Spring Has Sprung

Spring has sprung here in Madison. Talia got her first big girl bike, we celebrated Passover and we can finally spend some time outside! We have lots going on in the next few weeks. Alex is going to be one year old next week, can you believe it? More visitors, a garden to get started (I don't know how to start!) and a few major quilting dealines. I'm trying to take things one step at a time...

How do you spell "come back"?

We just had a great visit with my sister Jo and my niece Marley. It's great to get the cousins together. As a kid I didn't have first cousins that were close in age so I always felt I missed out on that. After they left yesterday Talia was coloring a picture for my sister and she said, "How do you spell Jojo"? A few minutes later she said, "How do you spell "come back"? My sentiments exactly.

Holland

Bluegrass for kids CD Review: Astrograss - Let Me Stay Up All Night

We're listening to a great CD these days: Let Me Stay Up All Night by Astrograss. The title track is clearly Talia's favorite while I like the first track, "There Their They're" and baby Alex prefers "Drunken Sailor." It is Talia's most requested CD at the moment. It's great to listen to something OTHER than princess songs and seriously, bluegrass for kids- what a great idea! We saw Astrograss perform in Philadelphia once and they are based in Brooklyn so there are lots of shows there. Their first album has lots of Shel Silverstein poems set to original bluegrass tunes. Fun for everyone. Check it out!

Cheese Auction- Alkmaar

Botanical Garden- Keukenhof

Windmills- Zaanse Schanse

We're Back!

We are back from Amsterdam and almost back to a normal schedule (almost a week later). We had a fantastic time with our friends in Holland. We hung out in the city, took day trips to a village of windmills and an amazing botanical garden (the tulips are in bloom!) and saw a cheese auction in a small northern town. The weather was cold but sunny (I think that's all you can possibly ask of Amsterdam)... The kids got along GREAT. I was still sick and Alex of course got sick but all in all it was a great trip. It feels like an accomplishment to have taken two small children to Europe! Now... where should we go next!?

See you later Alligator

We're off on a much needed vacation to Amsterdam! We'll be back later-- I promised Talia it would be spring when we returned so it better be! Actually, it's going to be much nicer weather here than in Amsterdam this week. Oh well.

Spring Fling Round Robin: 1st border

I received the first quilt block for the Spring Fling Round Robin. I was paralyzed by fear as to what I should do with it! I don't want to mess up someone else's work! People might not realize this about me-- I can't really sew a straight line very well (I'll blame my crappy machine??), I'm disorganized, I know nothing about quilting, I rarely make anything that isn't only squares and rectangles, I rarely follow a pattern, and I don't really know much about lining up seams, the right way to press etc. I've been overwhelmed with the amazing results ofthe other quilters in the round robin. This challenge has really shown me how borders can enhance a block. I never knew! Please check out the website and see the fantastic transformations from "center block" to "center block plus 1st border." I came up with a lot of different ideas for the block in my sketch book but of course, I hadn't really read the directions and had not realized that I could only add a few inches to each side. Some of the designs I came up with couldn't have been done without adding 6 inches on EACH side, thus more than doubling the block size. I don't know what I was thinking. I stressed and stressed and then suddenly it came to me in the middle of the night: prarie points. Now, I've never done prarie points and they are usually added as a final border instead of binding to a quilt. I have seen them added to interior borders here and there so I decided to give it a try. I googled prarie points, read a few instructions and got right to it. I had no idea how it would look in the end but I'm very happy with the result. Of course, I never meant to add the pink border but somehow my math was off and I ended up an inch short all around. So I added the pink border fabric, which I think was the color inspiration for the original tulip blocks (see, pink, orange, yellow and purple!). Now I have to choose some fabric to send along, make a label and send it out. I'm relieved to be done and glad to have tried a new technique. Actually, when you are a self taught sewer/quilter, everything is pretty much a new technique!