Meatloaf, Valentines & Flat Stanley

Meatloaf in the oven.... mmmmm, smells pretty good in here and now I have a little time to

plop down and write a quick post! I love Valentines Day, a sweet little day to break up the winter doldrums. A day filled with hearts and candy, cute little cards that say I Love You.... :)

Do you decorate for Valentines Day? I found darling Valentine kitties to scatter about my sewing room. Add a stack of Robert Kaufman polka dot fat quarters, how purrfect would that be for a Valentine project! 

Valentine kitties tacked to the bulletin board in my sewing room and a strand of vintage Valentines, my sewing room is a happy place to be.

This past week was very busy here and enjoyably so. Friends of ours from Buffalo NY flew in to visit, 

friends of 35 plus years, so special to have such a long lasting friendship. We had the BEST time and did a little bit of everything, their time with us flew by way too fast! 

We had another "guest" during their visit. This little guy flew up in an envelope from Oklahoma City,

meet my "Grandson" Alexander lol! Perhaps you may be familiar with a school project called "flat Stanley". If not, a school age child mails a paper image to you with a request to show "them" around your city and provide information (postcards, maps, pictures etc) telling the class about your city. You then mail all the info you gathered back to the school for their class to learn from. I did one for another Grandson last year. His flat Stanley was only envelope size. This one is actual size and more cumbersome to drag around.

Here he is having tea and pastries with my friend Kathy and I at a local favorite chocolate shop!

Perfect timing, the oven buzzer is going off, time to put dinner on the table. 

Bon appetit!

A Sweet Child's Apron Tutorial

Happy Valentines Day To You!

Child's Half Apron Tutorial

When I 1st saw Pam Kitty Mornings sweet Love line of Valentine fabric I just knew I would have to design something special integrating that cute Valentine block panel in my project. Cleo and I chose two blocks for our pockets and used that darling heart selvage for our waistband. 

Ties were made simple by using satin ribbon!

To get started you will need: 

1/2 yard fabric for apron skirt

1 Pam Kitty Love Valentine Block panel for waistband and pockets

1 fat quarter white fabric for pocket and waistband linings

1/8 yard lightweight fusible interfacing for the waistband

2 yards 1-1/2- inch wide washable red satin double faced ribbon

white thread, quilters rotary cutter, acrylic ruler and cutting mat

Cutting directions:

From fabric for skirt cut 1 rectangle 15" long x 30" wide.

Pockets- choose 2 quilt blocks from the panel,

carefully center the design and trim each block to 6-1/2 inches square.

Waistband- cut selvage from end of the Valentine block panel to measure 2-1/2" wide. 

Trim selvage to 16-1/2" long centering the heart designs you wish to feature on your waistband.

Cut 1 fusible interfacing 2-1/2" x 16-1/2" for waistband.

From white fabric cut: two 6-1/2" squares for pocket linings and

one 2-1/2" x 16-1/2" strip for waistband lining.

Use 1/2 inch seams unless otherwise noted.

Lets get started! 

To hem the bottom 30" edge of skirt: fold fabric 1/4" to the wrong side and press. Fold over 

1 inch and press again. Stitch hem close to the 1st fold line through all layers.

To hem side edges: fold fabric 1/4" to the wrong side and press. Fold over

1/2 inch and press again. Stitch hem close to 1st fold line through all layers.

Here is your cute pocket block, design all centered and trimmed to 6-1/2" square.

With right sides facing, pin block to pocket lining. Sew around the pocket leaving approximately 

3 inches open at the bottom edge for turning. Clip corners close to stitch lines. Turn pocket right side out and press. Make a 2nd pocket in the same manor.

Pin pockets to apron, placement is 1-1/2" from side and bottom edges. 

Stitch pocket to apron on all sides except the top edge. 

Gather the waist: using your longest straight stitch setting, sew two gathering lines along the top edge of your apron approximately 1/4 inch apart. Pull bobbin threads to gather top to measure 15-1/2".

Here are your 3 waistband pieces all laid out: heart selvage, lining and fusible interfacing. 

Fuse interfacing to wrong side of the heart selvage strip. With right sides facing, pin and sew lining to selvage along the top raw edge. Press seam towards lining.

Attach waistband to skirt: right sides facing pin gathered edge of skirt to remaining selvage edge of waistband. Waistband should extend 1/2" on either side of the skirt. Adjust gathers making sure they are spaced evenly, sew skirt to waistband. 

Remove gathering stitches, press seam towards the apron waistband which

should now look like this!

Press long edge of waistband lining under 1/2 inch to the wrong side. 

Right sides facing flip lining on top of waistband as pictured below.

Cut ribbon in half to make two 36" pieces. Cut one end of each ribbon tie diagonally,  this will keep the cut edge from fraying besides adding a pretty finish.

Sandwich ribbon ties in between waistband and lining matching straight raw edges and pin.

Stitch across the waistband 1/2" side seams encasing the ties within. 

Trim seams, turn waistband and ties right side out.

Pin and slip stitch folded edge of waistband in place on wrong side of apron.

All finished, now go make some cupcakes with your little darlings!

XXX000

Barbie Jo and Cleo

PS: if you make an apron using our tutorial, feel free to email Cleo a picture of your finished project, we would love to see and include you in a special Valentine LOVE post! 

Ushering in the New Year

Another Christmas come and gone in the blink of an eye. Were you good? Of course you were, what did Santa bring you? Amongst the bubble baths, chocolates and book gift cards, all things that I love, I opened a gift from my sister on Christmas morning that made me smile :) She crocheted this adorable kitty scarf for me, I was so surprised! I had "pinned" this scarf on Pinterest, I just can't believe she found time to make it, gifts from the heart are so special. Santa also brought me an Intuous Pen Tablet for my computer, a very thoughtful gift for any designer, artist,  illustrator, it is used with Mac Photoshop and Design programs. I am very excited about this and will be burning some midnight oil while trying to learn new techniques.

Christmas here was quiet and laid back. Dinner with our son and his girlfriend. After the dinner mess is quickly put away I start whipping up appetizers for the after party. Several of our sons friends always join us for games, Jerry and I always look forward to it and enjoy these young people so much. This year we played Apples To Apples. The cream cheese penguins are a hit as always! 

New Years Eve was quiet here as well. It snowed all weekend and we just settled in. New Years Day I made our Pennsylvania good luck dinner of Pork Roast, Sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.. yum! 

Temperatures have dropped to the teens and Cleo hops from fleece to fleece keeping warm. My pretty girl! Every evening she hops up on the couch in between Jerry and I and watches TV with us. I think we are going to need a set of 3 recliners, one for each of us!

This Year is going to be one of many changes for Hubby and I. Jerry retired the end of December after a lifetime of work. I think it is going to take some time for him to adjust, right now it seems like he is still on vacation, a very long vacation lol! Wish us luck as we start this new journey together!

A Merry Christmas To You!

Wishing you and your loved ones a purrrfectly Merry Merry Christmas!

XX000 Barbie Jo and Cleo

Are You Ready?

How can this ever be... 6 more days until Christmas! Are you ready??

I spent the better part of my weekend baking cut outs and icing them. I said I was not going to make cut outs this year as they are so time consuming. Several years ago I gave my Moms vintage cookie cutters to our daughters thinking they would carry on the tradition which so far they are not really in to, so I had to improvise with my 2 sorry little cookie cutters and a glass! But to tell you the truth it does not quite feel like Christmas with out these cookies, besides being my favorite, they are loaded with Christmas memories of my Mom, they make me smile :)

Dinners have been really simple this week, just grabbing a sandwich or pizza. However in keeping with the season I did treat us to lovely desserts from Andres, my favorite Suisse pastry chocolate shop. Pots of creme.. beautiful, decadent and very yummy! 

On my cutting board, adorable Valentine fabric from Pam Kitty Morning! I am itching to sew but don't feel I'll find the time until after Christmas!

To end our weekend, Saturday evening we had dinner with friends at The American Restaurant at Crown Center in Kansas City. Table seating offers spectacular views of the city through floor to ceiling windows. With the city all decked out for Christmas this was an especially beautiful time of the year to have dinner here. The tall tree pictured is the Mayors Christmas tree. Our waitress told us an interesting story about it. She said that the tree comes in from Oregon by flat bed truck with all of the branches cut off so that the tree looks like a long stem of asparagus. It is then reassembled branch by coded branch, isn't that amazing!

Time for me to get back to work here, we have a very very exciting weekend coming up!!

May the rest of your week be merry and bright!

Home again!

Wow, this past week flew by way to fast, seems I just left and now here I am home once more! 

I certainly had a fabulous week babysitting my Grandsons while their parents were on vacation. My Grandsons at 6 and 8 years old are an easy and enjoyable age to watch, yet it is nevertheless still a huge responsibility guiding them safely through their daily rigorous routine, having some fun but getting it done! The boys are both in to sports and this time of year it is basketball. Alex and William both had games on Sunday, two different times and two different places. Their OKC Grandpa was a great help in taking over one of these commitments while I was able to do the other. It was fun watching William play his game at a school gym with hundreds of very energetic little kids LOL and their families cheering them on. I had brought projects for myself and the boys to work on, but all I can say is there was very little time to do those things. We did make the gingerbread house and advent Christmas chains, and that was it. Our days began shortly after 6 am (oh my!), up and ready for school which I drive them too. Then I had a nice window of time to do my own thing, which I did! Monday I met an old neighbor and friend Martha for lunch, pizza at the Upper Crust, yummy! We stopped on our way home to browse at a little gift shop that had antiques as well and I purchased two vintage glass ornaments for my tree. Tuesday my quilting friend Brenda picked me up for lunch, this time a Greek spot names Zorbas, very fresh and tasty. On our way home we stopped at 42nd Street Candy Company, oh boy you know I could get in lots of trouble there and did! Wednesday my baby brother picked me up for lunch... I am getting pretty spoiled now aren't I! We went to the most wonderful place of all in my book, Ingrid's Kitchen & Bakery, family owned and of Diners, Drive-ins And Dives fame, they have a large German menu. And the bakery... thought I'd died and gone to heaven it was so fabulous! Cakes and pies, eclairs and cream puffs, trays full of cookies and right now a large selection of Christmas cutouts :) My brother bought cookies to take home to the boys, so sweet.

The cookies were a nice after school treat, of course they were thrilled! 

After all my exciting lunches I pick the boys up from school. We do homework, make dinner, showers, a little TV time, reading time and its off to bed to repeat the whole process again the next day! I enjoyed being a part of everything, even the homework. Williams drawing made me smile, in his family picture everyone had an OU shirt on LOL! 

With Christmas fast approaching the "Elf On The Shelf" elf is a yearly tradition. If you have read this cute book you will know that the elf is a snitch, keeps watch over the children and reports back to Santa! He appears in various spots all over the house to do so, you never know where he might pop up! I had a lot of fun moving the elf around each night and every morning one of the 1st things the boys did was look to see where he might be. 

Friday was my last day in OKC. My daughter took me to lunch on our way to the airport. They live in an older historic neighborhood near the city. The homes along the way to lunch downtown are all so unique and pretty this time of year all decked and festooned with greenery. I made Erin come to a screeching halt when we drove by this house, this picture surely does not do justice LOL! Reindeers and Santa gallop over the lawn, giant wrapped presents and elves everywhere, even in the trees, Santa's and carolers, believe me they have it all covered... big smile :)

As we continued on our way to lunch at the Iguana Lounge, we parked across the street from this interesting home. Once again the picture can not cover the scope of art work and yes I did say home/studio. It belongs to one of the "Flaming Lips" rock band. Now I can't say that I even know a song that they are famous for, but judging by this house I guess they are an interesting band and most likely not on my Itunes list!

After an enjoyable lunch together, several hours later and I'm back to my quiet little life in Kansas once more. I enjoyed my special time with the boys so much, they were so helpful and thoughtful, lots of sweet and fun memories were made. 

And now it's time to get in to the swing of Christmas.... full blast into decorating.... Fa la la la la... be merry!

The last of the turkey!

Good morning, or afternoon I should say. I am enjoying a leftover turkey sandwich while I type up this post. The end of the turkey... finally! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, ours flew by so fast. Our daughter and her little family were here from OKC which made the day extra special. Like most of you I spent two entire days in the kitchen. While I was cooking the feast the family ran over to check out our sons new bachelor pad. It was a pretty day and the boys ran around his yard working up an appetite. Looks like someone needs some leaf bags! I don't know about you but by the time I get that turkey and all the fixins on the table I am almost to whooped to eat but enjoy watching my families excitement over the meal. My personal favorite part is having leftovers to enjoy for several cook free days!

This week I have a little story and picture I would like to share with you. Several months ago Laurie Lindeken sent me an e mail asking some questions relating to making a penny rug. Laurie had purchased my book "Quick And Easy Penny Rugs", she fell in love with the "Santa Tree Farm" pattern and wanted to make several as gifts for her family. Laurie had never heard of or made a penny rug before and just wasn't sure if this was project she could complete before Christmas. Cleo and I shipped off her kits with blessings, fingers and paws crossed that she would enjoy this cute project. 

This week to my delight Laurie sent another email with a picture attached, her adorable family

with their penny rugs. Don't they just make you smile, beautiful work Laurie and I thank you for sharing! Nothing is more special and lasting than a handmade gift, are you sewing gifts this year?

Today I am packing, getting ready to be held captive, to spend a week baby sitting my Grandsons in Oklahoma City. Oh My! Seriously, I am really looking forward to spending this time with them and sharing their daily routine. I have some craft projects lined up for our spare time together. I am taking a sketchbook to work up some new pattern ideas and some stitching to keep myself occupied while they are in school. I also look forward to meeting old friends for lunch, so excited!!

I'm sure I'll have lots to share when I get back, wish me luck!