Summer Of The Possessed Cat and Accidental Coolness...

Hello there friends!  It has been awhile since I posted.  I have been having issues with my internet.  Thanks to Mediacom (I never thought I would say that!) I now have cable internet!!! (I had DSL but we live out of town and it was really...slow and unreliable.)

We have had THE craziest summer!  We took 2 trips out west in June (20+ hours in the car each way), and came home to a basement remodel, church camps, drama camps ( actual drama camps...not the ones that happen in my house once a month!), scout camp, and orchestra camp.  It has been busy.

I have a story. If you are a member of PETA then I suggest you skip this part.  You will lose all respect for me.  As I have mentioned, I have 6 kids.  I am far from being a perfect parent but I do the best I can.    Thing 5 may look homeless and Thing 3 never wears socks or zips her coat when it is -20 degrees.  I know I have a lot of shortcoming. (We have planned ahead and have special accounts for the therapy I am sure they will need when they are older.)  I love them and I think they are happy, well adjusted kids in spite of my parenting.  Kids I can do.  Pets.... not so much.  It has become a bit of a family joke because it has taken us many, many pets to figure out that we don't do big dogs or pets that shed.  We have 1 outdoor cat (we live next to a cornfield and need a good mouse cat) and two dogs. Jack is a Miniature Schnauzer and Gizzy is a Shih Tzu.  I love them like they are my children.  They don't say they hate me or slam doors. This brings me to the story of the possessed cat.

One night I was at Target with Things 3-5.  There was this gorgeous grey cat with white paws that had obviously been abandoned. I think it had a home at one point but was now very skinny.  It was very friendly and just begging for a good home. We shopped for an hour and came out of the store.  There was a group of people trying to decide what to do with the cat.  My kids were begging so I thought, "Let's take the cat home. What can it hurt?".  We loaded the cat into the car and interestingly enough, it was not one bit scared of the car.  It just snuggled into Thing 4's lap and purred.  We named her Lucy.  We were all very happy and excited about this new addition to our family.  The next morning my friend came to pick Thing 5 up for Drama Camp and she said that she was knocking on the door and the cat jumped off the car (we have an SUV so it was taller than my friend) and started to attack her.  I thought she was exaggerating.  We laughed and the cat purred and rubbed my legs.  I ran to the store and when I got home the kids let Jack (the mini schnauzer) out of the house.  I got out of the car just as Jack walked out and the cat jumped off the top of the car and attacked me (true story, if you don't believe me call my sister Amy...I was talking to her on the phone).  I think she was actually going after the dog but her claws were out and she caught me in the jugular vein on the back of my leg.  Blood was spurting EVERYWHERE!!! I know you are saying that the jugular vein is in your neck, not on the back of your leg.  I think I have a defect and that mine is on the back of my leg...there was that much blood! (I am a bit of a hypochondriac, for 7 years I called my husband once a month asking him what side my appendix was on.  He assured me that it was on your right side. My pain was on the left side so it was probably menstrual cramps.  Again, I thought I had a deformity and that my appendix was in the wrong place.  Guess what.  I got a hysterectomy and my monthly appendicitis went away!)  I ran into the house and patched my leg up.  I grabbed the cat, put her in a carrier, and took her to the animal shelter.  I told them she was a lovely cat and that she would be better off in a home without dogs.  When I got home Thing 4 said, "Please, lets not tell Things 1-3 (they were at church camp) that we got a cat and got rid of a cat while they were gone."  Lucy has never been mentioned again.  I am happy to report that I was on a dose of antibiotics for a week and did not develop Cat Scratch Fever.

As for the part of me being accidentally cool....I got a pair of neon orange Nike running shoes.  Whenever I run, people honk and give me a thumbs up.  I am assuming it is because they think I am cool.  They could be honking because I have really skinny, really white legs that look ridiculous with neon orange running shoes.

Have a wonderful weekend and look for our next Tuesday Tutorial!

-Stephanie

Cutest Baby Quilt.....Part 2

Drumroll Please......................

TAAAADAAAA!  Here it is.  The Cutest Baby Quilt Ever!!! I am sure many of you are saying, "no, Stephanie, I have made cuter and I have seen cuter."  That is ok! I am not offended.  I do hope that you will try to make this quick and easy quilt and then it can become ONE of your favorites.

Lets refer back to part 1 of the tutorial.  In the first step you prepared your fabrics by quilting the "quilt sandwich" together.  The sandwich consists of the back, batting, and quilt top.  I wanted to do something simple so I straight line quilted it.  Now we will finish the quilt.

Part 2


I have my quilt sandwich ready to go and quilted. Right now it is has square corners.  I want to round them a bit so I used the bottom of a large cone of thread to trace a curve on all four corners. (I used white fabric so that you could see what I was doing.)

I have traced the four corners.  Now I want to make sure to secure my edges so they won't ravel.  I have a serger so I serged around the edge of the whole quilt.  If you don't have a serger, just using a normal zig zag will work.  This serves two purposes. 1) It will keep the fabric from raveling. 2) It will serve as my guide when I do the hemstitching.

Next I will choose my thread and put my Hemstitch needle on.

I selected my Hemstitch on my machine.  I then set the stitch length to as long as it would go.  On my machine it is 4.0 mm. I have also use a plain straight stitch but the holes don't stay open and then it is hard to get the hook through. Here is what mine looks like.

Now comes the fun part.

Grab your yarn and your crochet hook.  I used a U.S. 5/1.7mm hook.  Now all you have to do is single crochet around the edge of your quilt.  Here is a video.

 Crochet around the whole quilt and this is what you have!

Happy sewing!  Please post pictures of your cute quilts on Facebook! If you have any questions please message me!
-Stephanie

Cutest Baby Quilt Part 2 is coming.....

(Thing 4 with his 3 pound rainbow trout!)

Part 2 of our  baby quilt tutorial is coming...I promise.  We just got back from a family reunion out in Utah.  We rented a trailer and drove 20 + hours each way.  I am digging out from laundry so I will be late posting. Happy 4th of July!
-Stephanie