Thimbleanna – Page 15 – My little online diary.

Randomly in February

14 Comments / February 3, 2018 February 3, 2018 / Around the House, Chat, Store

Happy Eat Ice Cream For Breakfast Day!!! Really. It’s a thing. And definitely a thing on a COLD winter day in February. Sprinkles are mandatory in the middle of winter ;-P.
It’s FREEZING out there. But that didn’t stop us from having our patio doors replaced yesterday. I had no idea anyone would want to replace windows/doors in the middle of winter. When we planned this in the fall, the installers were backed up into January. I thought we might have to wait until spring, but they said no, they work all winter. It was 15 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday while they were working. Poor Guys! Here’s an in-progress shot (don’t I have a lovely crop of frozen plants?)

And here are the windows all finished. Those old doors were so hard to open, lock and unlock. And the seals were broken on several of them, so they would fog up between the layers of glass. I’m so excited for spring so we can really use these new doors!
My winter sprinkle kick started a week ago when I made some cupcakes. Then I threw some thimbles in there and made a new blog header — because the Christmas header really needed to go. It seems pretty obvious that after 11 years of blogging, I’m running out of header ideas LOL.
There has been knitting and sewing going on around here, just nothing finished to show yet. I’ve been steadily working on quilt blocks for the The Happy Flower Quilt and I’ve been working on a little sweater that I’m now blocking. The instructions said to sew the shoulders together, but I really didn’t like the way mine looked. So, I undid the shoulder bind-offs and kitchener stitched them together. I’m a little worried that it’s going to look funny without a shoulder seam — I guess we’ll see when I get it all sewn together.
And finally, lots of pretty, pretty fabric has been arriving in my little Thimbleanna Etsy shop!

Happy February! I’m off to clean a little — this place is a disaster!
XOXO,
Anna

Memory Quilts

31 Comments / January 7, 2018 January 9, 2018 / Family, Quilting

Sometime right before Thanksgiving, MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I were looking at a few things of BigDaddy’s and we decided (maybe in a fit of madness?) that we should make quilts from his shirts for his 5 grandchildren. We decided on a simple 4″ patch quilt pattern and spent a few weeks sorting and cutting. We worked away at our little project and by Thanksgiving, we had the quilt fronts all pieced. As the mother of 2/5ths of the grandchildren, I lucked out and only had to make 2 of the quilts.

I tried to compensateMyDadLovesMeBestSister for her extra work by piecing all the backs. BigDaddy was known for some of his funny sweatshirts, so we decided to include a few of each on the quilt backs. (My favorite was a shirt with a dog skeleton that said “In Dog Years … I’m Dead.” Or, “If a man is talking in the forest, and there is no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong?” Classic BigDaddy!) We chose a blue flannel for the main part of the backs, and I used my embroidery machine software to digitize BigDaddy’s signature with a message that he’d left on a card to one of the kids. We also included a pocket on the back of each quilt, and into each pocket we tucked a few treasures for each child (now young adults) from their beloved Grandpa.

I chose to big-stitch the two quilts that I had to finish, but MyDadLovesMeBestSister knew that she’d never get three quilts hand quilted, so she decided to tie hers. I love them both ways! I also bound my two quilts with a print from MeMum’s stash — to add a MeMum touch to the quilts, and I love how they turned out.

Quilts made out of shirts aren’t that fun to make and they’re certainly not at all pretty. I mentioned these quilts to Jan shortly before Christmas and she compared this sort of quilting to sewing on buttons or hemming pants. Indeed.

But. Sometimes the payoff is really BIG. MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I predicted that there might be some tears on Christmas morning and we nailed it. I had big plans to take lots of pictures of all the kids holding up their quilts, etc. but the flu wreaked havoc with the rest of the week. It didn’t matter though — I took a few photos when the quilts were opened. The one below is my favorite — you can see at least two criers in this shot and there were more to follow LOL. It was a really fun and special Christmas morning.

Now Christmas projects are all over and we’re at a new year. A clean slate. Are we working on UFO’s or new projects??? Decisions, Decisions!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. The adorable Puppy Love fabric by Anita Jeram (the illustrator responsible for those darling little P.S. I Love You Rabbits!) has arrived in my etsy shop. It’s accompanied by an adorable minky-style plush puppy spot fabric. Oh, the possibilities!!!

Happy New Year!

12 Comments / December 31, 2017 December 31, 2017 / Holidays

Boy, oh boy. One minute it’s Thanksgiving and the next it’s New Year’s. I don’t know how that happens, but these past 6 weeks flashed by here in ThimbleannaLand. Here’s our traditional New Year’s greeting from the animals. Simba, visiting cat of TheSecondChild, gets to deliver the greeting this year — mostly because the other cats can’t stand him (they’re all jealous – he’s the coolest kitty ever) and they’ve been hiding under the bed. Simba is looking a little grumpy himself, as he just spend a week in the kitty hotel.

Since Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve had my head down working on two quilts for Christmas gifts (which I’ll show after I get some pictures). The quilts took almost every waking, non-working moment of my time. I got them done with just enough time to pack for our trip to Utah on Dec. 20th. Our whole family (there were 12 of us) rented a condo so that we could spend Christmas with TheFirstChild, SweetiePie and FinallyAGirl and so that the kids could all spend some time skiing. Sounds perfect, right?

This was the real deal.

CrazyBIL got the flu on the 22nd, and progressively, over the next few days, about half of us also got sick (mostly the older adults LOL). And on Christmas Day, we had to take MeMum to the hospital, ’cause the flu and asthma don’t mix. We had hospital fun for 2 days and had to delay our return home by a day. We’ve been home for two days now and pretty much slept the whole time ;-D. And hopefully by 2019, we’ll be done coughing and will have our voices back.

Anyway, on to our other New Year tradition — looking back on the makes and travels for the year.

My year mostly consisted of working on the blocks for The Happy Flower Quilt (I can’t. wait. to get back to them!) and making goodies for FinallyAGirl. I’m really looking forward to 2018 — as always, I’m full of hope that I’ll have more time than ever for all my projects, haha. I’ll be spending this week deciding which projects need the most attention in the next few months. I’m going to aim for 3 big finishes by the end of March — wish me luck LOL.

Happy Happy New Year — I hope 2018 brings you lots of Love, Happiness and Time for all the things you love to do!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy Thanksgiving

14 Comments / November 23, 2017 November 23, 2017 / Chat

It’s Pie Day! Or the day after Pie Day (when I make the pies), but the day we get to EAT Pies!!!

We’re in that funny time of the year when there’s not much to blog about because the days are filled with running errands and working on secret projects that can’t be shown. Except for pies. I can show you my pies LOL.

Luckily, I don’t have to host Thanksgiving Dinner this year — MyDadLovesMeBestSister is doing all the work. Except for the pies and dinner rolls. We’re having our usual fare — Pecan, Apple and Pumpkin pies.

Yum Yum — I do love a good Thanksgiving Dinner. The best part is getting together with family and playing games. We have a fun new one this year — Cover Your Assets, and of course, the crowd favorite, and very rude, Crimes Against Humanity. (Those are not affilitated links, btw.)

I hope all of you in the US have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

XOXO,
Anna
(P.S. The beach scene blog header has finally been replaced ;-D)

November. {Sigh}

16 Comments / November 1, 2017 November 1, 2017 / Chat, Store

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It’s November already. Can you believe it??? I’m still firmly planted in July, so, I’m in denial. I have a few projects that I want to make for the looming holiday, so I should probably get in gear. It’s hard though — I feel like I need to spend more time outside and enjoy the last little tidbits of fall. I’m sure I’ll get my chance shortly — the leaves are finally starting to come down and leaf blowing is a big job around here. I’m really looking forward to it this year though — I guess because I’m inside most of the time, between work and hanging out with MeMum.

In the meantime, did you have a good Halloween? Ours was very uneventful — sadly, I didn’t even get any decorations out. SweetiePie provided us with some entertainment though. From all accounts, they’ve had a beautiful fall this year in Utah. Here’s our little cherub being attacked by a hoard of pumpkins LOL!

I mailed her a little Halloween package with a pumpkin smocked dress that I made a few weeks ago. I loved seeing her wearing the dress — SweetiePie is so good to send us lots of pictures. And here’s FinallyAGirl in one of her several Halloween costumes — perfect for my love of sheepies, don’t you think? This is definitely my favorite-ever sheepie picture LOL.

I don’t really have much else, but here are a few tidbits:

You probably know I love most things Ina Garten does. Have you seen her little list of Magic Tricks? And did you know Ina hates cilantro? I’m so disappointed — I LOVE it!
It’s too late for this year, but this quilt is a serious contender for next year — I love everything about it and I think it would be fun to make.
Have you seen Julie’s latest pattern? Oh. My. Oink. Gosh. It’s just Tooooo Cute!

And last but not least, there are lots of new fabrics in my etsy shop. This picture shows just a few of them. The section of what I call “basics” is growing too — there are several Dear Stella Little Heart prints, Riley Blake Ginghams, and Cori Dantini’s little seed prints will be in the next few weeks.

Also, Tilda’s new Cottage Collection is here. Fat quarter packs are listed, there’s only 1 stocking kit left, and a few of the prints should be available in yardage in the next few weeks.

So, that’s it from here. Off to pack a few orders and hop in bed….

XOXO,
Anna