To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Quarter

Hi. Remember me? Yes, I'm still alive. I've been neglecting my blogging duties lately.

Today is an exciting day! I'm headed to Spring Quilt Market in Kansas City with Lisa of Pixiespit. ROAD TRIP! I'm so excited, but a little nervous, too. I've never been away from my 3-year-old daughter, Gwen, for more than about a day. We're going to miss each other for sure. Every day she asks me if she may go along onmy trip, too. Oh, I wish she could. I'm going to miss my little shadow, so. If you see a strange lady sobbing at QM that will be me.

Here's the main reason why I'm so behind on blogging. Remember this guy?

That's my son, Alex. Ten days after celebrating his ninth birthday, he jumped off our back stairs and didn't quite nail the landing. Now he's sporting a new accessory:

Yep, you got it. A broken leg - two fractures, actually.

Thank goodness bones heal. Our whole family will be glad when Alex is back up and running. Alex is so disappointed to be missing out on roller skating with his classmates, his first "real" baseball team, soccer practice, recess, school trips. No fun. At least he has a cast full of signatures...

Aside from the various family dramas, I've actually been doing some sewing lately. Here's the koala "softie" I made for my son, Paul. The MMQG challenge for April, in honor of Earth Day, was to make a quilt entirely out of recycled fabrics. I made a stuffed animal, figuring that it would get a lot more love around here. "Panda," as Gwen calls him, is made from a pair of Alex's worn out corduroy pants (that boy is hard on pants), a pair of my husband's worn out corduroy pants, and it's stuffed with all those long strips of leftover quilt batting I just can't bring myself to throw away.

Melly & Me's Beaut & Bonzer pattern

Photo shoot action shot

I've made a bunch of other stuff, too, but I haven't taken photos of them yet.

This is my 101st blog post. Woohoo! I'm so excited about the next 100 more. I'm planning to do a giveaway plus I have a big announcement to make, so stay tuned! And of course I'll have plenty of updates from Market, too.

The final installment of the Four's a Charm series - how to hand sew the binding -will be up in about a week.

Happy sewing. I'll be back soon!

-Annik