Quite Sunday Afternoon

A wagon ride through the neighbor's sprinkler with big sister Elena.



Dad doing a little hedge trimming.



Dad cutting the lawn. Hmm...not much getting done.



Dad teaching Josh the secret to a good looking yard. It looks like Josh is catching on quickly.



Nothing better than a messy, runny nose baby. When my oldest was a baby I would have grunted and cleaned her up quickly, a tad bothered by the mess. I find now days there is enjoyment in a messy baby. It really does end too fast.



My task for the day was to get as many of my quilt tops ready to quilt as I could. The most unfun part of making a quilt in my opinion,not the quilting but the adding backing and batting. I used up all the backing and batting I had on hand. My grand plan is to quilt one of these each evening. But most likely I would only get done a few a week. Maybe I will get these eleven quilts done by the end of June. They are looking pretty good all rolled up like this don't they?

May Giveaway Day Winners !!!

Here are my May Giveaway Winners!

Drawing #1 winner is Emily from Sewing Sister

Drawing # 2 winner is Sandy from Sandyandcosmo

Drawing # 3 winner is Tawny from The Adventures of Team T-Lo


Thank you to EVERYONE for taking the time to visit my blog and enter my drawings! This has been a lot of fun!

Warmly,

Tina



Today is the last day to enter my May Giveaway Day drawing!

Click HERE to go to my May Giveaway Day post.

Another Quiet Day

I finished a few more projects today. What do you think?

Not Much Happening Today.

There are still two days left to enter my May Giveaway Day drawing!

Click HERE to go to my May Giveaway Day post.





Today has been a pretty quiet day.

I did not attempt any sandwich cooking today so ends my blogging about sandwiches trend.

For Lunch we just had our good old beans and rice. I thought to take a picture of one of the plates but beans and rice do (or is it does?) not photograph well. I do have to say I did leave the lunch with my cooking trademark...I burned the rice. I usually seem to burn the rice! I even added 4 extra cups of water but I let the rice boil a little too long while I was off doing a momish thing. Are you curious as to how much rice fills up my 14 children along with their beans? I usually boil 16 cups of water (but today I boiled 20 cups) and then add 8 cups of slow cooking rice. Most every bit of rice is eaten.


Jeff took most all the children to Morristown Dam days Parade this evening. The had a lot of fun. I forgot to send the camera with! I heard there were a lot of fun things to see and those Bagpipes were awesome!!!!


Here are three more cute baby blankets I finished up this evening while Jeff was putting kids to bed. The top two have a silky off white backing and the bottom one has white minky type fabric for the backing. They turned out very cute in my opinion.

Grilled Cheese and Late Evening Chats

I realize I am starting a sort of sandwich theme here on my blog by posting this but I have to say I'm proud that today for lunch I was able to get 16 grilled cheese sandwiches on our griddle all at once! Yes,Yes they are a little smashed and burned which is actually my cooking trade mark (the burned part) but I did it! Of course, it was something I could not repeat with the next round of grilled cheese sandwiches. Three loaves of bread and lots of cheese later, I could not fit more than 12 sandwiches on the grill. I have hungry kids so there was lots of opportunity to try.



This evening I found myself on the front porch snapping picture of a few sewing projects I finished. Some of the kids followed me out which was nice. We sat and chatted about many things.




Oops, I was enjoying our chat so much I forgot about poor little Lids waiting inside in her saucer. This does not look very comfortable! Lily was not the only one I forgot. Grace was still sitting on the potty waiting for the ok to get off.



These are the projects I finished tonight. I strayed away from my quilting projects and finished up four SO VERY CUTE baby receiving blankets. If you want a closer look at each receiving blanket ,I am going to put them on My Dragonfrye Quilts blog until I can list them on Etsy.

I Blame The Blog...

or maybe Lily's cute head!

A few of the bigger kids were hankering for a midnight snack. Yes it is truly midnight and my kids are still up. Bad mom,I am. I set out to make them good old tuna melts. Gotta love those right?

I got distracted...Doing what you might ask? Well,admiring my own blog! Isn't that just terrible of me. I am my blog's biggest fan! My favorite post these days are Lilyville and the one of Lily looking out the front door. I love that cute head!

Well, when I finally remembered the tuna melts they were pretty burned. That does not make for a good midnight snack. Being a quick thinking mom (when I am not admiring my own blog that is) I scraped off the hot tuna onto nice fresh bread. Mmmm, now that will make the kids happy!

Wednesday's Walk Down Memory Lane

My Wednesday's Walk Down Memory Lane or should I say my Wednesday's Quilt Walk Down Memory Lane is one of the baby quilts I made for my 8 year old Josh. Josh was one of the few children with whom I made multiple baby quilts for. I look back and wonder how I had time for that because he was born just 15 months after Nolan and at that time had Elena who was six , Grant was five, and Alan who was a few months shy of Four. Those were some of my busiest years!When did I have time to sew?

Anyway, Josh fondly calls this quilt Pot-sy. How do I spell that? I know the quilt is girlish but at the time I just wanted something bright. I saw this cute group of retro wash-day fat quarters (hence the name Pot-sy). They were so adorable!

Just like my Scottie dog quilt fit Joel this cheery Pot-sy quilt fits Josh. I do not mention this much but almost everyday Josh is writing me notes, making me gifts,or picking me flowers. If I am ever feeling down Josh is there to tell me he loves me. He is a very sweet boy.

Just today I overheard Joel running after Josh saying "Josh I am going to go where ever you go,OK?" Josh being his sweet self said "Sure ,Joel.I do not mind.I like you." And off they went to hunt for whatever Josh was looking for.

My Josh. I love him to pieces!

May Giveaway Day Winners!!!

Here are my May Giveaway Winners!

Drawing #1 winner is Emily from Sewing Sister

Drawing # 2 winner is Sandy from Sandyandcosmo

Drawing # 3 winner is Tawny from The Adventures of Team T-Lo

Thank you to EVERYONE for taking the time to visit my blog and enter my drawings! This has been a lot of fun!

Warmly,

Tina

Welcome to May Giveaway Day!





Sew,Mama,Sew is hosting a big blogland May giveaway. Sounds very fun! You who keep up with my blog know I love these hosted giveaways and I just happen to have a lot of things I can giveaway!

I just could not decide what supplies or homemade projects I wanted to use for my giveaway so I will have three separate drawings. Sound OK?


Please leave me a comment letting me know which of the three drawings you want to enter. If you would like to enter all three drawings include that with your comment and I will include your name in each of the three drawings. Do not forget to leave a way for me to contact you if your name is chosen.

I will select winners using a random number generator. My drawings are open to everyone and I would be happy to ship internationally.

My May Giveaway Drawings will end May 31st.

Sew,Mama,Sew! will be listing all of the other participating blogs May 27th so there will be a lot of giveaways to enter!

Good Luck!



DRAWING # 1

Frog and Duck Fleece baby blanket

Measures about 31 x 41 inches




DRAWING # 2

Time For Tea

My mini hand painted tea set with a little picnic blanket in a cute little picnic basket.

Sorry, Mr. Bear not included. The blanket is about 9 inches square. The tea cups are very tiny about 1/2 inch tall so not suitable for a child younger that 7 or there abouts.





Drawing # 3

Four Raggedy Ann and Andy fat quarters. So cute!

Ah Dah!

Just so you don't think I escaped all parenting responsibilities today...Lily was home with me while Jeff took the other 13 children to the park. Lily was waiting at the front door calling for Jeff and the kids. "Ah Dah" is her nickname for everyone. She is a great youngest child for a large family. She really likes all the kids.

Good-bye Weekend Of Fun

Well, my marathon weekend of quilt sewing has ended. I just want a few more days...OK, just one more...well, I will be happy with the three days I had. Now, Jeff is an amazing husband. He took the full load of parenting this past weekend just so I could have a few bigger blocks of time to sew. Thanks Jeff!

Remember yesterday when I said I had thirteen or so half finished ( which would include cut out but not piece) quilt tops that I had abandoned over the past few years? Well, I realised I really miss judged the amount of lonely half done quilt projects I really had. Thirteen was a huge underestimate. That is OK ,though. I decided my goal this summer and fall will be to get those all finished. I am going to really try to only buy materials like backing and batting to finish the quilts I have and not buy material for new quilts. Of course do not hold me to it but that is my goal. Except if I end up going to a quilt shop for my birthday this summer. That will be my exception.

Today I decided to tackle three of my most unfun half finished quilt tops, one easy fun quilt top and about 70 nine patch squares. Mission completed.

It took a lot of effort to finish this one. Why? It's ugly. Sorry to those of you who like it. It is just my opinion. I knew not long after I cut the squares long ago that I would not like it so into my unfinished project pile it went. But I finished it and it feels good. Now I do not think it is half as ugly as I thought it would be. It might look rather nice once I quilt it up.



These next two were on my abandoned quilt list only because the material was so hard to work with. The squares are made up of flannel and Soft and Cozy fabric.They did turn out very good,though. Now I just have to think of what kind of backing and batting I should use. I am also not sure about the quilting.



The pink soft and cozy on this one has a flower pattern on it.It fits perfect with the purple butterfly flannel.



This last one was my fun one for the day. I used cheater panels and just added the blue polka-dot sashing. Very easy. I really like this one. I am not going to add an outer border but I will find a cute fabric for the binding and I think that will look great. I love this quilt! But no I will not marry it as one child asked me today after hearing my proclamation of love for the quilt top.




I did not take a picture of my pile of 70+ nine patch blocks but I am sure you could just imagine a nice pile of crisply pressed pastel/white nine patches. Beautiful,aren't they?

Here Are A Few More...

I am on a mission this weekend to finish up as many of my half finished quilt tops as I can. It is hard to believe I have so many! I figure as long as I am in the quilt top making mood I will keep going. I counted about thirteen more partially done quilt tops waiting to be finished! Can you believe that. How do I get so distracted? Sometimes putting a partially finished quilt top aside that maybe I did not think looked very good and digging it out months (sometimes years) later can help give me a new vision for it. Anyway, I predict I will soon tire of quilt top making and move on to actually quilting some of these tops I have finished but for now I will take advantage of my quilt top making focus.

I put my finished quilt tops on My Dragonfrye Quilts Blog just in case anyone wanted a closer look at the tops I finish. I post them all on this blog but not the measurements and such. My Dragonfrye Quilt blog is just my quilt top stop until I actually get around to quilting them and getting them ready to list on Etsy or on my My Little Dragonfrye site.

Do you notice the bump under the quilt tops? It is one of our cats. I guess the chair was cozy enough even with the quilt tops over him.





I am sure I will have a few more finished quilt tops to show Monday!

A Night A The Museum

I had a very fun evening with Josh. Josh redeemed his May birthday coupon which had us at the movie theater! I have not seen a movie in a theater since I'm guessing 2001 or 2002. We had a lot of fun. I am not sure what was more fun to watch the movie or Josh watching the movie. This night is one of my all time favorite memories!

Cobblestones

The camera did not capture the beautiful deep berry color but in person this quilt is beautiful.



I must be having camera or light issues because this quilt did not photograph well either but it really is a pretty combination. There are (is?) burgundy and black in the paisleys within the cobblestone squares which was why I chose the borders I did but gee in this picture the borders do not look as good as I thought they did. Oh well. It looks good in real life so I am going to keep it this way.

Pretty Nine Patch

This nine patch quilt turned out so cute didn't it?

In-between Blessings!

Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings. See what God has done.


Here is a few of my today's in-betweens that I wrote about in my post below.

See I told you my life is good!

Anya, Ekie, and Naomi riding their bikes around the block.



Grace, Joel and Odell having fun on their homemade trampoline.



On the project side of the day. Aren't the colors of these quilt blocks just gorgeous looking!

Lucky Indeed!

I was just thinking today that I sure have the best of many worlds around here.

I can have great conversations on the porch with my oldest 14 year old. She will be fifteen in less than a month!



Then hold hands with my littlest Lids.



and all the in-between stuff. It is a nice life!

Welcome To Lilyville!

As you guessed much of the happenings around here in Lilyville center around Lily (or so that cute as a button baby might think).





Lily's chauffeur Anya



Lily's entourage Ekie and Anya



But once in a while, some Lilyville residents find Lily a little too demanding and sneak off to do their own things.

Naomi. Odell, and Grace playing house



Josh soaking his foot in soapy water because he hurt it. His foot is all better now.

Wednesday's Walk Down Memory Lane

I have enjoyed sharing the special quilts I have made for my Wednesday Walk Down Memory Lane. I hope those of you who visit Wednesday's Walk do not mind! If you would like to participate in Wednesday's Walk just click on the button above.

This week I thought I would show you the quilt I made as Joel's baby quilt. I did not know back when I picked out Scotties for his quilt that it was a perfect fit for Joel's personality!





I found this very fitting description of a Scottie dog personality. There is a lot of Joel in this description!

Like all terriers, the Scottie has a mind of his own. Unlike his cousins, he is reserved, quite particular in his choice of people, and steadfastly loyal. He tolerates rowdy children and many adults quite well; he is wary of strangers and is likely to become a one-man or one-woman companion, sensitive to the moods of his chosen master. He barks a lot, and he loves to dig; no fence will hold him if he's anxious to burrow his way out.

The Scottie's scrappy attitude makes him difficult to train. The new Scottie owner should immediately find an obedience school, for this bundle of energy with an attitude can dominate a household with great skill if he is not taught that the master is the boss. The training must be firm and gentle to avoid breaking his spirit, for nothing so insults a Scottie as severe treatment.



Here was our tribe of 7 children back in 2004 when Joel was born around Joel's Scottie quilt. I remember thinking 'wow we have seven children'! It seemed like so many but how our family has grown in those first three years of Joel's little life.