Pictures to make up for my lack of words

Lately I've been trying to finish up some projects and also get around to doing some projects I've been meaning to start.

Above are my beautiful yellow kitchen curtains. I have another matching set on the window above the sink, but for several reasons, I won't be including a picture of that set. They are, however, exactly the same. Except that they are currently in my back room waiting to be ironed now that Howie has done me the favor of lifting them off the wall and onto the pile of dirty dishes below. But that's another story.
My grandma has light yellow curtains in her kitchen, and I love how they look in the morning, making even the faintest rays of light become a homey, welcoming glow. So I made these yellow curtains a while back. I got the fabric from Walmart on its dollar table, and that should have been my first sign. They were yellow, but not for long. They quickly faded to a pathetic shade of off-white, and they've been blandly hanging in my kitchen for some time.
Well, this week, I bought some dye and colored them SUNFLOWER yellow. It's a bit bright, but I have no doubt they will fade.


And for Terri, this is a picture of the blue and green quilt I finished just in time to learn I was having a baby girl. And by "finished" I mean "mostly finished," as the binding still has some work to do. But it is finished to my photo standard, which means it can go on the blog.
I got a Better Homes and Gardens magazine that has like 100 "easy" quilt patterns. I mixed and matched to come up with a quilt top that would match the awesome backing I'd bought (see below). This quilt allowed me to try several patterns, and now I have an idea of some that I might try in the future, as well as some that I'm not terribly impressed with. I really like the large square in the middle, the one with a turquoise square with turquoise arrows pointing to it. That's called "Mother's Favorite." It may be my new favorite. The square below and to the left of that one, with the yellowish background and four little flower doo-dads is another favorite. It's called "Goose Tracks." I wasn't terribly impressed with it at the beginning, as it was one of the hardest squares to piece, but once I finished it and quilted it, I really came to like the little goose track design it makes. I also really like the Bachelor's Buttons, which are the tiny flower squares you probably can't see, but there are two of them. They're only 3" by 3", and I thought they were a waste of time (I could have just put a square or two triangles), but they also tured out to be some of my favorites.


And this is the backing, Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night with the cow jumping over the moon. It's just classy and irreverent enough to make me giggle.
And that's why I was saying it's a super busy quilt. I'll learn to restrain myself when choosing fabrics in the future. Maybe I'll only have two or three busy patterns-- instead of six!


And this is a 6-month outfit for our baby girl. I made it yesterday. Kevin was a bit hesitant that I'd be making a shirt and pants for our baby girl, but it's a bit more frilly than he'd imagined (see! little bows on the pant legs!). Now, I know red and black are not your traditional baby colors, but I'm hoping.... something. I guess I'm just not really caring. I wear black, and Kevin looks good in red. I'm hoping our baby will look sweet in this outfit.
After I made it, Kevin mentioned something about her throwing up all over it, and it finally dawned on me why people make baby clothes in such light pastel colors: you wash them enough that everything becomes pastel anyway. Oh well....

So that's what I've been up to lately. I'm getting kind of big to be using my sewing machine on the coffee table. It makes my back hurt, and I can't reach it as well as I used to could. Perhaps I'll move my sewing table to the front room pretty soon. We'll see....