Memorial Day Weekend

How was your long weekend? Mine was fabulous. It started early on Friday. I decided to leave work a couple of hours early. I found an IKEA paper bag filled with home made muffins (so good!), flowers, two cards and a set of blank cards in front of our door. What a wonderful surprise! A very good friend of ours dropped it off while we were at work. I love getting surprises like that!

I also got to talk to my dearest friend or as P would put it my “soulsister” before her move to SC. But that’s not all…

Nope, not at all! We went for a walk downtown, celebrated a birthday, went to the Soldier Show in Oberammergau, had wonderful ice cream from our favorite store, “finished” a project with P, watched a couple of movies, hugged and kissed my family (a lot!), ate Indian food and shopped for some clothes!

What was my favorite part, you ask? Being with my family every minute of this very long weekend… I wish it didn’t have to end!

Take care,

Me

P.S. I kept on forgetting to take the camera or my iphone except for the time that we went to the Soldier Show. We got there a bit early and we started to play around with the iphone camera. IThey aren't great but I love every single shot!

Jennifer Paganelli – Girl’s World

Every once in a while I preorder a book without having seen it first. Sometimes it’s a great book and sometimes it’s not.  My friends love when I get one that I am not completely sold on because I pass it on to them :-)

Well, Jennifer Paganelli’s book  "Girl's World"  is one of these great books that I am glad that I preordered. It came last week and I was blown away! 

I opened the package and saw that the book was tied at the side with a pink ribbon. How cute is that!

I opened it up and fell in love! The photography, the colors, and the projects are just so beautiful! I didn’t know what to look at first. The book is divided in to 4 sections. The first one is of course the basics of sewing and the sizing. The projects are divided in to “Dress-Up”, “Accessories” and “Home”.

I didn’t spend much time in the first section except to see if the sizing runs large enough for me to make something for P. And yes it does… yippee!

P chose a couple of projects for me to make already! The banner is exactly what she wants. Well, except for the “happy birthday” on it. She wants “Peace & Happiness” instead!

She also wants the Agnes Tunic dress. But again not as a dress but as a top. That’s just too easy to accommodate.

I want the quilt!

It is a simple square quilt and should be finished within a weekend. I know I have one of the fabrics somewhere in my closet. I have to dig it out and order the rest. Yeah, I know, wasn’t there a fabric diet in effect? :-)

Here are a few more shots of the projects for you if you still need to make up your mind whether to buy it or not…

Take care,

Me

Curtains in the Study

I don’t know if I told you but we turned T’s room in to our study a few weeks back.  It has built in shelves and so it just naturally offered itself to be our library/study. The shelves are full of books and other knickknacks. The computer is now in there as well. It is turning into my most favorite room!

There are/were a few things that still needs/needed to be done until I can say it is finished.

1. I need to make a tablecloth for our beat up old computer table. I want it to be a white one. Yet not any plain old white will do… :-)

2. I also want to get rid of M’s beloved big old leather beanbag and get a new reading chair. I have it already picked out. But I haven’t had the time or the want to drive all the way to the other side of Munich to get it. So it needs to wait until I drive by.  Maybe when we get back from the States???

3. And the windows needed curtains.  Well, scratch that, I needed them desperately! I wanted something feminine and flowery. A few weeks ago at a flea market on post I came across a duvet set still in its package. It was exactly what I wanted.

I cut it apart at the seam. Then I ironed the sides and sewed them up. Flipped the top down 3 inches and hung them up to see if I needed more length. But no, they are perfect!

I like them, and M loves them because it only cost $5!

Take care,

Me

P.S. Do you see that plant and the orchid. The longest living plants in our house. We managed to almost kill the orchid but it is coming back to life... :-)

The Fabric Diet That Went Out The Window

I am trying… I am really trying! But I don’t seem to succeed much! I just picked up another smallish package from the post office. It contained the fabrics (Delilah – Tanya Whelan) for my string quilt.

It also had three charm packs from the Buttercup (Moda) for S’s quilt.

 I looked through the squares and found the perfect border fabric.

What do you think?

Take care,

Me

And Some More Fabric!

I received another package from the Fat Quarter Shop. This time with a fat quarter bundle “Gallery in Red”.

My sister A has been asking for a red and black quilt for so long. But I haven’t had the time or want to hunt down the right red fabrics. So when I saw that fabric I preordered it right away. It finally came in and it is just as gorgeous as I suspected when I saw the picture. I have some black corduroy on hand.

So I think this quilt might go together quite fast. Well, maybe!? I am going to make this quilt one of the 8 for Christmas. 8 quilts in 8 months… totally doable LOL

Well, but the package didn’t just contain A’s fabric. No, P has requested a Peace quilt. She saw the Pottery Barn Peace Quilt. And she needs to have one right now. So what am I to do? No, I am not going to buy that one nor will I knock it off. But I have been playing with single block/square quilt ideas. I was able to get a peace sign in there, and P approves. She even found the perfect fabric!

So this  Peace fabric is going to be used for that. It is already cut up.

I just need a block of time to sew this one together…

Take care,

Me

Precious Family Photos

Family Photos

There have been quite a few sad changes to our family. Last year in the summer M’s dad passed away. And in January of this year, M’s grandmother died. It is especially hard because we are stationed in Europe and both losses are felt deeply in our family.

M doesn’t have very many pictures or other momentos from his childhood because everything got swept away in a couple of floods in the 80’s and 90’s. Yes, he is that old!!!

M’s cousin was kind enough to go through her photos and sent us a photo album filled with pictures of his parents and grandparents.

His grandmother was a lady through and through. She was lively, very kind, forgiving and always had a positive outlook on life. M loved to discuss politics with her!

I love this picture! 

These pictures are too precious to be left in the album. I decided to hang them in our living room and got a couple of frame sets from the store. It took a couple of nights to cut the mats from scrapbook paper and put it all together. But in the end it was well worth it!

Take care

Me

P.S. Jasmin, do you recognize that lamp? ;-)

Easter Breakfast

The promised sunshine did not materialize this morning. But we still had our Easter Breakfast outside on our patio. M made toasted German Bread and eggs and cut up some melon as well. Isn't our breakfast table super cute with my new table runner :-)

We stopped halfway through breakfast to search for the eggs that our Easter bunny M hid this morning. He did a great job of hiding those darn things. It took as quite a while to find all the eggs and the nests.  Jake helped too and found an egg which he promptly ate...

The bounty was plentyful and I loved my letters that I got from M and P. 

Oh, and as we were reading our letters to each other, Jake took the opportunity to race out of our yard and lay a couple of "eggs" in our neighbor's yard. Not good! Can you see how the guilt is written all over his face?

Take Care,

Me