Trying

As in trying to get things done.  Like a reno budget, trips to city hall for permits, laundry, cleaning my floors, getting healthy, finishing curtains, paying bills, and even a little bit of quilting.

In the absence of overlapping naps very little of anything is getting done.  Oh well.  The girls are having fun with Mama all to themselves.  I did get this little doll quilt basted with only our Smilosaurus keeping me company.  Pins are very intriguing to an almost 9 month old. Hopefully I can get it quilted after bedtime tonight and before 24.  Then I can take it with me to city hall when I have to wait in line-ups for permits.  Anything to make that process more interesting.

Another Improv Piece

And another baby quilt.

This will be the first and only glimpse of the quilt I can give.  My sister and brother-in-law are expected their first baby so this is for them.  They've done a fantastic job decorating the nursery and the quilt is inspired by their work.

Here is my fabric pull, although I think I need a few more blues.  I have the pattern, or rather, the technique, figured out.  Now I just need the time to finish it.  I better hurry, she's only a month or so away!  I promise to share when the quilt is done and the baby arrives.

A New Addiction

Oh, what have I started? I felt the need to get quilty last week and I wanted a start to finish project. The Monster started playing with dolls recently, so a doll quilt seemed like a good choice. From start to finish it took me about three hours. That includes the time spent with The Monster picking fabric.

I've had this Dick and Jane fabric for a while. She is obsessed with the Dick and Jane books. Do you know how annoying those are to read and reread to the enjoyment of a 2 year old? Maybe I was hoping that the quilt would quell her desire to hear the stories by encouraging her to make up her own with Dick, Jane, Sally, Puff, and Spot on the quilt. Yeah, foolish thinking on my part.

This is very simple construction. Two pieces of fabric sewn together and some circle appliques covering the seam. To quilt I simply outlined the circles and copied the diamond pattern on the big piece of fabric.

There is one more bit of work to do, or rather, re-do. I did the binding by machine - a big mistake. I've never done that before and I won't do it again. One quiet night I will take the seam ripper to the stitches and sew it down properly, by hand. Of course, I have about a dozen more sketches of other quilts to make. And a list of little girls I know who would love a doll quilt...

Baja Inspirations - Water

What? A water-themed slideshow of just pictures of water? That would be pretty darn boring. Oh look, here's some blue water. And more blue water. More water, this time the waves are bigger.

There is no combination - aside from peanut butter and chocolate - that is more perfect together than kids and water. Any slide show of a trip to the ocean has to include kids playing in the water.


Grown-ups can play too. Here was the day we had a big water fight.

On a calmer day Hubby took Little Miss Sunshine into the ocean for a quick dip. She didn't like it the first time, but was happy the second time we did it. Alas, no photos of the second time because that was after the camera took its own dip in the ocean.

Of course there are lots of fish in the ocean. There were also a lot of these porcupine fish on the beach. These poor swimmers were quite easily tossed up by the waves. This one was still alive so we had a good look at it and dropped it in a quiet spot to hope for the best. My nephew wasn't very impressed.

One day we all piled into a panga, or fishing boat, to do some deep sea fishing. In the morning the boys caught sierra mackerel. In the afternoon we caught dorado and tuna. My brother snapped this photo at sunrise.

Just one of our rods primed and ready to go.

This was not a good moment. We'd just hooked two dorado and were high on the adrenaline and bruises of pulling them in - and the excitement over good eats for dinner. The captain, Ramone, was rehooking the lines and Hubby was steering the boat. Suddenly he couldn't steer. We were a good 6 miles or so from our launch beach and the steering on the boat broke. For a while Hubby actually steered the motor with his hands, but we couldn't go very fast that way. So Ramone tied a gaffe to the motor and amped up the speed while he and Hubby took turns holding the gaffe. It would be nice if the adventure ended there, but it doesn't. Once we got to the beach both the boat and the truck used to haul it out got stuck in the soft sand. Boy that fish tasted real good when we finally got home!

On another day all twelve of us loaded on to another panga to go snorkelling on the live coral reef at Cabo Pulmo. Absolutely stunning, but no one had an underwater camera. Also on the trip we saw a mama humpback whale and her calf, the flying rays you can see in the picture below, and we got to snorkel with a colony of wild sea lions. The latter was one of the highlights of the entire trip for me.

The morning after our snorkelling trip we were drinking our tea and coffee at the house when we spotted whales about 100 metres off shore. We watched them for about twenty minutes, after which time Hubby woke up. Without hesitation he grabbed a kayak and decided to see how close he could get. He raced out there, but this was as good as it got. See that tiny black spec? That's the whale. By this time she (we think it may have been a mama and calf again) was turning out to deeper waters.

Finally, no pool is really a good pool unless you cannonball. I snapped this great shot of my nephew just before we began our cannonball contest. No surprise, my 250 pound father won!