It's been a long time, too long, since I added a post to my little blog world. The sweeties and keeping me on my toes this summer with visits to new parks, ice cream treats, and library visits. I did have a few hours a few days in a row to be home alone. Such an unexpected treat. Don't get me wrong, I love all the P's to death, but it was the first time I have been in our home alone since the twins were born. They are over 4 years old now!

So what did I do with my time? Well, I got out my sewing machine, of course! I had started a simple baby quilt as a shower gift, and was starting to think I was going to have some late nights getting it done while the kids were in bed. With the extra time I was able to spread things out on the kitchen table and get it done.

So... my masterpiece

 I haven't done much machine quilting. My Aunt has a long arm and would quilt my stiff for me or let me use it. She moved out a state, so I had to come figure out how to finish my quilts. This was the second quilt that I quilted myself on my machine. It worked out great with my new walking foot.

I am rather happy with the way it turned out. It was a simple half square triangle design using precut charm packs. I used three total, two printed and 1 white, and I had a few left over. I liked it when it was done, but now seeing the pictures that I FINALLY downloaded from my camera, I see that I did a good job (if I do say so myself). And the new Mom, or Mom X3 now, hung it over the baby's crib. I feel honored! 

More I spy goodness

I have been collecting I Spy squares to make quilts and other project for my kids and for gifts. I hope to be able to gift at least one I spy quilt for my nephew for Christmas. (Good thing he can't read yet, Hee Hee!)

I wanted to make a quilt for my youngest son with the things he loves, mostly cars, trucks, and everything else that moves! I found some great examples of I Spy Transportation quilts.

I found this one from www.blossomheartquilts.com. I love that the back of the quilt is a panel.

You can play I Spy with the front, and run toy car on the back! 

I also found this one at betteroffthread.com.

I would love to create a Transportation I spy quilt for my son, so to collect all the squares needed, I opened a swap for I spy transportation fabric. See this post if you are interested in collecting transportation charm squares for your own quilt. You can see selections of fabrics other swappers are submitting here.

I Spy Transportation swap open!

This swap is now closed! What a great turn out! 

Have you heard of I spy quilts? They use novelty prints with all types of images a child would recognize and be able to play "I Spy" with. 

From craftstylish

 I just discovered I Spy quilts and swaps, and have become a bit obsessed! I would really like to make a quilt for my youngest son, who loves trucks, cars, trains…. You get it, everything that moves! To collect a variety of squares for his quilt, I thought I would host my own swap.

One of the fabrics I have picked to swap. 

We will be swapping sets of 20, 5 inch charm squares of transportation related fabric. This can be planes, trains, cars, work trucks, bikes, tractors, or even shoes. In addition, street signs, railroad tracks, or any other transportation related items would be great.

Another fabric I am swapping. 

 You can swap more than one set, up to 4 sets (each set a different fabric). You should be able to cut 20 five inch squares from around 1/2 yard of fabric depending on the design spacing. Please make sure that the image is close to center on the square as possible, and fussy cut if needed.

Carefully rotary cut your fabric in to 5 x 5 squares. Be sure to remove the selvage from both sides. Squares that are poorly cut or wonky and cannot be used as received will be returned unswapped.

To brush up on cutting charm’s see this tutorial. http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2010/05/charm-squares-101.html

Please send 100% cotton only quilt shop quality fabric. No Joannes, Hobby Lobby, or Wal Mart fabric. Mind the golden rule, send what you would like to receive. Also, keep in mind that the charms are designed to be in a child’s quilt, and should be recognizable to a child. 

Please post a photo of your selected fabric to our flicker group, and check out the photos before selecting your fabrics. That way we can avoid duplicates.

Place each set of 20 charms in a zip lock sandwich size baggie. Include your name, address, and flicker name on a piece of paper and put it inside baggies. Also include a self-addressed postage paid envelope for your charms to be returned to you. DO NOT use metered mail. (When I send off for swaps, I take the package in to be weighed with the return envelope in it, but left unsealed. I have them weigh it to determine the postage, add the postage to the return envelope, and seal up the package to send off.) You can get free flat rate envelopes from USPS on their website. They take a few days to arrive after order. 

I hope to have sign ups for at least 80 sets (4 groups of 20 sets), so we don't have duplicates. I will keep the sign ups open until Oct 1st, or until full. 

I will collect all the charm sets, distribute them randomly and return to you the same number of sets you sent in. I will try to not send out duplicates, but that will depend on the number of participants and how many sets you sent in.

At this time the swap is open to US residents only. If this works out, I’ll get brave and have another swap open to all.

The last day for me to receive the charms is October 18^th, and will hope to get them back in the mail by the 25^th. (Your own little trick or treat package!) I will update the list when I receive your charms. Anything received after October 18th will be returned to you.

To sign up, please email me at sweetiepgarden@yahoo.com or add a comment below with your email, flicker name, number of sets you would like to swap. 

I will send an email out with my address and any other information needed for the swap. I will also update the flicker page with a participant list and packages received. 

Thanks for playing! 

10/4 UPDATE: We still have room for a few swappers! If you are interested, please leave a comment or send an email with the number of sets you would like, your Flickr ID, and an email address to contact you with the swap shipping address. Please keep in mind that the charms need to be to my by Oct 18th so I can get them back out by the 25th as promised. 

I have been swapping like crazy.

So I have been absent form my little blog for a few weeks. Summer got busy, and the kids wore me out! Each night I would have a plan for making something I would blog about later, but it never happened. I never got the time...

Ok, I'll be honest. I signed up for that first I spy swap that I told you about, and was totally hooked! I found a quilter's forum, and signed up for another swap of creepy crawly fabrics as well as a doll Quilt swap. Then I found an i spy swap group in yahoo groups. I have gotten back one set of squares and sent off another with them all ready. I also did a flicker group swap of rainbow F8 to add an assortment of color to my little stash. I have been shopping, cutting, and mailing fabric all summer! 

I am addicted to swapping fabric. I have got to find time to create something out of the mass of i spy fabrics I am collecting. I have a great idea for making my nephew an i spy quilt, and I was thinking that making Boo Boo bags from novelty fabric may also be a good idea for the 6 1/2 inch squares I have. 

In the mean time, I found another swap at my fabric obsession, and was the first to sign up. It is an ABC swap, and I picked the letter "F" because I already have some flamingo fabric all ready for i spy cutting! 

Have you done a swap? I have to say it is just too much fun! 

Who knew swapping could be so fun...

or addicting!

I signed up for an I Spy quilt square swap a few weeks ago, and had so much fun picking out fabrics and looking at others selections. I got it all cut out, bagged up, and sent out. Then I went looking for another swap!

I have not even gotten back my first set of swapped squares, and I am out looking for more opportunities to trade fabric! I'm like a junkie. I am now on a quilting message board and a flicker group for finding swaps I look everyday for another opportunity.  I get all giddy and excited when I open up the quilt board or flicker group and find that someone posted something new!

I found a swap for "Creepy Crawly" fabrics, and I signed up right away. It is for 6 1/2" squares, but I figure I can cut them down to 5" and easily add them to the i spy squares that are also coming.

I actually had a hard time deciding on what to get for this swap. I was not sure if cute prints were wanted, or really creepy stuff, so I stayed on the creepy side. Want to see what I picked out?

First, the ants. For my 5 year old, ants are the worst of the creepy crawlers! (For the three year old Sweetie Ps, the most fun ever! I find them in the yard letting them crawl all over them. Eekk!)

I looked high and low at the fabric shop, and the frogs are all I could find, and that was in the Fat Quarter bin. 

Now the bats and the spiders are on the Halloween side, but that is hard to avoid when you are talking about creepy! 

I really don't know what to expect with this swap. Hopefully other were able to think outside the box better than I was. I can't wait to see! For this swap I submitted 12 squares for each of the fabrics, so I will be getting 48 squares back. That will make a nice addition to the 112 i spy squares from the first swap and I should be able to make at least two small quilts for Christmas. 

I better get started on that! 

Like I said, I have been searching for more swaps, and did sign up for a doll quilt swap. This makes me nervous since I will have to sew for this swap. I will be making a small quilt (12" x 12" up to 24" x 24") and swapping it with another quilter for a sample of her work. The theme is black and white with a splash of color. I started thinking about summer things that could work, and once it was in my brain, I had to participate in the challenge.

 Wish me luck! 

Charm swap

I finally got my fabric and cut it for the i spy charm swap. I should have it in the mail by Tuesday. I am so excited to get back a little bundle of charm goodness! And I can not wait for the next swap!

This is what I picked out:

Fun selections, right? I really like the butterflies. I have about a 1/4 yard left and I'm trying to think of a fun project for it. 

I was going to use this last one, but decided that the print was too large. Now I think I will use it to back a small i spy quilt I plan on making for my nephew for Christmas. 

Beating the Heat Wave

The past week has been filled with over 100 degree days. I think it was 7 days of 100 to 111 degree forecasts, although I think the high for the week was 108. It really doesn't matter, over 100 is hot and hot is HOT. We normally have lows in the 60's over night, and are able to get up in the morning and open windows, but this week it was 90 degrees before the sun went up.

I'm not much of a hot weather girl. As a kid, I remember playing all summer, and LOVING any time I got in a pool. As an adult, I'm not great at braving the heat, and I burn easily. When you have kids, though, you have to get out. This week, it was hard to keep all the Sweetie P's occupied and happy, so I had to be a bit resourceful.

First, you have to have water play! The Sweetie's love to have the sprinklers on and the lawn was rather thirsty, so a few extra cycles were welcome.

Mr. Sweetie had cut PVC pipe and drilled holes in it so the kids could make their own water fountain creations to play in. Littlest Sweetie P thought it made a great drinking fountain.

But sometimes, just the hose is all you need to cool off and have fun. 

Now Mr. Sweetie can be rather creative with play. When we moved into our home last year, the previous owners left behind a slide. It is the type that would be attached to a play structure, but it was alone in the dirt. Mr. S cleaned it up, propped it on a latter, and made a water slide for the kids. 

While the Sweetie Ps thought this was great fun, I have to admit, I was a bit leery about safety. No accidents, only happy kids.

And of course, no summer with little ones would be complete without swim lessons. Not so great for Mom, since I had to brave the heat and wait for class to be over. We actually skipped one day because I could not take sitting in 108 degree heat. But learning to swim is important!

In the afternoon, we mostly stayed indoors, praying the the A/C could keep up with the heat. Staying inside means Mom has to come up with something to do or the Sweetie P's will watch Dora all day. 

I remembered seeing a pin on pintrest about an air fort.  It seemed simple enough, and the Sweetie P's love to play in forts. I simply weighed down the sides of a king sheet with anything I could grab in the play room, and then put a box fan on the open end. Turned it on, and the kids were amazed!

They grabbed pillows and blankets and loaded up the fort with all kinds of comforts for a few hours, off and on all day.

I took another pintrest idea, and had the kids drop colored vinegar in a tray of baking soda. I had picked up the baking soda at Winco in the bulk food section, so I got a bag for little cost. I scooped about 2 cups in each pan, and gave them droppers to drop in the colored vinegar.

 I asked the kids to mix colors and see what they came up with. Some how, brown was a favorite.

I had not planned to give the littlest Sweetie a try, but she was interested. She did, however, get more soda into the vinegar than the other way around! 

I had told my oldest it was a science/art project, so when he was done, he asked how long it would take to dry. He was not at all disappointed when I told him we would take a photo to save and dump the rest in the sink.

Over all it was a successful project,  fun for the kids and not too messy. They enjoyed the bubbles and fizz and watching the colors mix and change.

Now last, but not least. One of my favorite ways to cool off. Popsicles!
A few years back Mr. Sweetie invested in a Zuko Quick Pop Maker.

At first, I thought it was a lot of money for popsicles. I mean, you can just pop some juice in an ice cube tray and get some toothpicks, right? But I have to admit, this thing is fun! And, the kids only have to wait about 10 minutes for popsicles. I make them from juice, pureed fresh fruit and yogurt, so when they ask for a second, not only do I not mind, but I have it done before they finish the first! 

Something about popsicles and kids that screams summer! 

So, how are you getting along in the summer's hottest days?