Fall is right around the corner!

               I apologize for not being able to post pictures of the craft projects I am working on but that's because I haven't been able to really work on anything this week!  Our family is officially back in the swing of our busy school year life and I haven't had time to really sit down with any creativity this week.

             

             Not only do my children go to school, I am also a full time college student on top of my full time job, Mommyhood, and being my amazing hubby's wife.  My fall semester started last Monday and it has been hectic trying to focus in on my classes while dealing with some work issues and trying to prepare the kids for their school year which kicks off next Monday.  My oldest son is in all honors classes as he embarks on his junior high years.  To say that I'm proud of him would be a huge understatement.  That kid is amazing.  Raine is starting to adjust to her ADHD medications so we're hoping that this school year is going to be a lot better than last year.  Matthew, my littlest one starts preschool this year.  Just typing that makes me want to cry!  The realization that Matthew will be my last little one that I walk down that sidewalk to his first day of school breaks my heart but it also reminds me that life is wonderful.  We get asked a lot when we plan to have more children and the answer is simply, never.  God has blessed our lives so much with the 3 children we have.  Though being a Mommy has been the greatest thing I have ever experienced in my life, I do look forward to the day when I get to be Dara again.  My oldest will head off to college in 6 years and if the next six years pass as quickly as the last, it's literally right on my doorstep.  His sister will be on her way not long after that and then there will only be Matthew at home for a while.  

Kevin, Raine, and Matthew having some 4th of July fun with Mom

              On the craft front, I am cruising the internet for some serious quilting inspiration right now.  I have gotten a tick for english paper piecing.  I've done a pretty good bit of it but I am looking to really do something cool.  I'm thinking about doing a Lonestar though I don't want to strip piece it.  Everytime I try that, it never works out.  I have come to the conclusion that lining up seams isn't my strong point! HA HA  I always spend a lot of time ripping seams and I'd rather just go with something I know will turn out right.  So english paper piecing it is.  I know it will be more monotonous but it will be accurate and I'll be able to take it with me as I swing from work, to school, to kids games, and so on.

Have a "pieceful" day!

Dara

 

We must all be each others cheerleaders

After I posted my blog for today, I was cruising through my favorite blogs and ran across something that disturbed me so much that I felt that I needed to address this.

One of my favorite blogs is That Crazy Quilty Girl's blog.  For those who aren't in the know about this young lady, let me edumacate ya...she is brilliant....she is extremely talented.....and she is someone who shares her work with the rest of us graciously.  She is also someone who recently had some gnarley comments made about her work that I feel was totally unwarranted.  I didn't read the discussion myself however, I read enough of the backlash to piece together generally what happened.  Her name is Lisa and she is young.  In fact, her and I are pretty close in age and I think that's why her being chastized for her work really bothered me.

I don't care how young a quilter is.  When I started out quilting, I was a kid and when I became serious about my quilting I was around 20 years old.  I remember going into a quilt shop once and the owner following me around.  When I asked her why she was following me, she told me that I didn't "belong" in a quilt shop.  She thought I was intending to shoplift from her store!  Little did she know that not only was I not intending to shoplift, I made a huge amount of money for someone my age and it wasn't unheard of for me to spend several hundred dollars in one quilt shop trip.  In fact, my favorite quilt shop, Donna's Quilt Shop, which is now gone, was very used to be dropping in there and walking out hundreds of dollars lighter! HA HA  If I were to take a guess, I would have to imagine that I spent about $10,000 at Donna's over the years.  Not only was I young, I had money and frankly, not enough common sense to not do something like that!  The end result was that I have never stepped foot in that quilt shop again.  When's Donna's shop closed, I resorted to going down to Palm Springs to buy my quilting supplies.  Local money that because of someone's age prejudice, went out of our community.

Lisa's talent is in longarm quilting.  Her work is breath taking.  My first thought when I saw her work wasn't, "Oh she's so young." It was, wow, only 3 years in and she's already able to do this?  Some of us learn our craft...some are born to do it.  Beyond that, the detail in her work clearly shows that she is not doing it with an automated system.  She is designing and executing her quilting on the quilts she does.  

So short point made long, don't hate.  Don't discriminate.  Don't judge others work.  Appreciate the beauty and artistic nature of everyone's work and remember, we are all each others cheerleaders!  I may not consider your work to be something I would do but I would never feel that your contribution is anything less than wonderful.  

By the way, go check out Lisa's blog...seriously....

-Dara

It's Growing!

I am still working on my hexagon crochet blanket.  Each individual hexagon only takes about 20 minutes to make but after spending two days making 20 of these bad boys, it took me almost 4 hours to stitch them together.  I think I prefer doing it this way because I can spend a couple of days banging out the hexagons and not feeling like I'm getting very far with it, then I have a day of putting them together and feel like a rockstar! =-)  So far this is what I'm sitting on, though I do have quite a few hexies already crocheted and waiting for my next big stitching day.

I got extremely bored working with the same 4 colors so I added in a few new colors.  I now have plum, black, and a purple varied yarn in the afghan.  As I'm looking at the picture, I notice that the all white hexagon I made seems to make a gap in my work but I think I like it.  It makes it unique.  I always like those little signature touches that every crafter has in their work.  Why craft if it doesn't reflect on who we are?  Sometimes I just like to throw a curveball into my pieces! 

Last weekend, we drove down to see my husband's bestfriend Rob and his family.  We had a lovely day.  Rob and Anna are really cool people and they took us to an area with a really neat tidal pool that we hiked all over and the kids got to get an up close look at some of the ocean's tiniest creatures.

These are the most important people in my life.  My husband Keith, my boys Kevin and Matthew, and the Princess back there is Raine.  Though getting a good picture of that girl is nearly impossible.  She's only 8 but she's already preparing for her teen years!

While we were out exploring the tide pools, these airplanes flew overhead.  I took a picture just for the sake of it and when I got home and actually looked at the picture, what a surprise to realize that they were actually old time war planes!  What a treat!

We were at the tide pools at sunset so I was able to take this beautiful shot.  My husbands camera takes much better pictures but I love my little digital camera for it's convenience.  I'm not carrying a backpack around full of camera equipment!

I am really trying to blog more.  I am working on actually scheduling time to blog and I have even started trying to hit certain points in my crafting stuff so that I will have something to share when I do blog.  
On Monday my college classes start up again.  I am working on finding better ways to schedule my time so that I can fit in all my interests.  Between work, school, kids, and everything else, life can get pretty hectic.  

Hope ya'll have a peaceful day!

Dara

Crochet Bug

I have been going back and forth on if I wanted to post this or not but since I'm not going to name the receiver, I think I'm safe in posting this.  I made this bag a couple of weeks ago as part of a project for Christmas.  I have a few friends that always appreciate my odd ball homemade gifts but I never seem to have enough time to do it all.  So I opted to make smaller items instead of big time consuming things.  Rather than give my friends one big item, they are going to get a lot of smaller things.  Anyway, this bag was made with a pattern that is free on the Lion Yarn website.  It came together beautifully.  All said and done, this project took me about 3 days to complete.

 Sorry for the horrible picture quality.  I confess to using my cellphone instead of my digital camera in the interest of time and actually completing my blog post!

Have an amazing day!

Dara