Upgrade

Thursday was quite a big day for us! I drove my wonderful Toyota for the last time.  I have been so blessed by that car, and certainly got my Dad's money's worth out of it! He bought it for me in February 2003, 9 years ago to the month. Between Tommy's automotive know-how and an overall excellent vehicle, the repairs and such have been minimal. We've probably spent as much on maintenance (oil changes, registration and inspection) as we ever did on anything else. 


It's been a little sad, missing it, but I am very happy with my 'new' car. However I thought I'd reminisce a bit.

I miss you old friend, hopefully you will bless your next owner as you did me!

-I had only driven a stick twice before driving off the lot!


-Shortly after getting my Corolla, my friend Stephanie had a little birthday bash and had a tub of butter left over which I didn't want to go to waste, so I brought home. Except I forgot to take it out of the trunk. By the time I found it, it had completely melted, and was soaked into the trunk. But it never seemed any worse for the wear.

Rockin' the tape adaptor

-My car was in two accidents, both happened while I was parked at the curb. Once at Maker Mama's house, and once at my not-yet inlaws.

-The rear driver's side hubcap fell off 6 1/2 years ago, shortly before we moved to Fort Worth, when I drove from my apartment to Thundercloud Subs, just a couple miles away. I never replaced it, but was often told, "I saw you driving, and knew it was you because of your missing hubcap."

I hit 100,000 miles in October of 2007. When we traded it in there was almost 165,000 miles on it!

-I put close to 130,000 miles on it, but the furthest I ever drove in it was to St. Louis, MO.

-I used to get 40mpg and could drive from my apartment in San Antonio to my parent's townhouse in Houston and back again on one tank of gas, 400 miles exactly.

Our 'new' car doesn't have tons of bells and whistles, but it is a great fit for our family. And besides, what's a car in light of eternity?

2004 Subaru Outback

Some fun things about our new car:

-heated cloth seats

-cruise control! Yay!

-paid for!

-all wheel drive

-roof rack

This is a cool car Mom!

WIP Wednesday

My friend Amy, (who blogs at Maker Mama) hosted a craft night on Friday and I was so excited to be in town for it! I worked on figuring out some math on a few farmer's wife blocks, and cut the fabric for about 6.

I really like how this one came out. And it's all fabric I bought from a gal at our guild!

This is where I started to realize I have lots of busy fabrics. Perhaps I should invest in some solids...

And here I realized that I really need to get some solids. This just has too much going on! I couldn't even sew it together.

I made these for my nephew using this tutorial.

And I made this for Tiffani's birthday using this great tutorial. I will defiantly make more of these!

Tail Spin

Our Fort Worth Modern Quilt Guild is doing a block of the month, and I didn't care for the one slated for this month, so I chose this block instead. 

Decoupage Vase

Check out what Amy did with the scraps I left at her house!

YeeHaw Isaiah

I can finally show you what I made for my nephew's birthday! I got this idea from Chez Beeper Bebe, I tweaked it a little and didn't include the magnets. Though I think next time I might put them in. This was a super easy craft, and great for scraps.

 I tried to match the fabric with the letter, but had difficulty with JK and Q especially.

Birthday Boy. 2.

My handsome cowboy.

Isaiah, Uncle Chris, Vincent and Daniel

Barrel Racing. Mid-Jump.

Happy Birthday To You!

WIP Wednesday

The only thing I worked on this week was these little Farmer's Wife blocks. There are 111 in total, but I won't do them all. They finish at about 6.5 inches. 

This is Love

These goodies are going to our neighbors later today!

Also, a Happy Birthday to my nephew Isaiah who turns two today!! We are going to help him celebrate this weekend, and once I show him his birthday gift, I can show you! Can't wait. Guess I should finish it...

WIP Wednesday

I've been working on several different projects and thought that perhaps it's time for an actual list! With categories!

Done:
no finishes this week

Still Working:
Log Cabins quilt top, need to choose backing fabric
I forgot to take pictures of the top before I folded it up, but I ended up going with the zig zag pattern. You can sort of see it here.

From l-r: log cabins, oriental, juice boxes

This is what I do with tops once they are finished. Fold them nicely and hang them up from the door frame. Then they aren't out of sight-out of mine, but just out of the way.

Nephew's birthday gift, about 90% complete, I think...

No Progress:

Juice Boxes quilt top, waiting for batting to be cut and to be basted

Oriental quilt top, need to choose backing fabric

Double Hourglasses, need 100+ more

New:

In Color Order's Block of the Month

I came across this sew along and decided to join in. I usually come across these things too late or they aren't quite my style, but really liked this one. And now that I've chosen my fabrics, I'm even more excited.

Since most of my fabrics have white in them, I decided to go with black for the background fabric.

I didn't size down my squares to 3.5" like she recommends, but that just means the block finishes larger than 12.5", which I am fine with.

This is the January Block all sewn up.

I couldn't decide which layout I liked best for February's block, so after a poll on facebook, I decided on

This one! Now I just need to sew it up!

Growing

Remember this post, from almost 2 years ago?
Well check this out.

Allie, Isaac, Daniel and Jonathan at care group last Wednesday.

Kaleidoscope

I finally finished up my Kaleidoscope quilt! You can see my progress here, here and here. It went together much easier that I first thought and I absolutely love the result. I used the quilt along at Don't Call me Betsy as my guide, though I changed the sizes.

My quilting was a simple outline of each of the large rings. They were much easier to follow that I thought.

The backing is the fun fabric I picked up at Golden D'or over a year ago. I'm itching to go again!

Our weather is unseasonably warm, but beautiful. Especially with a nice breeze.

And for those of you who care, I used a big smattering of different fabrics. Some from JoAnns, some Hobby Lobby, some my mom bought for me and some from the fabric fairy. I don't really keep track.

Interested in making one yourself? I'd recommend: