Just because I am a glutton for punishment..........

Meet our new family member. Little Lucy Bear joined our family on Thursday. She is a four month old Puggle. Half Pug half Beagle. Her owner had to get rid of her due to finances. She is sweet and the kids love her. Before you ask, no she is not potty trained, but we are working on it. She has had only a handful of accidents in the house. She doesn't really bark, and is an avid leaf hunter. LOL She is great with the kids and could care less about the cats. She just kind of goes with the flow if things.

So I have the fabric cut for my next quilt. It will be for Allison and I think it will turn out to be huge. LOL Oh well, then it will grow with her.

The very wrinkled khaki, I would have ironed it, but there was just too much of it.

The light green striped fabric.

Okay, do they seriously need to stamp their name on the fabric? I know where I got it from.

The pretty flower fabric and the tower o' squares. LOL

Now, I know what you are thinking, that isn't the same template, and you are correct! Good eye! This is a new larger template made from a heavy cardboard. Since the quilt was bigger I decided to make the squares 2 inches bigger. Stay tuned for more on this exciting turn of events. LOL

"All those kids."

That really seems to be the popular saying of late. It always irritates amazes me when people say this to me. The comments about how I must have my hands full are a tad annoying too. Yes I am busy, but that does not mean I want your sympathy because of it. I love my kids and if I thought my sanity and bank account could afford it, I would probably petition my husband for some more. I like to think that my hands are full of love as cheesy as that sounds. Seriously I only have 4 kids, I could see if I had 10 that people would say things like "All those kids". I just don't get why people would think 4 is a ton. Maybe it is because I grew up with three brothers that I don't see it as "all those kids". I mean geez, my brother has six and I still don't see them as having "All those kids!" So do me a favor next you are going to make a comment to people with more than 1 or 2 kids, think before you speak. Even if your comments aren't meant to hurt or be insulting, they just maybe.

One of my latest favorite sayings is "A Parent's love is whole no matter how many times divided."

One down!!!

Woohoo I finished up Alex's blanket this morning. I am not sure if I like it though. :~( I just don't know about the ragging effect. oh, well, it is done and pretty cute in my opinion. It isn't perfect, but neither am I. (just don't tell my husband. LOL)

Getting started the squares all sewn together.

And we're off!

I kept checking my bobbin, but imagine my surprise when I looked at the spool of thread.

This is all I had left when it ran out! 3 measly squares!

So, after deciding not to quit and go to the store the next day to buy more, I just used some yellow.

Quilt before "ragging"

All done!

As you can see, he loves it.

A close-up

Not too bad, if I may say so myself.

So I might have gotten in over my head.

Jo-Ann fabrics was having a pretty good Labor Day sale and I jumped at it. I have been wanting to make the kids rag quilts, but kept talking myself out of it because fabric is expensive. I decided this time though that I was going to do it. After all a blanket made by mom is way better store bought quilt. You know because of all the love put into it and all that jazz. Thanks to a friend showing pictures of her gorgeous quilt I decided that I could do it. So I went to the store clutching my $100 bill that I had found while cleaning out my husband's car (after all finder's keepers ;o) ). I was just going to get fabric for my two older since I will be repainting their room. So I picked out the fabric and took a number for it to be cut. I was a good 10 people behind and had a very antsy 2 almost 3 year old so I took him to pick out some fabric for his fire truck bed. Holy Cow! If I don't have a headache by the time I am done making his quilt I will be amazed, let's just say they aren't the calmest colors around. LOL In order to make myself get moving on these blankets, I am going to post pictures here of my progress. I decided to start on Alex's quilt first since it won't be as big as Allie and Nick's.

The fabrics

Getting started, I know you are jealous of my own homemade template. You too can have a jazzy one like that, all you need is an old plastic place mat. :)

All cut... or so I thought. I ended up having to cut some more.

Getting ready to sew. Little did I know my spool pin was snapped off.

Thankfully I have a wonderfully handy husband who ran to Home Depot to get something to fix it. :)

The batting inside, I debated back and forth about having batting, but in the end I decided to just do it.

Sewing! now you can see why I said I may have a headache from this fabric. LOL

Stayed tuned for more progress on this event.