A creativity retreat, new fabric and a kitten!

I spent the afternoon shopping and cooking for "The First Annual Fangman Girl's Creativity Retreat". When my daughters and I started planning this we called it a sewing retreat but as it got closer they thought of many other creative pursuits that they wanted to work on too. So we planned two days at home with no interruptions, no errands (except for Happy Hour runs to Sonic or McDonald's), and no chores! If you call and we don't answer it is because we are retreating! We have lots of snacks and meals prepared; pecan mini-muffins, fruit salad, orange punch, ice cream cookies, snack-mix, fresh fruit and veggies. We are ready to eat, sew, write and create. Plan to see some finished projects the next two days! See our spread below.

I got some new fabric in the mail a few days ago. A jelly-roll of Charlevoix by Minick and Simpson. I think it is a beautiful summery line. I have designed a few table toppers I want to make out of it. I also have some yardage of Strawberry Fields by JoAnna Figueroa, some of it is for a kitchen curtain the rest for a class I get to take taught by JoAnna herself! I will write more about that later, but I am super excited about it!


No, we did not get a kitten! I wanted to include this picture in the last post but technology won that argument. I am having better luck today. This is the kitten my daughter wanted to bring home when we visited the Humane Society. Isn't it cute?


I am off to get some sleep, plans are to get up early tomorrow and start creating!

Birthday Girl!!!

Yesterday we spent the day celebrating a birthday of a very special girl! My youngest daughter turned 9! She asked for lots of "Bling" for her birthday. Here she is modeling some of it.


We started the day with a trip to the book-mobile to check out some summer reads. We then went on to the Humane Society, just to look. I think we all fell in love with an animal there, some tears were shed in the car after we left. On to the mall for a little shopping then a late lunch at Coyote Canyon, an all-you-can-eat buffet, I believe we got our money's worth. We ended the night with cake for dinner and a late-night swim. I love my little girl, Happy Birthday!!!


The cake was made by Big Sister, her first attempt at cake decorating. I think she did really good!

A sick kid, and a sewing frenzy!

Last week I had a sick kid, we spent three hours at minor med waiting to see a doctor to get a strep throat diagnosis. I was able to get a lot of hand work finished during the wait. I am working on my own smaller version of my Grandma's cat quilt. I am happy with how the blocks look.

Because of the strep throat we had to give up our plans of hanging out at the pool for two days. The oldest daughter, who wasn't sick was pretty upset about the entire deal. So, I thought it might be fun to get her sewing on a project of her own. She was excited about it too! I cut out a bunch of 4 inch blocks out of my dog fabric stash and she used my sewing machine to stitch them into a pillow. She even quilted it! She is already planning her next project.


By day two the younger daughter was feeling much better but we couldn't get out because she was still contagious. She spent some time working on her cat block. I am not sure if she is making a pillow out of it or making more for a quilt of her own.


Even though we didn't get to spend those two days as planned it was a great time to slow down, and pass on my passion for sewing to my daughters.

Vintage table cloths....

Friday the girls and I hit a few garage sales. I was most excited about finding these two vintage table cloths. I paid 75 cents for each of them! The strawberry cloth worked great for our bar-b-que Friday night. I especially like how it matches my plates.

I'm Back!!!!!

After some health issues, surgery, the death of my Grandma and winding up the end of a school year I am back! I am excited to have the entire summer in front of me. I have lots of projects in the works and I look forward to sharing them with you.

I recently started and finished a quilt, in the matter of about a week, which I think is a record for me. This quilt was for my nephew. His mom gave me a stack of his old baby sheets and baby blankets and asked me to make a quilt out of them. Now, this was probably over two years ago when I received these blankets. I knew they would be in Kansas over the Memorial weekend, so I had a goal and motivation to get it finished. I think it turned out great!

Here is the little man himself with his quilt isn't he cute???

I couldn't decide which photo of him to use so I posted both of them.