In Awe of God...

I don't have a picture for this post, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are safely home in Ohio now. Yay! We just spent the first night in our corporate housing and it is WONDERFUL. We will have everything we need for the next 60 days. Also.... (drum roll please)... we sold our house! Well, it's not set in stone yet, but everything has been done including the house inspection and everything is a go! We are supposed to close in four days. Can you believe it?!?! It wasn't up on the market but 6 days and we got an offer! It's easy to say that all of this is luck, but I know God did everything. He has smoothed the path over for us so much we hardly had to do anything. Seriously. He sold our house for us, He got us up here safely, He got my husband a wonderful job, He gave us a nice place to stay for 60 days, He has given us money right when we need it, He has kept us all healthy and strong (which is no small task) during this hard transition, He has moved us to an area where our family is, and the list goes on and on. The biggest blessing for me is that God helped me not be so worried and anxious about everything. That is what tears me down; the worrying. But I didn't even freak out about anything at all and now I feel like I was able to enjoy our move. I was completely at peace about everything (and I slept soooooo well :) ). I can't believe how much God loves us to do all this for us. I am floored really. I feel so unworthy. Now I am starting to sound like a preacher. Well, I just felt like telling everyone how blessed we are.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! God's blessings to all. (Since I have so much of it.) : )

As life goes on...

Well, I haven't posted anything in a long time! Time flies. I have some exciting things going on in my little corner of the world. We are moving! Back home. Ahhhhhh..... It's such a nice breath of fresh air. I really miss our home, back in Dayton, Ohio, and our family and friends. It's been really hard living in a completely different area of the country and having to start from scratch, making new friends, finding fun things to do, and just plain living on our own with no one to run to when we are having a rough time. We've grown a lot. A LOT. And now we are ready to take our grown up selves back home and see it in a whole new light. Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. I will miss it here though. This is our first house ever. That's definitely a milestone. I have decided to make an embroidery/applique picture of my favorite spot in the house: my kitchen window. I love looking out and seeing the sparkling leaves of my beautiful oak trees quivering in the wind (it's always windy here), and watching all our neighbors driving off to their jobs in the morning and then back home again in the evening. It really makes life feel really methodical. I think that is why I like it so much. It kind of makes me feel secure knowing that every day everyone is going to go work and come back in the evening. So that is what I'll think of when I see the picture I am stitching up. I am going to hang it (where else?) in the kitchen of our new house.


This is a picture of our kitchen when we moved in. Love at first sight...

Here are a couple pictures of my daughter having fun with a pot of water! Who knew that all you'd need to keep a toddler happy for 2 hours would be to let them loose outside with a pot full of water? Seriously. Anyway, she had a blast!

I was featured on a blog this week! Here is the link to Mama's Magic blog. She also has an Etsy shop called Baby Friendly Beads where she sells necklaces made to keep your baby's hands and feet busy when your holding him or breastfeeding him. They're ingenious really. Have a look!

Bye Bye Baby...

Don't worry. She didn't die! Since moving to Texas our little family has made some pretty big realizations about what we want to do with our life. One being that we want to travel. A LOT. Well, in order for us to pursue our "dreams" some changes need to occur, like selling our house, moving into an apartment, downsizing our "stuff", and... giving away the cat. I've had my cat since she was born practically. The summer I was sixteen my grandfather, my dad, my sister and I took off on a 27 mile bike ride. (None of us knew it was going to be THAT long.) I physically could not bike the very last mile so I walked it. After a few minutes of walking my bike down the road, I felt something furry between my ankles. I looked behind me and saw a little gray tail and immediately jumped because I thought it was a squirrel! Well, it turned out to be a 1 week old kitten who was starving and sick and she could not find her momma. So she chose me instead! My dad wasn't about to take in another animal so even after much begging and pleading on my part he still made me carry her out to the woods and leave her there. Lucky for me she bounded through the grass right after me all the way back to the road. After that, my dad couldn't say no. So I've had her for 8 years and now she has a new home. I really like the new family that is taking her. I think she will be happy with them. I'm still sad though.


On a happier note, I am really enjoying my new Etsy shop for baby stuff! I love making little baby quilts, and burp cloths! Soon I am adding baby slings, diaper and wipes pouches, and boppy covers! I am having so much fun! I am going to try my new slings out on one of my friends who just had a baby a couple of weeks ago. She's gonna love it!

I Loooooove Patchwork...

Well, sorry I haven't posted anything in a long time. I am still getting used to this whole blogging thing and every time I go to post something new, I can't think of anything interesting to write about. Or at least anything interesting to you! I do have some new things to tell you and show you today though.


My aunt asked me several weeks ago to make her a fanny pack with one of my purse designs. Sounds hard, doesn't it? I was very intimidated to say the least. She was kind enough to send me one of her old ones for reference since I couldn't find a single basic fanny pack pattern anywhere. After many sessions of measuring her old fanny pack and trying to decide on a design I finally had my pattern to work from. Whew! That was hard enough, but then I had to actually SEW it together. Yesterday afternoon it came together a lot smoother than I had expected and the finished product was way better than I had expected too! I was soooo happy. I can't believe how good it looks! (Not bragging, of course.) : ) I really can't wait to see what my aunt thinks of it!



My OhSewFresh Baby Etsy shop is going really well! I've sold the one item I put up for sale in there! Yay! I guess you could say that I would be doing better if I had something else for sale in there. I know, I know. It's been empty for a week, but not for long. I am working on several adorable little baby quilts to put in there. They take a lot longer than you'd think.


Here is the one I sold last week. ( The one above.)




And here is the one going up this week! Probably on Wednesday. It is made from a new fabric line called "Swell" by Urban Chicks. It's supposed to look like vintage 1940s and 1950s fabric. I love it! Besides the fact that it is so summery and full of sunshine, I love how well all the prints go together and complement each other. I wish I had a baby again to wrap up in this quilt! (No, I am not pregnant.) I will hate to see this one go. Just in case you were wondering, there are 384 pieces to this quilt! And, yes, it did take a long time to put together. That's my wonderful husband holding up the quilt top for me! I love you hunny!

Anyway, hope you all had a great weekend! Now I am going to go nurse this cold I got yesterday. Back in a few days...

Finally Finished!

It's done! My Heather Bailey quilt is finally finished! I started it back in September and now it is complete. You know, the whole reason why it took me soooo long to finish is the binding. Yup. The binding. Everything else was done except the binding. I am way too perfectionistic about those kinds of things. On Heather Bailey's blog she has a free tutorial on how to perfectly bind a quilt with pretty little mitered corners and everything. Well, she machine sews on the binding on one side of the quilt and then flips it around and hand sews it to the other side of the quilt. It looked so beautiful and perfect, so nothing else would do for my quilt but to hand sew the binding on. Three months later...



Anyway, my sweet hubby took care of our 2 year old all morning so I could do whatever I wanted to do. I took one look at that quilt and I thought better to have a finished MACHINE SEWN quilt than to have an unfinished quilt forever, right?. And that was that. I snatched up that dusty quilt and had the binding sewn on in half and hour. That's all it took! I will never hand sew a binding onto a quilt again! (Well, maybe not never.)

Now I have a wonderful idea! Since I like making quilts so much (provided I machine sew on the binding) I am going to make some beautiful baby quilts to sell in my Etsy shop! They are going to be gorgeous! The first one will be the same as the quilt I just finished only smaller and with a lime green fleece backing so it will be oh sew soft on baby's skin. What do you think? I promise you'll love 'em, just wait until I show you! Maybe I'll add a sweet ruffle around the edge too.



Here's a stowaway I found in my fabric stash this afternoon! I love fabric so much, I wish I could sleep in there too! It looks so cozy in there. Ha, just kidding! I'm not really THAT crazy. Or am I?

Have a great weekend everyone! I love all the comments!

Yay for Warm Weather!

I am so excited because today is supposed to be a high around 69 degrees! Oh, how I've been wanting warm weather! Well, it's not exactly warm, but it's warm enough for an afternoon at the park. My daughter is going to have so much fun! She has had a chronic case of cabin fever for the past few weeks and I don't know how I will be able to get through without a few lovely days like this to get the "wild child" drawn out of her. We had a warm day a couple of weeks ago and we took the family to the Dallas Zoo! I had never been there before and it was Katie's (my daughter) first time EVER! I was so excited, but of course, our camera had to die after about only a dozen pictures. So there's not much to document her first zoo visit but here are the best ones:



This is her first carousel ride! Can you see her in there? She refused to get on that horse, but as soon as it started moving I quickly set her on it and she had a blast! The biggest smile you ever saw! She liked it so much, that when it stopped I couldn't get her down! She would not let go.


By far the most exciting moment at the zoo was the gorilla exhibit. He was so animated and energetic! He would run from the bottom of the hill there straight up the windows and stop right in front of us! It was really scary actually and Katie jumped several times, especially when he pounded on the windows. I started to feel like a gawker. The poor gorilla would just sit there and look at you with the strangest expression that I had never seen before. I started feeling sorry for him being caged up in there. It was as if he was trying to make some sense out of why we were staring so intently back at him. I don't believe in evolution, but he sure seemed human to me. As you can see, I think just about everyone at the zoo that afternoon was at the gorilla exhibit. That's me and Katie in the front.



If you ever get a chance to visit Dallas, then stop by the zoo. It's smaller but it's kept really nice and clean and the landscaping is beautiful! They also have a little safari that you can rice a train through, but we didn't get to do that.

I am hoping to get a couple new bags up in my shop here today or tomorrow, so be sure to check in every now and then. I have so many bags to be made and so little time to make them. Hope you all are doing well! Until later...

Sew, sew, sew...

Here are some pics of a beach out in San Diego that my husband took on his business trip earlier this week. He says these were taken right when the sun was coming up. Isn't it beautiful? I wish I could have gone with him.

The past couple days I've been sewing like there's no tomorrow. I've made four new bags and I've already cut out the fabric for four more! I can't believe I've worked so much on my business and I want to do even more! I feel so guilty working on my business so much because it takes away time from my daughter. The hardest part about running my little business is NOT working on it and taking the time to do the things that are more important, like playing with my daughter and keeping the house clean and checking my voicemail and calling everyone back. Has anyone else had this struggle? It's SO hard. If some of you do have to deal with trying not to work on your business so much, tell me what your tricks are. Lord knows I need them.

I got so many great comments and a couple buys on the blue patchwork bag that I decided to make another one with Heather Bailey's "Freshcut" line of fabric. I think it looks awesome, if I do say so myself. It turned out really well! I never get tired of Heather Bailey's fabric.


Speaking of fabric, I bought some of Grand Revival's "Barefoot Roses" fabric. I bought it yesterday afternoon from Cabbage Rose Quilt Shop and I got it in the mail today! Talk about speedy delivery! Of course their quilt shop is only about a day's drive from me but still. I'm impressed. I can't wait to show you what I make with it! It truly is some of the most beautiful fabric I've ever seen, and it appeals to the romantic in me.

So I will be spending the next couple of days working on my other New Year's resolutions and not so much on my business. Like learning French, and reading biographies, and working out, and cooking gourmet meals (or trying to at least). : )

Good night everyone and thank you for all the encouraging comments. I love to hear from you! Keep 'em coming!