Recently some decadent dinosaur flannel fabric magically appeared on my doorstep, along with a whole bunch of other fabric from Ziggie Lane Fabric. <- she has great sales, worth checking out and then I won't be alone in my fabric-aholic-ness.

 

Back to the dino fabric. I had to make quilt from it right away.

 

I opted to use the yummy dino flannel as the backside and created six appliqued dinosaurs for the front, on a white Kona cotton background.

Each dino is appliqued to the Kona cotton with a blanket stitch.

The quilt is quilted with lots of straight lines 1" apart and sewn on the diagonal. I also quilted around each dinosaur.

 The binding is the yummy coral / sherbet print.

After sewing the top I shared a picture of it on my personal Facebook page and immediately sold the quilt to one of my favorite mamas to my most favorite eight month old (currently, by choice, my one and only daycare baby).

There is a second quilt in the works, very similar to this one, which should be finished in the next few weeks.

 

My grandson, Kane, started t-ball two weeks ago. I can't wait to go to his first game, I've seen pictures of him at "batting practice" and it's adorable! His Mama played t-ball one season when she was about his age and it was not a huge success - she spent most of the games sitting in the outfield playing with the clay (she found her sport once she discovered sailing), thankfully Kane doesn't share her disdain and seems to be having a great time.

Kane was hanging out with us the other day and saw me making key chains and asked me to make him one. Thinking maybe Lilly Pulitzer wasn't his style I decided to make him a baseball themed one instead and I love, love, love how these turned out!

 

They're available at Because I'm Me, personalized with the ball player or fan's name. These are great as equipment bag tags and backpack tags, or to keep a locker key on ... or whatever else you can think of.

Gearing up for spring sports, I'm also creating football, volleyball, soccer, and basketball key chains, which will be in the shop as soon as I finish tweaking the designs.

I have a son, my Adam, who once believed, with all his heart and soul, that he was a pirate. He dressed as a pirate every Halloween, and lived and breathed everything pirate all year round. Here's my sweet Adam in his pirate apron (before he was over 6' tall!) and his pirate quilt, which has a treasure map on the backside, and one of the many years he was a pirate for Halloween.



While he has outgrown his belief that he was an honest-to-goodness pirate, Adam learned to sail, like his siblings, and stays on the water with his BSA Sea Scout ship (like boy scouts, but co-ed and focused on nautical stuff) - deep down I do believe he's part pirate.


Aw, now that I've taken that little trip down memory lane here's a more current picture of Adam, taken at his high school graduation. He's now in college - those pirate days seem so far away ... I sure do miss them.


This quilt reminds me so much of my little pirate, with it's sea-worthy and nautical prints. The pirate prints in this are just fun and fantastic and are complemented by fish and whales and waves and all sorts of other tomfoolery.


The sailboats (or are they pirate ships?) were so fun to make, once I figured out the math. They each measure about 6" tall and are outlined with gray thread.


The backside is a grayish blue anchor print and the binding is a white with black stripes print from Ikea.

The quilt is available in the Jude Harbor shop.

His first regatta.

We've got a few things to learn about this new trimaran boat design.

Happiness is ...

Sometimes no matter how good your intentions everything goes to crap. This, to an extent, is that kind of thing. To a much greater extent, it's a "what not to do" saga.

Last week my son put an ad on Craig's List giving away a derelict 20' sailboat. We did not personally have possession of this boat, but our Sea Scout ship did. This boat was stuck in the water. It had no motor, no sails, no wiring of any sort, not even any lines. It was going to cost about $1000 to pay an expert to take the boat away, so an ad was put up stating the boat was free as scrap, stating clearly that there was nothing on the boat but lead.


A gentleman agreed to pick up the boat the next day. The story is much longer than this but, to sum up this chapter, he arrives at 4:30 pm with two friends and a huge truck with winch. They were the nicest people, and we enjoyed meeting them and hearing their stories. At 5:30 he and a friend take off with the boat, using a trolling motor to get it to the boat ramp. They seemed VERY confident and content with the situation.

Have I mentioned they're from out of town, that it gets dark at 6:30, that this boat may well have water that wasn't pumped out of it, that the boat had no lights or radio, and that the boat ramp is 5 miles away, and they really have no idea how to get there? Can you see where this might be going?


About 13 hours later I receive a wake-up call, the boat has not yet arrived at the dock. It's pre-6:00 am, dark and chilly out (not up-north cold, but Florida chilly). The girl who was waiting at the ramp with the truck is now with the sheriff's office and the coast guard and the boat is missing, and she sounded, legitimately, worried. Needless to say, I didn't get any more sleep and spent the next few hours on pins and needles, praying and waiting for them to be found.

About two hours later the coast guard finds the boat and boaters, alive and well. Thank God.


They got stuck on a sandbar not too far out and were there all night. Thank God. Had they drifted through the night it could have taken a lot longer to find them and someone else could have hit them, as they had no port or starboard lights.

Why didn't they call for help? Why didn't they see the channel markers? Why didn't they steer away from the sandbar? I don't have the answers, but I heard, after the fact, that they had no cell phone, no flashlight, no life jackets, and just a trolling motor which probably wasn't strong enough to steer them down the river if they had to fight tides. Click here for the newspaper story, if you wish (and a picture of the boat on the sandbar).



The moral of the tale? For the sake of those who love you be prepared and safe on the water; anything can happen at any time. For us the additional moral is to pay the expert the $1000 next time, worrying about people's lives wasn't worth saving that money. As much as we wanted to get rid of the boat for free and at the same time help someone else make a buck we should have left the job to the experts.

The fabric in the images? New ties for men, boys, and babies. I had some down time waiting for the gentleman to come get the boat so I took a few pictures. Coming very, very soon to the shop.

Michael Miller's Ahoy Matey sailboat prints sure make awesome ties.

Available with either coral red or green hulls, these little boat bow ties are so cool, and are available for both boys and men.


Happy sailing!

Rain = wind = sail

(and then the rain left and the sun came out .. and the coveted wind was long gone)

A wonderful family mini-vacation to Fort DeSoto County Park in St. Petersburg, FL. This was our third visit to the park (and the next reservation has already been made) and was just as wonderful as the first two visits.



While it's a little warm (90's and insane humidity) in Florida right now the late afternoon/evening breeze coming across the water kept us nice and cool.



My entire agenda for this trip consisted of sitting in a lawn chair and watching the sunset. Which I did.

The kids spent their time climbing trees and playing in the water, both at our campsite and at the nearby beach.

phone pic, not the best quality, but such a neat spot

our waterfront campsite

early morning visitor, in search of a snack

 We then headed south to Oscar Scherer State Park in Venice.

More great climbing trees for the kids, and a local beach where sharks teeth could be, and were, found.

Words don't do this family vacation justice.

This is the same spot we've visited most of the last 11 years and it never fails to be exactly what we need.


Our days were spent in bathing suits and in the water. Our evenings were spent around the fire or playing board games.


Pretty perfect.








The drive itself was less than perfect, but allowed us to stop at the Jelly Belly Factory in Pleasant Prairie, WI, a neat park with petting zoo somewhere in Illinois outside of Chicago, and at the kids' grandparent's house in southern Illinois.