We Made: A Robot Quilt

I've been working on a robot quilt for Mr. J for roughly a year now. He's obsessed with all things robot or wheels (and lately cats, but that's another story) or gears. It took me 6 months to find all the fabrics I wanted for what I envisioned as an epic quilt. I wanted mainly primary colors with a few odd balls thrown in. I also wanted only non-creepy robots  and not space robots. I had to give in on the space robots. There were too many cute fabric that had a little bit of space stuff. 

I wanted to make it large enough that it would act like a comforter and drape over the edges of a twin bed all the way to the floor so we wouldn't need a dust ruffle. I hate dust ruffles. They seems to trap dust under the bed which is just gross when you consider the amount of dog hair that comes in and out of our lives. 

Anyway, I was given the book Patchwork Style for Christmas. I had largely finished gathering fabric by that point so I selected and modified a pattern from the book and started in. The fabric is cut in strips of similar sizes and then randomly sewn together in long strips. The strips were then sewn together on the long edge. Mr. J helped me select the order to sew the individual pieces together. It lead to some color pooling, but it is his quilt and someday I'll tell him how we sewed the quilt together.

I know that making the quilt myself was more expensive than buying something, but we have an old red blanket that someone in my family made a long time ago. We've now patched it several times because I love that thing so much. You don't generally save store bought quilts. They don't develop the fabric equivalent of a patina-the super soft cuddly state that fabric gets too when it's really old

The final size is slightly longer than a traditional queen size quilt and roughly the width of a full size quilt. For perspective, the top picture has it laying on a full size bed. I've sewed the quilt top together, but I realized halfway through that my machine wasn't big enough to do the final quilting. Luckily, there are several local quilters who have the fancy long arm sewing machines you need to sew a quilt of this size. I'm dropping off the quilt for it's final step this week.   

Hopefully, it should be done by mid-July. I'm so excited to see what it looks like!

We Made: Play Dough

Mr. J has entered into a deep obsession with play dough. For the Christmas present for his class, I made three colors of play dough and sent them in containers with three cookie cutters. The holiday colored play dough lasted a good long while, BUT our crazy carb obsessed dog ate the last of it and barfed it on the rug. Fun times.

Anyway, homemade play dough is very easy to make. I usually add a few drops of an essential oil to the dough while I'm kneading in the color to make it smell better. I've also read that you can add in hand lotion to keep it from drying your hands out. Since the main ingredient is salt, it can be a little drying. All in all, it takes about 15 minutes to make and is much cheaper that buying it.

Playdough

From: While She Naps

Ingredients:

3 cups flour, sifted

1 1/2 cup salt

6 teaspoons cream of tartar

3 1/4 cup water

3 tablespoons oil

food coloring

Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a large pot until no lumps remain. Whisk in the wet ingredients (except for the food coloring) and stir until no lumps remain. Cook on high for 3-4 minutes until a dough forms. Separate into several portions and add food coloring, kneading until uniform in color. Store in airtight containers.

Mother's Day Crafts

In an effort to cut down on our consumerism this year, I decided to make most of the Mother's Day gifts. I usually make gifts for each holiday, so this wasn't that different, but I made the cards too.

It was really very simple. I took several pictures of Mr. J from the side. He wasn't into standing still for me so I took more tries than I had imagined. Then I printed out the best picture, cut out his profile, colored in the profile with a big black marker, and scanned in the silhouette. I also scanned in a handprint of Mr. J's that I made with a

large ink pad on white paper.

I played around with the images in Photoshop until I got a nice looking design. I printed them out at Kinkos and framed several versions for the Grandmothers and Great Grandmothers. I also made one for the wall near my desk!

I also always think about the original reason for Mother's Day: peace activism. Women's groups have often been the loudest

voices calling for peace in the name of mother's and children everywhere. I think we will think hard about how to incorporate a greater message of peace into our Mother's Day celebrations in the future. This year, I put the following text inside the cards I made:

Original Mothers' Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm! Disarm!" The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe

Writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic

Boston 1870

Happy Mother’s Day 2010

In Peace and Love,

Jenny, Chuck, and Mr. J