it's Potty Training Week

Well, Gertrude got a nice quiet week off.. though I'm pretty sure she is anxious for a bit more quality sewing time (as am I)!

Soon I keep telling myself..soon! They all have to go to school eventually right?!

Alas, this week I decided to Potty Train the Twins! (insert scared faces here) Alia was on Spring Break this week, so we didn't have to leave the house at all.. AND WE DIDN'T!

(I am in need of some serious Adult Human contact!)

I will spare you all of the gross details that only a Mother would get excited over! And let me tell you, we had some exciting moments BUT the girls did really well! We had LOTS of success, and a few accidents.. I have never said pee pee, poopy or potty so many times in my life! And calling it Poopy does NOT make it cuter!

The calm before the storm - the night before the big day!

Happy little potty girls! 

The girls are very proud of themselves when their little potty sings.. they even announce for each other, "Ascher pee pee, Atti pee pee" (They both call Avalyn, Atti?! I have no idea?!)

As you can see, the peak excitement of my week was getting excited over bowel movements being made in the correct places! :P

Anyone grossed out yet?! Okay, enough talk about pee-pee!

The ONE thing I managed to work on this week was a baby quilt project for a friend (third person in my life having a baby this month!) made with teal, gray and a little pink!

So, I wasn't super sure about the pink while I was putting it up on the design wall last week, but what do you guys think?! I kinda of like it now.. I have two other teal fabrics picked out for the more solid looking pink.. I may have to reconsider though.. 

Leave me a comment with your vote.. like the pink or add another teal?! 

I am hoping to get back to it this week, as I am pretty sure she will be having the baby any day now and I have to finish it and mail it! :P 

Also, if you LOVE how cute this pattern is.. you can find it here: 

http://fortworthfabricstudio.blogspot.com/2014/06/oh-sew-baby-strip-tango-baby-quilt.html

I hope you all had a less "poopy" week than Gertrude and I! Hopefully next week will allow a little more sewing time! 

Happy Sewing, 

Enjoli (and Gertrude) 

Can Tuesday be Friday?!

By Tuesday last week, I was ready for the weekend. It seems that when things go wrong, multiple things must go wrong at the same time. 

So, here is what went wrong at the Strait household last Tuesday:

1. Avalyn (the "younger" twin) threw up 3 times, once on the way to the doctor to figure out what was wrong. She has reflux, and is now on an 8 week medication that she hates to take, and knows when we spike her food with it!

2. Ascher (the other twin) decided that while I was on the phone with the pediatrician (about her sister) was the appropriate time to throw her cup at our TV, which is now broken!

3. Our water heater went out..

4. Alia, our oldest decides to capitalize on the chaos, forget how to use the bathroom and have "accidents" and attitude all day!

WHEW! By Tuesday night I wanted to run away from home! :P Lucky for me (and my kids) my parents are incredible. My dad picked up Ms. Alia from school and watched her and Ascher, while I took Avalyn to the Doc. My dad got Avalyn to sleep when we came home and both Mom and Dad were pretty much around for moral and hands on support all afternoon! 

You can imagine that I was looking forward to the weekend A LOT at the end of that day. My weekend proved much more pleasant with quite a bit of progress on a few different projects!

Friday was my Moda Modern Building Blocks Class:

My students finished up Block 3 and I was able to cut and sew up Blocks 4 & 5 to give them a preview of what is to come! From here on out, we should make great strides on our progress since the blocks are about half the size of the first few!

The same day, I stayed to work on my Feathered Star block, which was a class my sister was teaching! AND I finished my block! YAY! I LOVE how it turned out. I love it so much that I plan to make a few more out of my other fabrics from the line. It is the "Doe" line from Carolyn Friedlander (we have the FQ packs at the shop) and gives more than enough choices for color variation!

So, all in all, my week turned around..

We got a FREE TV from my parents, who just upgraded theirs, we got a good deal on a new water heater and our kids remembered that they like living in a warm house and turned back into nice little people! 

That being said.. This week is the beginning of potty training the twins.. I will be at home with naked people all week, most likely cleaning up lots of messes and doing lots of laundry.. 

Feel free to send good vibes my way this week.. maybe they'll pick it up quickly...

Or maybe I WILL be crazy by the end of the week! 

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude)

Busy week.. very little sewing!

It has been a busy week around the Strait household. We had activities every evening this past week, and our weekend was booked solid. Sadly, that left very little time for me to get any sewing done. 

Things I did accomplish this week ... 

1. Taught the last session of my Free Motion Quilting Class (sad, miss you ladies already!)

2. Toured a potential school for Ms. Alia - Kindergarten in the Fall! (yikes, how time flies)

3. Worked at the shop (aka: played in the fabric with my sister!) on Wednesday night!

4. Taught Modern Building Block class at the shop.. AND finished Block 3 (which I forgot to take a picture of!) 

Hubby was gone all weekend at a Retreat so it was a GIRLS weekend at the house! I have wonderful in-laws that watched the girls so I could teach on Saturday. 

The sewing related item of the weekend though, was I got to finally cut out my "Olympia" quilt, which is the pattern from the February "Strip Club" at the shop! I bought the beautiful roll up of Carolyn Friedlanders "Doe" line and have been searching for the right project!

Remember these beauties?!

Late night cutting! (it's water, I promise!) 

First Block "Test" layout!

Remember how I said I wasn't going to start any "New" projects, well just to keep the record straight, this isn't "New", it's just been "in waiting" mode! :) I can't wait to start sewing it, but before I get to excited, I MUST finish a few baby related items because ...

I BECAME AN AUNTIE TODAY!!! YAY! My brother-in-law and his wife had their little girl today, and I AM SO EXCITED!! And my sisters little boy is due any day now! Officially on the 18th, but some of us just can't hardly wait to meet him, so we'll see, maybe he'll grace us with his presence sooner!

I hope you all had a relaxing and sewing filled weekend! Post some photos of what you're working on in the comments.. I'd love to see what you're working on! I "promise" it won't make me want to start anything new! :P 

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude) 

More Bags & Scarves

Remember how last week I was talking about finishing up all my UFO's?! 

Well, I discovered the reason why I cannot seem to get any of them done.... I start new projects! :) Why do I do this? 

There is always a good reason.. new fabric.. new pattern..because I MUST! I get so excited about new things so I just jump right in with both feet! I really need to learn to control myself! ;P 

Last week I discovered that Noodle-head had a new pattern: The Caravan Tote (I LOVE her patterns, she has great instructions and photos). AND we got the new Cotton & Steel line in at the shop, "Mochi" (in canvas, cotton and double gauze) SO I had to buy some of it! 

The tote was definitely justification for buying the fabric! 

How cute is that Tote? I recently discovered a local shop called "Black Elk Leather" where I found the leather for the handles! (I've been sending people there for years, hearing that its a fun place, but finally went in myself.. eeek, almost as bad as our shop!) 

I snagged some of that green arrow fabric and some "mochi' fabrics (the lining) on Wednesday and started cutting.. it is a fairly straight forward bag to put together, even the leather handles weren't as labor intensive as I thought they'd be! 

Now I have a cute, and functional tote for those quick trips around town (without the kids)!

And because I couldn't help myself I also bought some of the Cotton & Steel Double Gauze.. 

OH MY MY MY!

Guess what I made...?! 

I know you're ALL shocked that I made scarves! The weight of the fabric is SO perfect for our early spring! Plus, I used a FREE Pinterest tutorial to whip these up in 10 minutes! YES 10 minutes you guys! (Ok 20 minutes for both.. but still!)

Now the hard part will be choosing which one to wear! 

Come by the shop and see all of the beautiful NEW fabric, get some of the gauze and make some scarves because SERIOUSLY.. it does not get any easier than this!

(FREE Scarf Tutorial)

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude)

Weekend? Where did you go?

Where O Where has my weekend gone? Where o where can it be?! 

My weekend always starts with my mind set on finishing ALL of my UFO's... and every Sunday I'm wondering why their not all done? (I think somewhere, someone is plotting against me.. secretly ripping out my seams!) 

So yet another weekend has passed and I only managed to finish ONE project.. and it took me Wednesday night to cut out, Thursday day to fuse interfacing and start sewing,  Friday night to keep sewing and Saturday night to FINISH! YAY! I was so excited!

And of course the only person around to show was my husband, and he doesn't get nearly excited enough! I always text my sister a photo of my finished projects too; she gives much more appropriate reactions! 

So.. without further ado.. my ONE finished product from the weekend: 

Loving my new Professional Tote - Echino on the outside, cute Cotton & Steel tigers on the inside!

I have been looking for an excuse to buy that Echino print for something. It is one piece of fabric that has lines of different colors and patterns and I LOVE IT! I wanted something kind of fun and silly for the lining so I chose a cute Tiger in teal from Cotton & Steel! (There is still more of both these fabrics if you too must have some!) 

Besides working on my tote, I spent my weekend at the shop running a Free Motion Quilting Workshop, which was a blast! I spent Friday night there helping the ladies get their quilts "sandwiched" and prepped to quilt and then ALL day on Saturday pinning more quilts and helping plan out their quilting! We had a blast and my hubby knew that letting me play at the shop and sew all day was the best Valentines present he could give me!

I did come home to this though..

He earned a few bonus points for this. He surprises me every now and then with these sweet little gestures! I got a good one!

I hope you all had a relaxing weekend, and that you got spoiled by your someone special! 

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (And Gertrude) 

Gertrudes Quiet Weekend

Hey All,

So of course, it figures our first week "back", I get a cold that knocks me out ALL weekend. Boo.. no fun! (Cross your fingers that its gone by tomorrow!) 

Even though I got almost no sewing done this weekend, I was fairly productive last week. 

Remember that cute whale fabric from last week?! Well I got it sewn into two cute little self binding receiving blankets! 

One for my nephew & one for my niece!

I also taught the second session of the Moda Modern Building Block class at the shop on Friday, where we finished up our second block! 

There are 4 of us in the Friday session (one of us was on vacation)! Three of us are working from the kit, and my sister is working with her own fabrics! 

We are making great progress on our blocks, so stay tuned to see the rest of them!

Other than those projects and spending a few hours at my sisters baby shower on Saturday, I have been in bed trying to get over a head cold all weekend! Here's hoping I'm back to normal tomorrow!

I hope you all had a relaxing (sewing productive) weekend! 

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude) 

Gertrude is Back!

Welcome back to all of you, our wonderful readers!

We've missed you while we've been away, though we've been busy working on projects and updating the blog. As far as the projects go, you all know, that list has no end in sight! For the blog, we will still be working on some changes, so you'll see a few more updates along the way!

So, what else have we been doing while we were away...?

More Babies are Coming (not mine)

By now you all know that I will become an Auntie for the first and second time in February & March. Both my sister and my sister-in-law are expecting; one a girl and one a boy! I am SO excited! They both like to tell me how wonderful being an auntie is, so now I get to experience it first hand!

But, that means I have been working like a mad woman making burp clothes, blankies, sleepers and of course bumpers (those are still "in progress"); I have enjoyed every second knowing that soon I get to snuggle my niece and nephew up in these cute accessories!

for the Nephew

for the Niece

And a stack of burp clothes for each; I tried to get fancy and put my nephew's initials on a burp cloth!

I am just about ready to start on the bumpers (probably should've done those first) and will post photos for you all once they're done! Both are doing "sea" themes so I get to make "mermaids and narwhals" and "pirates and treasure" sets! 

OH, I almost forgot, I picked up some CUTE flannel from the shop the other day to make those awesome self-binding receiving blankets for them! 

Seriously, how cute will those be?!

Life, other than (other people's) Babies! 

So, as far as my other regularly scheduled life goes... we're pretty much same 'ol same 'ol here on the home front, though my oldest daughter turned 5 on Friday! OMG I was a little emotional (ok, maybe a lot) the day before just thinking about how much of a Big Kid she is now, and that she'll be off to Kindergarten this year! Eek!

Where did the time go? She went from a quiet, sleepy baby to a crazy, wild kid!

Of course I have to brag, the kid is pretty cute!

As far as the other two go, well they are trying to keep up with their Big Sister, and are now wearing 4T clothing (mind you, they are 2 1/2, big Sis wears 7/8! Crazy I know!); they take after their daddy who is 6' 4"!

Ahh. I can hardly stand the cuteness! 

Okay, back to sewing related things..

In early January I started teaching a new class series for the Moda Modern Building Block Kit! OH MY! We are having a great time so far! I have two sessions, a Friday and a Saturday for this project. Both groups are wonderful, my Friday class even finished the first block!

My sister joined in the fun, her block is the middle one; she had to be different, of course! The first block is 36" so it was pretty impressive that we sorted, cut and sewed our blocks the first session! 

We've been getting ALL sorts of new fabric in at the shop, and it seems that I work just enough to BUY it all, but not bring home much money! :P 

We have new KNITS (featured above in the sleepers), new MINKEE (oh boy do we have lots of new mink) and LOTS OF NEW COTTON! 

So, I may or may not have bought a Fat Quarter Bundle, Roll up and coordinating "textures" from the new line we just got from Carolyn Friedlander! (uh hem..and I may or may not have snuck it home and "hid" it in with the rest of my stash before my hubby came home!) 

You can't tell me you'd be able to pass this beautiful fabric up?! 

OH, and last but not least.. I have been working on some new "promotion" projects for the shop Facebook page! I LOVE that part of my job because I get to sew, but I am also working! It's the BEST!  

I just finished up all those baby projects, which just happened to be my "Friday Facebook Projects" for January. Most of which were FREE patterns (thats always nice!) and get to double as baby shower gifts! 

Now, I am working on a few projects from some of the Fabric companies; Art Gallery & Kaufman will be featured the first two Fridays in February! You all get a sneak peak here of the Art Gallery project, which was super fast and a lot of fun! 

How cute is my "Arizona" infinity cowl; Gert photo bombed me!

I used a line from Art Gallery called "Arizona" which is perfect because the pattern is FREE from Art Gallery! This project will be featured on the Seams Like Home Facebook page on Friday the 6th, but you lucky folks get to see it early! Who hoo! 

(Art Gallery Infinity Cowl Pattern)  - I am running a contest with this project so make sure to check out the post on Friday to enter to win a fun bundle from the shop! 

Betsy is making a Return!

So, if you have been around the blog for a while, you know that Gertrude had a little sister named Betsy! Well the original Betsy found a new home, and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Betsy the second! She will be the same Bernina 350PE, but she will have a much prettier front (not that Betsy wasn't pretty...) that was designed by Tula Pink!

OHH LA LA! How pretty is she?! I cannot wait to get her! I LOVE sewing with Gert, but sometimes it's nice to have a machine to take with me to the shop for teaching classes and Betsy the second will be much easier to transport! 

SO.. WHEW! I feel like the friend who invites you out for coffee and then spends the entire time talking about herself.. yikes!  Just one more thing though...

THANK YOU! 

Thank you, thank you to those of you that read the blog, leave comments and email us! We love chatting with you, and LOVE hearing about what you're working on. Please keep sharing with us and we'll keep sharing with you!

We are so glad to be back! Until next time...

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude)