Memorial Day

My family is lucky enough to have a cottage on the beach of Port Austin, Michigan. Many fond memories have been made there with our extended family over the summer holidays. Here are a few pictures of our recent Memorial Day fun.







We were lucky to have beautiful wether this weekend. As you can see spent the majority of the weekend on the beach. The water is very, very shallow, which isn't great for swimming but is excellent for small children playing. My kids are very happy upnorth.

A long time gone...

I know I have been away from the blog for a long time, and I have plenty of excuses, but let's just leave it at I've been very busy. Here are a few things I've been working on:

Sheep Pillows- Tutorial found here. The creme colored one now lives with my best friend Lyn, and the tan one is being much loved by Jack.

Patching Jeans

A stack of diapers for a customer of my etsy shop.

Two capes that a friend asked me to make. I am going to make more soon for the shop I think. They turned out so cute!

And of course masks to go with them!

A new doll for Char...

And one for her new little friend Mallory.

All in all I am pretty happy with all the sewing I have been doing and how my sewing has improved.

A little help...

We started seeds today. Jack is always just a little bit of help like only a 3 1/2 year old can be. Visit my friend Lyn's blog to see what seeds we got and how we are sharing.

Supplies.

Jack adding the water to the pods. We had to add 10 1/2 cups to make them all expand.

Expanded.

Putting the seeds in.

Charlotte throwing a tantrum because we wouldn't let her help after she had already spent 20 minutes dragging the big heavy stool to the counter so she could reach.

Now we will see how patient Jack will be waiting for the seeds to grow, and how many times a day we will check on them. This should be fun.

sneak peek

sneak peek, originally uploaded by llericabean.

Secret sewing project coming soon! Stay tuned for an update!

Bend the Rules Sewing

I love this book right now. I got it out of the library a couple weeks ago, when I got a reminder from the library that it was due I went ahead and ordered it on Amazon. I could live without it, but I sure wanted it in my library!

I have made two projects out of it so far, with many plans to make more. Here are my reviews and pictures of my projects.

Scalloped Baby Blanket
This was a really easy pattern. It took a little patience to get the scallops just right, and you have to clip super close to the inside points of the scallops to get them to look right when you turn the blanket right side out. Be sure to pin a lot to get your edges lined up just right before topstitching. I don't have a printer at home that I can use to enlarge the patterns from the back of the book, so I mad my own scallops using a lid to a large yogurt container. It worked just great.
The fabric is quilter's flannel from Joann's.




Simple Tote
This was a really simple pattern, I used materials from my stash, and I plan to make many more. I used this for a gift bag for birthday of one of my son's little friends.




If you are going to sew from this book, please check out the errata here.

Easy Green Eggs and Ham Quiche

I realize I am a little late for Dr Seuss's birthday, but this quiche was so easy and yummy I had to share anyway. Jack and I made two of these quiche. I intended on giving the second one to someone else, but we ate them both! We ate it for both dinner and breakfast and have some left for breakfast tomorrow. The kids loved it, and anything I don't have to force feed them is a recipe to keep in my book.

Ingredients

4 eggs

2 cups fresh spinach

1 yellow onion

1 cup chopped ham

1 cup cheddar cheese

1 pre-made pie crust

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325.

2. Combine spinach and onion in bowl of food processor, process to finely chop. Add eggs and process until mixed. Pour into prepared pie crust. Sprinkle ham and cheese over top.

3. Bake in preheated over 45 minutes. Quiche is done when a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

4. Enjoy!

a self prescribed haircut

Today was a busy day in the Sheehan household. Although cleaning the fridge and giving the boy a haircut are not as fun as finishing a baby blanket, or working on a quilt, they were both very necessary things to do today.


The boy was a pretty well behaved this morning, and we all even survived a trip to Ikea. When we got home Charlotte was asleep and Jack wanted to cut the tags off our new items. That seemed like a reasonable request. Let me tell you right now, I don't know what I was thinking, but never turn your back on a 3 1/2 year old with scissors! Here's what you get...


As you can see he is very pleased with himself. He keeps telling me "My dada is bald too!" and "I have no hair like my dada!"

This was definitely no accident.