12 Months of Giving: JANUARY

Three entries in a week and a half must be some kind of record for me!  I was excited, however, to come across my first project, which I just sent out this weekend and I wanted to share.

First, some stats:
The Organization:  Craft Hope (The website is currently down, but they do have a Facebook page)
The Cause:  Hurricane Sandy Relief
The Project: Homemade softies for children who lost toys during the hurricane
The Deadline:  January 10th (but it's a flexible deadline, so I'm sure getting a little project in the mail by this weekend would be fine)

This was a great first project for me during my 12 Months of Giving because it was fairly simple and also got something I didn't really need out of my house.

I found this fabric panel a while back at a church thrift shop.

I thought it was so sweet, but I had absolutely no use for it.  The panel made four softies total:  A frog wearing glasses, a pink bunny, a tiger kitty, and a puppy with floppy ears.  I could tell the previous owner had high hopes for the kit because she had begun to embroider the details on the bunny and the frog.  It was cheap enough that it was silly to leave it there.

When I took it home, I realized that the little guys would be pretty small when the seam allowance was taken into consideration, so I thought they might make sweet baby rattles.  Upon asking for a "rattle piece" at the fabric store, however, I was met with some weird looks.  Then, a very sweet old lady in the shop pulled me aside and said that a jingle bell would do the trick; it was small enough to fit inside a small toy, and would rattle (rather than jingle) when it was surrounded by the plush stuffing.  Thank goodness, really, for sweet old ladies in quilt stores.

So then, with everything all picked out for my little rattles, they sat, for about 6 months... in a box...

All cut up and ready for sewing!

Then, I read about this project and it caused me to smile, thinking of the little rattles, unmade, sitting in a box, and I knew it was time to dig them out.

It took me one night to make them and address the envelope and it has brought me so much joy to think of the little babies that they are bound for.  They came out so sweetly and I would feel blessed to own one.  I know that they are all bound for good homes.

Whoever their previous owner was, I hope somewhere she has a happy feeling as well.  After all, we did technically make them together.

God is good.
Life is good.
Little lingonberries are everywhere.

4 Months of Sewing and 12 Months of Giving

Right now a sleepy puppy is curled up next to me and our new electric fireplace is blowing warm air into the living room, so I am feeling content, to say the least.  This Christmas season has reminded me how blessed I am.  I have good friends, a warm home, and a loving family.

I feel like this holiday season has also reminded me what a challenging time others in the world are having.  Its really hard not to remember the people left without family and homes as a result of the numerous national tragedies that plagued us this year.  But I found myself also thinking about the people that spent the holidays without family and home because of less news-worthy (but just as important) issues-- poverty, domestic violence, mental illness, terminal sickness, deployment, etc.

I had a lot of fun sewing some projects over the last few months.  I think it is time to use my sewing energy to make some things for people who need them.  SO I have one New Year's Resolution, and it is to volunteer or donate to a different non-profit every month that collects hand-crafted goods for people who need them.  I'm still going to make sure that I sew some projects for friends and family, of course (3 weddings this year!), but I want to focus on giving back, too.

So, now I want to show some of the projects that took up the last 4 months.

One of the biggest projects I made, I never ended up taking a picture of (bummer), but it was a quilt for friends of mine who got married in October.  The pattern for that quilt is here... and you can trust me... it came out beautifully.

Above was my next big project.  During the hurricane, I made a quilt for one of the women at my office who was having twins.  She has since had the little guys, two very sweet (and very bitty), little boys.  Since she did not know the sex of the babies during her pregnancy, I made a gender-neutral baby quilt.  It ended up being the colors of her nursery, just by coincidence, which made me smile.  We were really fortunate to never even lose power during the hurricane (not the case for those around us), but I was so paranoid that we were going to, that I initially rushed through quilting it, a decision that almost led to disaster when the entire quilt came out all buckled and wrinkled.  Five hours later, I had managed to un-quilt (via seam-ripper) the top from the bottom and decided to tie the quilt instead.  The end result was a plushy, soft quilt that I was proud to give as a gift.

I have wanted to make these Christmas Tree Pants (because not all trees wear skirts) since I saw the Sew-A-Long courtesy of Happy Zombie last year.  When I started the project, I cut all the fabric and then spent three days panicking that I this would the ugliest thing I had ever sewn.  I just hated all the fabrics together.  I had really carefully assembled all of the fabrics and I felt like they looked fabulous... until I saw them cut into squares together.  It wasn't until I sewed the 9-patches that I started to love it.  I was  happy with the result and it was pretty cute under the tree.








Life is good.
God is good.
Little lingonberries are everywhere.

Lingonberries, big and small!

I cannot believe how long it has been and how much has changed since I last wrote!  There is just too much to catch up on, but I'll give some highlights.

The home inspection went very well.  This seems almost silly to say since I am now sitting on the couch in our living room (and we have lived here since September).  I didn't know how it would be to live alone (no neighborly noise to help me feel safe when I'm home alone, no Super to step in when the toilet breaks, no grounds team making sure the yard is mowed and the snow is plowed...), but I feel like Hubby and I are living a dream come true. We will make some changes to our home as time goes on to make it a little more unique to us, but right now, we are feeling very much at home.

Here are some pictures of that wonderful first weekend, when friends and family came to help us move in!

Hubby's parents brought us the most delicious cake to celebrate!

In October, we took a fabulous trip to Denmark and London with my sister, mom, and dad, to attend a wedding and see some wonderful friends and family.  It made the entire fall a complete whirlwind, because we left about 4 weeks after moving in to the house.  However, we are so happy that we went!  My cousin and her fiance live in downtown London and we loved seeing their adorable flat near their university!  Our Danish friends (who feel more like family) celebrated a beautiful wedding that lasted all night long!  We Americans didn't do too much to embarrass ourselves, even though their traditions were so different from ours.  Truly, their wedding was so magical (a highlight being when hubby asked me to dance with him... something that didn't even happen on our wedding day!)

Here are Hubby and I on a chilly night in front of Parliament:

Also around October, I started to feel as though something was lacking from our very full life and I became eager to hear the pitter patter of little... paws.  We had always said that we would not get a dog until we had a back yard for said dog, and so, with a house and backyard all our own, I started to go a little puppy-nuts.  Hubby?  He took a little convincing, but then he always does.  I have always been the impulsivity to his rationale.

In early December, after begging for a solid month and a half and dragging him to the SPCA three times, we met and fell in love with a sweet little pup who they had named Candy Cane (stupid name).  We promptly renamed her Kaylee (Firefly fans...  yes she's named after that Kaylee) and she has become an adorable little addition to our family.

This is one of my favorite pictures of her.  She's a blur in real life, too.

We love her expressive little ears.

Kaylee cuddling up in front of our fake fire.

We spent a fabulous Christmas in our new home with our family (minus my sister and brother-in-law, who went to NEW ZEALAND!).  

I will write an update of all the little projects I have been working on soon.  

Until then, I am sitting on my couch feeling very blessed.

Life is good.  God is good.  Little lingonberries are everywhere.

A Little Update...

This week, I have been:

Reading this book.  It's silly.

Chatting with some girlfriends at a jewelry party for this amazingly adorable company.

Enjoying this show... I'm so psyched that its back!

Having a cold... so watching a lot of this.

Finding a lot of junk in our house, as we continue to pack up our lives to move.  One of my favorite packed-up things? This big guy, who has lived in our common room for a year now!

Using up as much stuff as possible at work so that I don't have to move much to my new room.  Among the things that I'm not moving, this fun little project that my kids adored.

Going out for some ice cream at this little local spot... So sad that we're leaving it behind in the move!

Thinking about how great Moose Room is going to be this year at the Center!  I cannot wait to work with my kiddos again... and meeting some new little ones, too! (Sorry, no link here, just excitement!)

Finishing up lots of things... like the end of a terrific year in Reindeer Room at work (and saying good bye to some of my favorite kiddos... good luck in Kindergarten!), a beach quilt that I started and finished for myself (I'll post pics soon!), and some major packing hurtles (the dreaded dining room closet!).

Planning for the big move to our new home!  I cannot believe I will be sleeping there in two weeks!

Just a little update to remind myself that God is good, life is good, and little lingonberries are everywhere.

House Hunted

It's been a while since I have been on, and to be perfectly honest, its because a lot has been going on in my life and I have been pretty overwhelmed by it all.  I promised myself I would not use this blog to be angst-y, so I think I will just say that for a while, I was seriously wondering how much more I could handle before I just broke down.

But God works in mysterious ways, and I have seen even when I doubt He is near, He is carrying me through.  (It sounds sappy, but that is genuinely how I feel.)

It all started last week when we went house hunting with our realtor on Monday.  We have been looking for about 3 months and have only found really, really, super gross properties  without much luck.  On Monday, we only had plans to look at two properties.  The first was a house in a nice neighborhood with which we were unfamiliar.  The second was a house we had seen before and had initially written off, but we were now willing to look again.

When we pulled up to the first house, I have to admit, I got chills.  The neighborhood was really sweet; the kind of place where there are basketball hoops in the driveway and kids riding bikes in the street.  A Lutheran Church was on the corner entering the neighborhood and I thought how lovely it would be to walk to church on Sundays.  We have typically been looking at the worst house in a nice neighborhood, but this house was different.  It was vey clean and polished looking.

The inside was even nicer.  Hardwood floors, 4 bedrooms... it was truly a great starter home... and potentially more.

There was something even more special about it.  It reminded me so much of my Nana.  The house itself smelled like her.  I could see how much the people who had lived in the house had loved it, just like my Nana had lived in my father's childhood home until she died.  I felt like Nana was watching over us.  One of the really hard things about searching for a house since her death was the thought that she would never come visit us in this house.  But this house put my heart at ease a little; I strongly felt that she was walking through the house with me.

When we left, our realtor told us, "If its meant to be, it will be." On Wednesday, we returned to the house with hubby's parents and the first thing out of my mother-in-law's mouth was, "This house smells so welcoming."

All I could think was, "It smells like Nana."

It seems meant to be.  On Thursday, we put in an offer.  On Friday, after (potentially too much) talking,  we accepted their counter offer.  This coming Thursday, we have a home inspection.  I know that she'll be there, too.

Proof that life is good.  God is good... and little sometimes huge lingonberries are right in front of you.

Getting Life Back with a Few Mini Projects

Two weeks ago, incredibly unexpectedly, and very sadly, my Nana died from complications of leukemia.  In some ways, her death was a beautiful tribute to her life, with all of her children, children-in-law, and grandchildren (and her one grandchild-in-law) around her to say good bye at the hospital and then celebrating her life throughout the week at family dinners, the wake, and the funeral.  However, to say that the loss of her has left me feeling empty, exhausted, and heart sick would be the understatement of the century.  I'm not sure I will ever heal from the loss of her; all I know is that I now have to figure out how to live my life without her in it, and that makes me even sadder than thinking about the loss of her.  She was just that special.

To keep busy over the last few weeks, with her continued illness weighing on my mind and then her death, I have needed some distractions, and so I have turned to my escape, sewing.  I have completed three little projects.

The first was a placemat and napkin set for a girl at my work who got married.  I don't know her that well, but wanted to celebrate her wedding by giving her a "dinner for two."  For the placemats, I used a pattern from Fresh Picked for all Seasons, a book I found tucked away in a local quilt shop.  I think they were simple, but sweet.

I then made some simple napkins (a big square, folded twice on every side and stitched).

Some women at the office are pregnant, and everyone chipped in in order to get them a gift basket full of stuff.  I made some baby bibs as my contribution.  They turned out very nicely, I think.

My husband, who has been wonderful through this whole month and will do pretty much anything to make me smile, thought they made better Noodle capes than baby bibs. (Noodle would be the beloved stuffed dog in the pictures below):

Admittedly, Nana would have smiled, too.

Life is good.  God is good.  Little lingonberries are everywhere.

Mystery Solved

Tonight I finished the mystery quilt featured in the last three McCall's Quilting magazines (buy the magazines here).  This was a quilt that I started in February and, at the time, I thought it would be my first-ever quilt made completely by me. Of course, then I got ambitious for Lauren's wedding gift and made a quilt in the interim... and that quilt was bigger and more challenging, so this quilt seemed a little anticlimactic, but still really fun to finish.  (You can read about the first two parts here and here.)

One thing that I changed from my initial post was the color of the secondary fabric.  I loved the striped fabric that would make up the big blocks.  I had initially chosen a corresponding fabric from the same collection that featured hippie birds with peace signs and trees, but because the quilt didn't really have a purpose (and so, therefore, could end up staying in my life or going to a grown-up person or going to a kid) and since there are not a lot of little girls in my life, I decided to use scrap fabric from my stash that was floral (the small squares above).  I think that it came out pretty nice with the new fabric.

One thing that I did not like about the assembly is that in order to keep the mystery alive, the directions for assembling the quilt were kind of strange.  So for me, that means that not every line matches up the way I would want them to.  This makes me kind of grumbly.  Still, I think it looks pretty cute... here's some proof:

I think that I will hang onto this right now, but I'm going to do some research on places where you can donate quilts, as well.  Maybe somewhere, someone would like to curl up with it.

Until then, this quilt is snuggly proof that God is good, life is good, and little lingonberries are everywhere.