A New Day

A new outlook.

Tonight was a great night to make a late dinner of baked oatmeal for the kids when they came home from AWANA. It tasted great.



This evening as Jeff was putting kids to bed, I was sewing up the last border on my pink quilt and I thought you would like to see my fellow sewing buddy sitting to my right as I finished sewing.





And here it is...my Raggedy-Ann quilt top. It turned out very pink and pretty. Now I need to move on to another pattern. This pattern has been a lot of fun to make. I recommend it.

Quiltaziod

We never claimed to be normal over here at the Frye house...

Blue Tuesday

I woke up today feeling a tad blue. I am not sure what I actually feel blue about. Nothing really happened. It is just a feeling. Maybe it is the transition to fall,you know the temperature change. Fall is my favorite season of the year but that quick temperature change along with overcast skies can be a little hard. So,I am off to my room to cozy up with my electric blanket and watch a DVD all by myself. It is a good night to see what the fellows on the NCC-1701-D are up to. Well, maybe I will not be totally by myself. Close on my heals are my two youngest. How can I turn away an opportunity to share a little heating blanket and a viewing of 'Time Squared' with two tots that melt my heart?



The the crew under dad's charge are enjoying a plate of fried egg sandwiches (which by the way are a great comfort food up here in the northern states or maybe just in my house)



all in front of our first fall indoor fire.



One last thing before I hibernate for the evening...I received my American Patchwork and Quilting magazine in the mail yesterday. This is a great issue. These two quilts are going on my MUST MAKE list.





Mmmm....I am smelling something that resembles cookies baking...chocolate chip perhaps? That just might be enough to venture downstairs to check things out.Maybe I'm not so blue after all.

Apples and Quilts

Isn't fall great?!

A couple from church have apple trees and had an over abundance so they passed them along to us. These apples are SO good.



Um...Lily...you are cute and all but I do not remember asking for your creative impute here.



Can you see where I goofed? Hint look to the left. I can not blame Lily for this. There have been very few quilts I have made where I do not need to redo one thing or another.



I fixed my goof and here it is. What do you think? Pretty isn't it?



Here is a close-up.

I hope to finish the Raggedy-Ann quilt top in the next few days.

Schooling My Many Dragonfryes

I started a blog specific to our homeschooling this past spring I entitled Schooling My Many Dragonfryes. Pretty clever title,wouldn't you say? My intention has been to keep my homeschooling separate from my regular blog but I have not posted on my home school blog much. In fact some of the posts overlap with this blog.

I thought I would invite those who are interested in reading about our crazy home school days to check it out. I realize our situation is somewhat unique being a large family and homeschooling all but the sweet baby Lily. Homeschooling has never come easy to me so maybe my fumbling about with this homeschooling stuff will be somewhat of an encouragement to others.

A word of warning: I am really not ashamed of my many grammar,and spelling mistakes.I am a run on sentences queen,and just plain old awkward at word usage. It is OK to shake your head and roll your eyes at this home school mom writing a blog about homeschooling with such poor writing skills.Of course,those of you who read this blog on a regular basis already know my lack of school smarts. I do sew some pretty quilts,though.

As you will see,my home school blog is very pink. I am not a pink fan but I was goofing around with different backgrounds and such. I might change the colors. I'm not sure. It does not have the cozy old fashion home school look I want it to.

Peek-a-Boo Quilts

I am finished with my Peek-a-boo blocks and will try to sneak in a few moments this week to assemble my two quilt tops. These quilts are going to be so cute!

A Little Peek...

into the fun afternoon we had watching Waseca's homecoming parade.





This was in memory of Jacob the boy who died this past Wednesday in a car accident here in Waseca.

There was another car pulling all of Jacob's trophies. We did not get a picture of it,though. As the car drove by everyone was silent. It was a very neat and thoughtful thing for him to be remembered during the fun and craziness of homecoming.




Lily and her parade loot. So far she is pleased with just a sucker and two pencils.



Lily takes a break from eating her sucker to chat with big sister Odell.



Sweet Grace with her sweet treat.

Projects and Homecoming

It seemed insensitive to post about my newest sewing projects right after I wrote about the sad Wednesday Waseca had so I waited until today to show my creations.

I took a break from cutting out my quilt pieces to make a few more baby blankets.I had a few yards of dusty rose dot minky-ish fabric and some great looking cotton fabrics and the outcome are these four cute baby blankets.



I got a little extra creative and added a bunny face to the corner of this baby blanket. I hope the bunny's face does not look too odd. I got the idea from a picture of a hooded baby towel and thought I could add something like that on the corner of a baby blanket minus the hood aspect. Maybe I should have picked a more off white and pink fabric for the bunny's face but not bad for a first try.



Tonight is Waseca's homecoming! This afternoon is the homecoming parade. The kids are exited. Those Sr. High kids are very generous with their candy throwing. Our house is at the beginning of the parade route so we have the fun of watching the band warm up,too.

This week marks the sixth year we have lived here in Waseca. So much has changed in these six years!

Sad News

Yesterday Jeff, Elena, Grant, and Alan went up to the school to participate in See You At The Pole with their youth group as well as others in our community. Even though we home school, it is good for them to participate in stuff like this.

The public schools were out early yesterday so Coach John from FCA put together a fun few hours of sports activities for the Jr High boys and girls. Alan and Joyce headed up there to participate. While they were waiting for the activities to start they noticed a bunch of adults including Coach John sitting at a table praying and a bunch of kids were crying. They found out that just about an hour before there was a tragic car accident just a few miles from the school. A 14 year old boy who attended Waseca Jr High was thrown from the car and died. His 17 year old friend who attends our church was seriously injured.

Elena and Grant said the Sr High youth group spent the evening praying and talking about what happened. It had been a pretty ruff day for a lot of the kids here in Waseca.

Do You Mind...

talking projects?

I was in the cutting mood this evening so I spent some time cutting out my Suzie's Zoo and Raggedy-Ann and Andy quilt tops




This is the Peek-a-boo quilt pattern I am using. I think they will turn out cute!



I had some miscellaneous pieces Mother Goose fabric as well as a bit extras from the Suzie Zoo quilt I cut out above so I thought I would cut out the pieces for one more quilt top.



I found this cute pattern and thought it would be great to show off the leftover Mother Goose squares. I did have to change the fabrics some but it will look nice. It is from a book called Lickety-Split Baby Quilts or something like that. I like the thought of a quilt top being quick to sew up. It would be fun to locate the ducky fabric because it is SO cute. For now I will settle for using up my extra miscellaneous fabrics.

You Know I'm Running Very Late...

when my 'big kid' school is still in session when dad comes home.

"Jeff, would you mind if I relax with my Monday coffee treat you so kindly brought home for me while you take over as teacher? Is that ok with you?" I knew he would say yes. What a great husband!

Two More Cute Blankets

I had a little extra time this evening to sew up two more fun baby blankets. This type of baby blanket is SO easy to make. I added a center bow on both sides of each blanket to add a little extra individuality as well as to keep the fabrics from pulling away from each other. The backing is called Ultra-Cuddle fleece. I have never used this before and thought I would try it. It is SO soft.




This week I think I will try to work on another Peek-a-Poo quilt. I have a little left of both the blue Suzie's Zoo and the pink Raggedy-Ann fabrics that I made baby blankets out of yesterday. I think I have enough of each fabric to fussy cut 5 4" squares from each and use them as the the peek-a-boo blocks. I can not decide if I should start on the Suzie's Zoo or the Raggedy-Ann quilt first. Am I in a pink mood or blue mood? Then again I just might not have enough time this week at all. I will see. I am getting over run with quilt tops waiting to be sandwiched and quilted but I am more in the quilt top making mood these days.

Good-Bye Summer!

We squeezed in one last cook-out before fall officially starts. The summer went so fast.

The kids are looking pretty melancholy aren't they?





The kids have already raked a huge leave pile that they have enjoyed jumping and sliding into. There will be many more leave piles before we know it.

Up a Little Late Tonight

I had a few quiet hours to do a few quick projects.Well,maybe more like a few semi quiet hours.

I thought I needed a couple of new things for my My Little Dragonfrye Etsy shop so I made five very fun baby cuddly blankets this evening.

I used white textured cuddle soft fabric for the backing of the cute blue Suzie's Zoo and pink Raggedy Ann blankets. I found this real pretty off-white dimple cuddle soft fabric that I used for the backing of the dog and bird blankets. The bird blanket is very different and unique for a baby I think. They are all so soft!



I tried something different with the patchwork blanket. I used off-white fleece for the backing.Interesting. The squares I used for the patchwork blanket top were all leftovers from the last batch of receiving blankets I made. I believe I even added a few fabrics from my drawstring skirt leftovers. I used a mix of cottons,flannels,cotton knit,cotton Lycra,minky type fabrics, and a few polyester satin fabrics. I was not used to sewing a quilt top with this variety of fabrics and had a hard time matching up the squares perfectly. Even so, I think this blanket turned out very cute.