Valentine's Day

How was your Valentine's day?

My girls go to a charter school so they celebrated Friday.

I almost forgot that yesterday was the celebration day.

                                                                                    

I of course made skirts. Baubi has decided that she is too cool for Valentine's skirts, and also has decided that the whole holiday in general sucks. Her grouchy teenager self is coming out, or maybe it is the fact that you don't get parties in Jr. high. Any way that is why she is not playing the game and not in these pictures.

I really liked how they turned out. each one different but all made out of the same fabrics.

Also look how great they are for twirling.



Until next year, I hope that everyday is filled with love and that you are shown love in return.

I will be back later with details on each skirt.

Now go kiss your sweety.

Eric's Quilt

My brother used to live in England, he is a social worker for the air force. I was desperate to see him, and Europe for that matter. My sweet husband proved that he loved me and told me to go.

The first problem we faced, a ticket was almost $1000.  Now what I am is cheap, and the budget for this trip was $1300. I decided to check out my options. Option 1: spend all the money getting there and then never leaving my brother's house 2: stow away in the cargo hold of the plane 3: find a buddy pass. I went with option three and decided to call a family friend. He is a flight attendant for United Airlines, I took a deep breath and called him explained my situation and asked for a buddy pass.  I told him that I would love him forever, and that he might just get a quilt out of it.

I don't think that he believed me on the whole quilt thing. I think he thought that I would forget about it and he could tease me about it in the future.

Something along the line of "remember when I gave you a buddy pass, to see your favorite brother in England, and remember you said that you were going to give me a quilt."

And then I would laugh and remind him that I am a mother of four girls that keep me busy, and I just haven't found the time.

I didn't want to experience that awkward moment, and I didn't want to make excuses, and didn't want to lie. So I started working on it. I was going to make an Irish chain quilt. I have made like twenty of them, and knew I couldn't mess it up. I mean seriously, I have had a lot of practice.

Problem number one was finding fabric. I didn't want a floral, I mean even if he walks on the tender side I didn't think that a floral would be good. He said that blue was his favorite color, and I guess I could have done varying colors of blue in a solid fabric but that is BORING. Then one day I was visiting the selfish seamstress and saw this post http://selfishseamstress.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/oh-those-sassy-quilters/

I thought, oh my that would be so funny, but didn't know if I would be crossing a line.  I sent him an email asking him what he thought.  He loved it, and he loved the cowboys most of all.

This is what he got. I threw in a bandanna fabric and a printed denim.

A close up for good measure.

Here is the back I tried really hard to match the print on the back, as you can see I gave up and put a pieced strip down the back.

I have a good friend that does my quilting she was a little concerned about quilting these hotties, but for fun she quilted in the boarders "save a horse ride a cowboy" I mean how could I not.

Can you see it quilted there?

It was so much fun making this, the only problem was cutting up those cowboys to get them to fit.

In December this pattern came out. http://thehappyzombie.com/blog/?p=450 and I love it. I am currently making a Christmas version, that is red and white, with a super cute green for the little color strips.I think it would have been perfect for this. So Eric if you are reading this I can think of a few more places I want to go.

Sadie's dress

I have told this story many times and I will try to do my best version this time.

Like I said last time my brother lives in Samoa. He lived there nine years ago too. Nine years ago he and his wife were expecting their first baby and it being Samoa they didn't know what they were having.

My brother had to come home to attend meetings and his wife couldn't come due to being pregnant and not wanting to go into early labor on a 12 hour plane trip she stayed. Just as my brother was about to leave to for the airport; she went to the closet with a pair of scissors and cut the train off her wedding dress. She later told me that she didn't really like her wedding dress. Her sister bought it for her, so it was more her sister's taste and not hers. She handed it to my brother and said see if Robyn can make something out of this for the baby.

I did, I made a blessing dress with the lace. It was kind of a pain the lace was heavily beaded and sequined and sewn on with stitches that were so tight I could not unpick them. I used the lace on the hem and applique pieces up the skirt, on the sleeves and across the bodice, it was a cute little new born size. In case it was a boy I made a little romper with a vest. The vest was made from the satin from her dress. Either way boy or girl the baby was going to have something from her dress.

It turns out she had a boy, Josiah. She did say I don't care if it is a boy, he is going to wear that dress. (Don't worry he didn't wear the dress) She really liked the dress, and hoped that she would one day have a daughter to wear it. She did get pregnant again and it was another boy Tasi. Hope was a little lost for that dress. Than a few months ago they adopted a baby girl. He asked my dad to dig through his storage here and find the original dress. I am the one who said; she can't wear that dress, it is not going to fit. Since she is adopted she can not be blessed until the adoption is final and that is still a few months away. Since I am a crazy person I still had left over lace from the first dress. This time I was smart enough to use a razor blade to unpick the lace. I removed all the beads and sequins. I sewed the lace on top to look like an allover lace, made satin cording and a shiny sheer over the satin. I also sewed a puffy slip into the skirt. I love it.

I think this new dress is more to the taste of my brother and sister in law. It is simple and sweet and I wish I could be there when she wears it. I really want to take a picture of her in a lush green place in Samoa. I hope it is everything they want for their princess.Sorry I don't have any pictures of the original dress, or pictures of the romper the boys wore, but I was smart enough to get pictures of this new dress.

                                                            A close up of the front

                                                   The back I really like the clear buttons.

The sleeves

I love doing this kind of sewing.

I love to take something from a Mom and making it into something for the daughter.

Sadie Baby

This is my newest niece, I know don't you just want to pinch her cheeks and kiss those sweet lips. I wish with everything that I am that I could, but she lives across the ocean in Samoa. My oldest brother Brett works for the church and is living there.  
When he moved there he was a father of two boys, two of the best boys you could ever meet. A few months later he adopted this sweet angel. He was a bit nervous about it, I was adopted and told him that I got the best big brother, and this little girl deserved to have two of the best big brothers.

She is named after my Grandmother, it is this Grandmother who taught me to sew. I loved her more than she could ever know. I remember hours sitting on her floor as she would patiently teach me how to sew, embroider, and crochet.

My parents are leaving to serve a mission there in two weeks, so it is time to shower this princess with all the gifts that she deserves.  The first is a quilt, it is only fitting that she gets a quilt. her name sake was an amazing quilter. She won blue ribbons for her quilting. I followed this tutorial http://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/2010/04/first-quilt-ever.html It was fabulous and easy and I finished it in like two days.

How sweet is that! I think it is perfect.

Here is the back. I like the backing fabric, how it looks like a pieced quilt, and how cute is that strip.

Care gives great instructions on how to quilt, I am a wimp and took mine to a quilter. She is a friend and is fabulous, there is no way I could do it that good, look at those cute swirls and hearts.

And no way I could do that. It turned out so cute.

I hope they like it and it gets years of use. I hope that when I finally get to meet this angel she is still small enough to squish and kiss all over.

I hope you have a great day. I'll be back with another post of something else I made for this angel baby.

frustration

I am NOT a technically savy person, it is something that I just don't get. There are those that can just do it. They can cut and paste (something that I just learned last year) post picture with out deleting their entire post, can figure out how to get back the post they deleted. These are things that elude me, I can sew things together well and I can bake an amazing cake but this is still a trial and error for me.

I promised to tell the story of what I did on the morning we were going to see the Tabernacle Choir. I sat here at the computer spent the hour typing out the story (I am also not a very good typer and get things wrong all the time) only to realise that I had the pictures over on Baubi's side of the computer. I thought that I could save my post go over to Baubi's side and add the pictures. That was not going to happen, I could not get the stupid blogger to let me accomplish this simple task. I mean really how hard could it be open the saved post push the edit button and add the humiliating photo.

I have a dream that get a hold of this blogging thing, and inspire people to try new things, and people out there get to "see" me and I can really do this. Then I go and screw things up and don't know how to fix it.

Any way after a month of avoiding this I am now going to try it again. Wish me luck.

Let's review it was early Sunday morning we are going to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christmas songs. Then go to the Little America for breakfast.

Last year I sewed the girls dresses the day before. I had made all their dresses that day, and only had to sew their velvet jackets that night. The problem I had was that they were just a size off from each other and so I spent the whole night unpicking velvet. So on Saturday night when I only had the little girls dresses done I remembered the hour and a half of sleep I got the year before and told my self that I was not going to do it again.(for those of you who do not know me this is a big step)

Instead I spent the night trying to think of what Gowyn was going to wear. I remembered some gold skirts that I had made last year and thought that she could wear that. The only problem is that I had no idea were it was. I thought that it might be in the DI bag in the garage so after my shower I got dressed put on some tall Christmas socks, because with my tall boots on you would never see them. Since I was just running out to the garage, and still had to chase small children around I put on my baby blue crocks. Needless to say that the skirt was not there. Gowyn decided to wear what she wore last year, the only problem was even though it had been a year, I still had not hemmed the sleeves.

This was my thought. I will put on my makeup and hem the sleeves while I am riding in the car. I Quickly did hair, gathered supplies and ran out the door. I sat in my seat and hemmed the sleeves passed it back to Gowyn and helped her get it on and laced up. Put on my makeup, this is something that I am getting increasingly good at. Sat back and relaxed, all that was left to do was enjoy the ride until we got there and explain to Baubi that is was Sunday and we were not going to listen to rap music. We were just getting on the free way (20 min from our house) It was then that I realised how comfortable my feet were. Yep never put on my tall boots. I gasped and showed the husband my feet. How could this have happened? I started laughing and saying "what are we going to do." He was still  not laughing "We are late you are going to have to go like that" Me "Are you kidding me! I can not go like this" Him "Well maybe you should have paid more attention"

I love my husband ALOT. He is a good man, he is handy and fixes things. He however can not get girls ready for church. Wait he can put on tights, and he can put on dresses. He can not do hair, and he can not tie bows. So there was a very good reason I was distracted. I was getting myself ready, I was getting four heads of hair done, and I was doing the best I could at seven o'clock in the morning.

I did finally get the man to turn off the free way and get me to a Walmart. I ran through the store grabbed some shoes that were on clearance, and grabbed some knee highs. I think that the thought of trying to put on panty hose while driving in the car would have put me over the edge.

So now for your viewing pleasure my humiliation averted. Get ready to laugh on this Tuesday.

A close up so you can really see how cute I was.

Happy Tuesday to you. Hopefully I will be back before another month goes by.

The Mo Tab

A few things first, I am a terrible blogger I really need to be more on top of things. Also I took all these photos and didn't know that some small child had touched the lens and for some reason no amount of editing will take that away so if it looks fuzzy sorry I tried.

Anywho moving on. A few years ago we started a tradition of going to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir sing Christmas songs for their music and the spoken word program. I started the tradition that when we would go hear the choir sing, I would make new fancy dresses for the event. My husband really wishes I would give up on that part of the tradition. A tradition is a tradition and you got to stick to it.

This year we went with my Dad, my Mom was out of town. It was fun to spend the day with him.

They have a rule that only children 8 and older can go in and listen, all the younger ones have to go in another room and be as loud as they want. Good looking usually has that task, but this year I told him I would take it. Most of the pictures are of Baby Sister and Lala.

So off we go, I started these dresses on Wednesday and I wasn't able to finish Baubi and Gowyn's dresses in time, so when they are going to be done for church on Sunday I will show those pics and some close ups of these dresses later. I know, I am just falling apart in my old age.



Their dresses are red velvet that I tucked and then I sewed the tucks down one direction, and then in the other direction. They have fancy ribbon on the waist and big skirts. The skirts are made of green chintz, two layers of gold tulle, and then a final layer of gold sheer. They make a really great sound when they walk.



Here are all the girls, and yes this was the best picture I could get. Seriously how hard is it to look at the camera, smile and make a normal face. They are still cute though.

After the broadcast we go to the Little America for their breakfast buffet. It is the one big splurge we do every year and it is yummy.



Baby sister only would eat the fruit, we did talk her in to some bacon, but she didn't want anything else.



The girls liked the giant gingerbread houses.



All in all it was a fabulous morning. If you live in Utah I highly recommend it, and the best part is it is free. Not only is it free you don't even need a ticket just show up and they will let you in.

Lala came up to me at breakfast and said that on her way to the bathroom and back 18people told her how pretty she was, and that she was tired of saying thank you. The poor dear I don't know how she is going to survive.



Baby sister had so much fun she just couldn't stand it any longer.



I also have another funny story that happened that morning, but I think that I will save it for another day. Have you ever left the house thinking that you were fully dressed and ready to go? Let me know because I think that I got you beat.

Tato skins (otherwise known as Potato Skins)

There was a really big football game here in Utah on Saturday. University of Utah was taking on TCU, They were both nationally ranked, ranked number four and six or something. ESPN even came with their whole crew broadcasting Game Day which I guess is a big deal for our little state. I knew close to nothing about this, my husband had to tell me that this was a big deal. Once again when it comes to football blah blah blah ESPN Game day blah did blah. That was the gist of my knowledge of the event.

The Utes LOST, not only did the lose they got a bushwhacking. Truly brought joy to my heart, they are after all our rivals. Both my parents and four of my siblings graduated form the Y (BYU). That is where my heart lives when it comes to football. My mom used to even wake us up to the BYU fight song, "Rise and shout the cougars are out..."

What does any of this have to do with potatoes you may ask, well I will tell you. When there is a big game I make potato skins. It is my assignment for the Superbowl every year, and they are really tasty.

Are you ready here we go. Heat up your oven to 425.

Next potatoes I like to use Idaho russets. I also like to look through the bag for little ones, Potato skins are suppose to be an appetizer and not a side dish so I like small ones.



Next you are going to need to wash them and you really need to scrub the living life out of them a clean potato is a happy potato.



Here is the tricky part and the part that makes all the difference. In a large bowl put in about 1/4 cup of oil, nothing fancy just veggie oil works. Add two teaspoons of salt, I used sea salt.



Now throw some potatoes in the bowl and toss them around, until well covered. Continue until all your potatoes are thoroughly covered.



Next step is to line a pan with foil and place on the bottom rack of the oven. Put the potatoes on the middle rack, make sure that they are floating over the pan. As they cook the oil will drip, and when they steam up the pan catches the mess and saves your oven and your house from getting smokey.



Cook your potatoes. I wish I could tell you that I have timed this, and have it down to the second on how long to cook the potatoes, but the truth is that I wait until the house is starting to smell like potatoes and then check them by seeing if I can squish them. If I can't squish them I cook them longer. I know you can call me crazy it's OK. If I were to say how long, I think it would be 45-55 min. You really want to get a hot pad and see if they squish before pulling them out. See don't they look fabulous.



Next you need to cool them a little. If you cool them to much they will get a little to gummy and then be yucky. I usually cool them just to where I can hold them with a rag and not burn myself.



Next is to cut them into quarters. You can cut them in half but they will go farther if you quarter them.



After that you need to scoop out the inside. You need to leave about a 1/4 of an inch of potato on the skins. Just take of the point I use a spoon or you can use a paring knife.



Now lay out all your skins out on a tray. I like to line it with foil because I really don't like cleaning baked on cheese of my cookie sheets. Taking the time to line your tray will save you hours of soaking later.



Yep you guessed it cover the skins with cheese I use the shredded Colby Jack or, you can use Cheddar. You don't need anything too fancy but you really want a lot of cheese because lets face it, cheese makes it tasty.



Next you cover them with bacon because if cheese makes it tasty then bacon is going to make it outstanding. You can buy already cooked crumbled bacon, that is what I used. You can also make your own by cutting bacon into small pieces, and frying up until crispy, take it out of the grease with a slotted spoon anddrain on a paper towel. If you don't like to be burned by popping bacon grease then you can buy it already done for you with out any fear of grease popping in your eye.

Cook them at 450 for 10-15 min. until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Take them out and top them with chopped chives or green onions and serve with ranch dressing.
I really wish I had a picture of them all hot a yummy, but while I was making these guest arrived as I pulled them out of the oven and they were gone before I could get a picture.

If you try them let me know what you think, I think they are super tasty.

Also if you are wondering what to do with this.

I usually fry them up the next day with an egg on top. If you are really handy and can make bread, you can use it for potato bread. I am open to any other ideas let me know what you did with your potato guts.