think I will really like it overall.

Look what I just read about on Corrie's Dutch Blue blog--a Holiday Traditions quilt contest. I might just have to enter both the small and large quilt contests over there.

I'm going to put them in the washer, right now!

a couple of giveaways

Working on catching up with my google reader, I came across a couple giveaways. First, go check out the Art Gallery Fabrics blog for a chance to win a copy of Quilts, Quilts, Quilts by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes. I wrote about this book a while back; it's a fabulous learn to quilt book.

And... have you heard about Hawthorne Threads yet? It is a new online fabric shop with LOTS of great fabric, and an interesting tiered pricing system.

They are giving away a Firenze bag kit (I adore this bag) and some fat quarter packs of Art Gallery Fabrics' Girly Girl line. Go check it out!

home again, home again

My wonderful grandfather took almost all of his married grandchildren, along with many of his wife's married grandkids, on a cruise to Progreso and Cozumel last week. We had a great time. It was so good to see so many of my cousins, some that I haven't seen for several years. It was really cool to meet my step-grandma's grandkids too, and become acquainted with them. It was definitely a wide range of interesting people. (My brother won the ship's drink-mixing contest, one of my cousins was second place in the hairy chest contest. Just a couple of examples.)

We got home last night and I'm still waiting for my land legs to come back; my world is still rocking back and forth.

The second night on the boat, my baby girl got a fever, and then a bad runny nose. We went to see the ship physician, just in case, and she was diagnosed with "just a cold." So we spent a lot of time holding her and helping her get to sleep. She's still sniffly so she and I are skipping out on church today.

I'm still overwhelmed by everything about the trip but a couple of highlights: chocolate melting cake (I had it 3 times plus ate some of my husband's the first night), the blue water at Cozumel, my first time eating at Hard Rock Cafe (and I got a really cool t-shirt there), having fun hanging out with my brothers and sisters (and their spouses). I am totally bummed that one of my brothers and his wife weren't able to make it.

Here's all the sewing I did on the ship:

So now I have 3, almost 4 hexagons completed. I decided these needed to end up as a small project, and I'm thinking about making a quilted heating pad cover with them.