Last Day of First Grade

Well, I guess my little Chickadee is all grown up. Tomorrow is her last day of first grade and I'm a little sad. Sad that time is going by much faster than I would like it to, sad to be saying good-bye to her teacher and sad that one day I'll be writing that tomorrow will be her last day of high school. Oh, hold on. Tissue break. . .

Anyway, to celebrate a wonderful first grade year Chickadee's class helped me to make this for their teacher:

Isn't it wonderful? We were supposed to give it to Ms. McGuyer tomorrow on the last day of school but we were too impatient to wait so we took it in today.  The kids were very excited to see their artwork displayed on the quilt. And I think that Ms.McGuyer was pleased as well. It took a little legwork to get this done without her knowing. The art teacher at school helped. A lot! I took the supplies in one day last month and the kids did their squares as an art project. Then I added the borders to each child's drawing and sashed them together. Finally I quilted around the outside, inside and middle of each border with matching thread. I wanted to create a clean, simple design that would make the art stand out. I think it worked out pretty well.

Here's the back:

A. holding up the quilt for me!

I love the back!

Things I learned from this project: 

1. Clipping all the thread as you go really is helpful at the end.

2. Next time I would like the kids to draw self-portraits.

3. It's time for a new sewing machine.

4. I should learn to take better photographs. 

Here are a few more pictures from this project:

the beginning

after the sashing

choosing layout

my square

Gus's square

washed, dried, and ready to go!

A New Friend. . .

Phew! It's been awhile since I posted, but today was an exciting day so I just had to share. No, it's not crafty. But it is exciting. First of all, I got to play in the garden this morning. Hooray! I spent about an hour weeding and planting a few more squash, eggplant, cucumber and basil transplants. Everything is finally looking decent. Not great yet, but decent. There's something very gratifying about weeding a garden. After all the fun I had playing in the dirt I needed a shower, which I took. What I did not need was to have a new friend when I got out of the shower. In my bedroom. Just hanging out. Yep, there he was. This fellow.

 

Notice I took the picture after  he was safely out of the house. This guy is a king snake, totally harmless, well, at least non-venomous. Luckily I'm not afraid of snakes (I think they're cool) and was able to broom him out of my bedroom in a timely fashion. The best part about him though, copperhead snakes are on his menu. Normally I'm not an advocate of killing venomous snakes just for the sake of killing venomous snakes. But I'm also not a fan of copperheads living in my yard with a young baby crawling around. So Mr.King Snake go do your job! And don't come back in the house please.