Wonky Pink Ribbon Quilt

The blocks for this quilt I made about six months ago.  Some time afterwards I added the white sashing and borders. A month or so ago I bought material for the backing and bamboo and organic cotton batting. But it wasn't until this weekend that I could put it all together.

The quilt was measuring about 48" and the back would need to be pieced. I decided to add a long strip to each side to make up the 48" plus extra for quilting. It went together quicker than I anticipated. The sandwiching went well too. I placed the top, batting, and backing all together on the floor and pinned the layers together.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it. I could follow the lines, make geometric designs or just do free motion quilting all over. I hadn't yet attempted to do free motion quilting on an entire quilt this size. It seemed to be going well and it was nice to be able to squiggle from one block to the next.

Close up of FMQ and backing shown on lower left corner

My sewing machine did have some issues. I kept breaking needles and my bobbins weren't winding all the way. Finally I looked up ways to fix my winding issues and found an answer! Then I decided I'd clean my bobbin case and try to be extra careful with my movements. I guess all those things did the trick. I finished my squiggles with less interruptions and am happy with the finished product.

Finally I added a binding by machine and then hand stitched the back side down. I wasn't sure if I should use more white or the backing fabric. I ended up with the brown and pink backing fabric and think the was a good choice.

The fabrics used in the quilt were leftover from my baby carrier pack I made about two years ago.  After shooting these pictures, we went right to nap time, snuggling together under our new quilt.

Royal Icing Revisited

After making the gingerbread cookies for the homebirth picnic, I was reminded what a nice offering cut out cookies are.  When I was looking around for a house cookie cutter, I had found a very cute fish cutter and thought it would be nice for my little fish, Kessa.  This summer she has become quite the swimmer.

As swim lessons were finishing up, I thought fish cookies might be a nice gift for the swim instructor.  And because the gingerbread recipe makes so many cookies, why not treat the whole life guarding staff to cookies.  They have been very supportive and kind to us this summer.

I had just enough time to bake the cookies, but I kept wishing I would have time to frost them too.  I wanted to work with royal icing again.

Our swim instructor was heading back to college and we would finish up our two remaining lessons with another instructor.  Somehow she had missed out on last week's cookie offering!  We were attending a party for friends and my mom's birthday was coming, that gave me three great reasons to make more cookies!

I started in the morning thinking I would just make some fish cookies again for the swim teacher and then chill the rest of the dough until I could make more.  But somehow everything went very smoothly and quickly and I made all the cookies at once.  Having a late sleeping toddler has everything to do with it I'm sure.

Still having royal icing on the mind, and a free afternoon, I wondered if we could make it happen.  I was nervous about using my hand mixer again.  My only experience with royal icing was with my mom and the unicycle cookies.  I read the royal icing recipe again:  4 cups of powdered sugar, 2 TB of meringue powder and 5 TB of water, and then add more water for piping.  I wondered if I just added an extra tablespoon of water from the beginning if my mixer would be happier and it might just work out for piping.  It did!  The icing mixed up beautifully and then I quickly moved to coloring small batches.  I was concerned about it drying out and when my two year old couldn't locate the plastic wrap, I enlisted the help of my eight year old, Sydney and later my twelve year old, Kyle as well.

We laid out the cookies and started decorating.  Sydney was very happy to be decorating along with me.  The icing was perhaps a touch soft for decorating, but it seemed to work well and was very easy to handle.  Our biggest challenge was Kessa being her wiggly self, but that's when Kyle came to the rescue and read stories to her.

As royal icing dries quickly, that is exactly what it did!  I almost wished we had even more time to do some flooding first, but I think with the gingerbread background, the colorful embellishments we made showed up just fine.

After making three batches of cookies within a month, I wondered why I don't make cookies other times of the year.  I grew up with my mom making cookies for every occasion and even just because.  I think the biggest reason is that at our schools, homemade goodies are no longer accepted and with that many opportunities to make cookies have been lost.  I will just need to keep the cookies in mind for other parties and gifts.  It's an enjoyable activity and becoming even easier as the kids get older.

Homebirth Picnic Cookies

There was to be a picnic for families who have had homebirths today. It was pot luck. I personally am not a big fan of pot luck...maybe because I don't usually get lucky at such events. ;) I have a couple things I like to bring, either fruit salad or pasta salad. I wasn't too excited about purchasing needed items or the cutting involved with either option.

I had been informed we had bananas that needed to either go in muffins or were headed to the trash,  Muffins it was. I thought the muffins would be an acceptable picnic offering, except that my family loves these muffins and would prefer to eat them all instead of saving them for the picnic.

Then I got an idea. As often happens with these things, I get an idea and want to run with it, whether I have the necessary items or not. I thought I could make gingerbread cut out cookies and maybe somehow cut them in house shapes with hearts in the center. I did a quick search and found that what I imagined exists in a cutter made by Ann Clark. I remembered that Ann Clark cookie cutters are sold at my local grocery store and I needed molasses for my cookies anyway.

I was excited to find the cookie cutter display, but they did not have the cutter I wanted. I considered just getting something else and also using what I had at home. Then I recalled the cookie cutter making kit I had from last year and decided I could maybe convert a cutter into a house. I knew I had a number of heart cutters already. I purchased a crown hoping to convert it into a house and a tea pot because it was cute.

Once home, along with my husband's help, we converted the crown into a house. The cutters are a heavier duty metal than the metal from the kit so it was a bit harder to reshape the cookie cutter, but it worked well enough.  The house ended up being pretty big and would probably be even better a touch smaller.

I made the cookie dough and let it sit overnight.

In the morning along with my girls' help, we made houses with hearts, tea pots with hearts (Sydney's idea), little girls and boys, and lots of hearts.

The gingerbread recipe is so easy and always comes out great. It's a soft cookie due to the shortening I'm sure. It comes from the Motherhood and Apple Pie cookbook.

The cookies were well received. I'll have to keep them in mind for another picnic.

Indoor S'mores

A week or so ago I saw the Moody Fashionista's post about S'more pops. I hadn't heard of making S'mores this way.  Had I had any graham crackers, I would have been trying something similar that day.  Then I did a little search and found lots of creative people are mixing graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows together in different ways.  Another recipe that looked worth trying was one for Magic S'mores Bars.  But ultimately the one I loosely followed was a recipe for Chocolate Covered S'more Pops.  

I still needed graham crackers and while I was at the store, I figured I'd simplify things further by using Fluff.

I started with the graham crackers, spread Fluff on one side, sandwiched them and finally dipped them in melted chocolate chips.

While I was working, some graham crackers broke not on the lines.  I took a little chocolate one one side and Fluff on the other and I was eating a S'more!

The extra chocolatey outside is good, but the back to basic S'mores made with melted chocolate and Fluff was just right.  I bet it could be further simplified with Nutella on one side and Fluff on the other. :)

While I am a camper and do enjoy a properly toasted marshmallow squished between Hershey's chocolate and graham cracker, I can still appreciate an indoor S'more alternative.

Wonky Baby Quilt

After playing around with improvisational quilting and wonky quilting, I was inspired to try a whole quilt for my cousin. She is expecting her first baby soon.

Once again, I tried to pick fabric prints that have some relevancy to her life. I even included a print that reminds me of our grandmother. Some of the prints are just fun or have nice coordinating colors.

While searching for more examples of the wonky style of quilting, I found this blog post utilizing the stack and whack method of cutting. I was intrigued.

I had been collecting fabric for this quilt for a while now and had a few fat quarters, some pieces that were just over 1/4 yard and two prints I had ordered that were 1/2 yard each.  The white artist print I created with rubber stamps and permanent ink.

According to the tutorial I found, the size suggestion was to start with a 15 1/2" square. Some of my fabric wasn't big enough. Instead of totally abandoning the concept, I decided to take a remnant that was big enough, do some random cuts per the tutorial, and then use the remnant fabric as a pattern. It worked very well. I just needed to keep track of each pattern piece carefully and always put the whole thing back together like a puzzle.  I grouped the fabrics into three groups. The four different prints in each group would make up four different blocks with three prints in each.  No two would be alike.

Next I laid out all the blocks on the floor to decide where each would go.  After trying a few combinations, I took some pictures and even got some other opinions.  It's an interesting process keeping the same fabrics far enough away from each other and still liking the ones next to each other.

After completing each block, the directions suggest using a 12.5" square to square up each block.  That went well and did take off 1/2" or so off each side.  I was able to angle my square a little to enhance the wonkiness.

Once the placement was decided, sewing the blocks together was a breeze.  I hadn't purchased any border or backing fabric, so it was off to the store.  I found a few I liked but finally decided on a black with stripes and polka dots.  I passed by it a few times at the store and liked it every time.  I often like to avoid stripes, but the stripes are really cute especially for baby quilts.

The quilt was measuring about 37" by 49".  I figured adding a 3.5" border would work well.  Unfortunately that made the total quilt bigger than a typical width of fabric.  That means my back would be pieced.  But I like the idea of using small rectangles of the fabrics used on the back.  I took a 3.5" by 4" square of each fabric and sewed them together in a row.  Then I calculated how much fabric I'd need to make up the roughly 60" by 46" I should have for quilting.


Batting was also on my list.  I found a 60" by 60" packaged batting that would  be perfect.  It's a mix of organic cotton and bamboo.  It was very nice to work with and seemed to quilt up well.

The final steps were binding and adding a quilt label.  For binding I cut 3" strips, folded the long way and sewed it around.  To finish the binding, I hand sewed the folded edge to the back.

Finished Wonky Baby Quilt

Close up of one block

 I'm very happy with how everything came together.  It's always hard to know at the beginning stages if I'll like the fabrics together.  The quilting is always a gamble for me too.  I make decisions along the way, but once I start on one section, I feel a need to keep it going for the whole quilt.  I did free motion squiggles on each center square and outlined the two borders on each block.

Old Goretex Jacket Repurposed

My 12 year old broke his hand yesterday...I will probably never understand boys. Anyway, because the bone needed setting, the cast is not waterproof.

Five years ago my parents were in a bizarre accident and ultimately much of their clothing was cut in order to treat them. One item was my mom's Goretex jacket. I couldn't bear to throw out such nice fabric.

I've used parts of the jacket for other projects. One was to have a "jacket" for my mom's exposed broken leg and external fixator five years ago.

I looked and found the remaining fabric. I had the hood and one cut sleeve. I thought the sleeve would work well. The Velcro part at the bottom of the cuff worked for around my son's upper arm, then I decided to use more Velcro to insure it could go on easily. The rest I sewed up and around and then folded the seam over and sewed again. Hopefully this will make the seam waterproof enough.

Goretex Cast Cover

This was one of my favorite kind of projects. It fulfills a need, uses fabric I have around, and took less than 30 minutes! I realize we could go the plastic bag route, but I hoped with this waterproof cast cover, my son could be fairly self sufficient. And I do enjoy a quick project.




We had a weekend planned at a hotel with a pool.  I knew the Gortex cover wouldn't be ideal for actual swimming and found a cast cover by DryPro.   It creates a vacuum around the cast preventing water from coming in.  Because of the rubbery material, it's important to keep sharp things away.  The fiberglass cast isn't very smooth, but I had read using a sock with the end cut open is a good layer.  We tried out that method at the pool.  It worked pretty well but did get some water in at the top opening at the arm.  It got the cast a little wet, but not the part around the actual break.  The second swim time we opened, checked, and revacuumed the sleeve regularly.  I think the final improvement would be to use a wool sock to help repel the water more.  Using cotton just kept any moisture that got in close to the cast.  I should mention too that he was swimming, pushing off the sides, and going underwater.  For someone just floating around and playing gently in the water, they might not need to check the cover as much.

Goretex cast cover at the beach

DryPro waterproof cast cover for swimming

Our weekend also included time at a beach.  The Goretex sleeve was perfect for playing in the sand with the occasional water play. It kept the sand out of the cast and kept it dry.  After all the covering and sock use this weekend, my son had the idea to just wear a cut sock on his cast while playing outside too.  It would just keep the cast cleaner.  Now we have the perfect use for all those unmatched socks!

Giant Hula Hoops

At one of the places I teach my hoop fitness classes, the owner requested a giant hula hoop. Once when I was making a regular sized hoop, there was a bit extra tubing left on the roll, so I made an extra big hoop. It ended up being about five foot diameter. Though when I showed it to the owner, it was not big enough to be giant.

I did a little research to see how big a hoop I could make and how big is good for hooping. I found the Guinness Book of World Record for the biggest hula hoop. It works out to be about a 16.5 foot diameter. I asked fellow hoopers and searched the internet.

I noticed that the world record hoop looked very hard to use. I found a video of a man using a 10 foot hoop on an elevated tower. He made it look effortless.

Other materials might be better and certainly a nice lightweight aluminum might be perfect, but I decided to go with what was available to me locally. I got 1" tubing with a rating of 100psi. It is not the most rigid tubing, but this also makes it not too heavy.

I decided to start with a ten foot diameter hoop. I spun myself and the hoop a bit and right away the hoop started to bend near the connector. The next try was with a nine foot diameter hoop. It was hoopable, but big and heavy. I decided it would not be a good option. Next was an eight foot diameter hoop. It worked pretty well. Before I cut it down, my daughter took some video of the nine foot hoop and then both of us trying out the eight foot hoop

Mini hoops all the way to an 8' hoop!

The next day I decided to make a seven foot hoop as a second option. It was a bit easier to use.

Before assembling the hoops, my husband had helped me sand down one end of the connectors. This allowed me to easily pull out the one end of the hoop making it collapse easily. Eventually I planned to add a push button connector. In the mean time I just taped the seam together to prevent the hoop from coming apart at the wrong time.

I brought my "naked" temporarily taped together giant hoops to the gym. The owner liked them both! The next steps were to put on the requested sparkle tape and install the button connector. The hoops needed a bit less tape than I had anticipated, which was a nice surprise. I used all of one roll plus some a second roll of 25' roll of sparkle tape and some additional gaffer tape.

Hooping with a seven foot hoop!

I hope everyone who gets to try them will enjoy the giant hoops for a long time! So far they have brought smiles to all the people I have seen try them!