Mar

8

March Displays in the Library

Filed Under children's books, crafts, teaching

Spotlight On Dr. Seuss. Obviously.

Creature of the Month: Insects.

The main display this month is filled with my own recommendations.

The display on the Library Gallery right now features drawings the pre-k classes made for Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Some interpretations of The Cat in the Hat.

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Mar

7

March Birthdays and Quilt Shows

Filed Under art, crafts, entertainment, quilts, sewing, shopping

Yesterday we celebrated my niece Grace’s 3rd birthday (it’s actually next Saturday), and today was my mom’s birthday. We went to Quilt Fest NJ to see her very first quilt entered into competition. A pretty cool birthday treat. My mom and I met up when the show opened to cruise the floor before Adam, my brother, and Grace arrived at lunchtime.

And my mom has issued me a cool challenge. We’re going to make each other these placemats.

momchallenge

BUT, the catch is that we had to pick out fabric at the show today that we thought the other one would like. We have extremely different tastes, so this was kind of interesting. I didn’t get a photo of what my mom bought for me, but here are the ones I’ll use to make hers:

So I have until June to complete the challenge.

For Grace’s birthday we gave her a cell phone and a tree house playset from Ni Hao, Kai-Lan. This was a new discovery to us, I’d never heard of this show. But the stuff is so cute, I’m definitely on board after OD’ing on Dora the past few years.

I’m trying to teach her to bring the cell phone everywhere and ask, “Excuse me, do you have WiFi?” We’ll see if it takes.

My mom next to her quilt in the show. She was so excited! And I’m so proud of her, I’d never have the guts to enter something into a competition like this.

It’s been a good weekend.

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Mar

5

I Want My Own Muppet

Filed Under entertainment, shopping

I read on Heather Ross’s Journal that she built a custom Muppet for her husband as a gift. I’m now obsessed with that idea, so I’ve been playing on the site designing myself in Muppet form.

jackiemuppet

I. Want. This. It is just…Jackalicious.

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Mar

5

A Little Stash Building This Week

Filed Under sewing, shopping

In the past couple of days I’ve gotten some new fabric in the mail.

artschooldropout

I ordered these fat quarters from Art School Drop Out a while back, and they came this week. I love them!

penningtonsale

Pennington Quilt Works had a 20% off sale last weekend, and I took advantage of it. Those goodies arrived the other day, too. From left to right: two prints from the Riley Blake “Wheels” collection, the whales from Cosmo Cricket’s “Snorkel” collection for Andover, a print from the “Wild Thyme” collection by Carolyn Gavin, and 3 prints from Heather Bailey’s “Nicey Jane” collection for Free Spirit.

Now if only I could finish the darn rainbow quilt and cut into all this goodness!

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Mar

4

Thursday Things

Filed Under food, quilts, sewing, teaching, thoughts

So…I’m a little burned out this week. Work (hopefully) slows down for me now until the end of May/beginning of June when I start summer reading book distribution. But I’m still so tired from Dr. Seuss Day festivities and my 2 other big weeks-and-months-long projects that I finished last week. So I haven’t posted much this week, and my thoughts are still kind of jumbled. So here are some random things.

The March 2010 issue of Food Network Magazine published this handy quick-reference for stir fry,

stirfryguide

which was really handy after  my wok and rice cooker gifts from Adam. So last week I made pork with peppers, onions, and snow peas in spicy sauce. It was excellent, but Adam still had to make the rice. I couldn’t mentally get there yet.

porkstirfry

I’ve kind of put tidying the library on hold the past few weeks, so now all of my “To Be Reshelved” shelves look like this:

reshelving

I’ve had students helping me reshelve, but this is a checkout week. So the book returns keep on coming. Next week I hope to be back to my regular scheduled programming (and energy level), so I’ll work on this. I have 10 shelves that look like that.

And the Rainbow Quilt is really giving me trouble!

quiltingrainbowquilt

The few grid lines I have managed to sew are crooked and odd, and I’m still trying to solve the problem. This is what I have resorted to:

homemadeguide

I used my biggest bias tape maker wedged next to a ruler so I could get the ruler to line up where I wanted it on the left side of the needle. Then the whole thing is rubber-banded AND covered in painters’ tape to keep it on. Is it helping? Not really. I bought a chalk line from Lowe’s last week, and that’s the next thing I’m going to try. But at the moment I’m just staring at this quilt in frustration, so I’m not sure yet when I’ll actually get back to it. I’ve been passing out from exhaustion pretty much every day this week after school, so I haven’t even touched the quilt in a week.

It’s just been that kind of week around here.

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