Table Runner Part Two

Finally the full picture of the runner I made for a friend. I posted about it here originally.

Front...

and back.

I am happy with the overall look and my friend loves it in her kitchen. That's what counts! I didn't make a label for it though. I have a tendency to write on the binding on the back instead. It's usually just a simple note with the date included.

Off to watch Shaun the Sheep with B!

Surprise

I love these bowls. They are from WMF and please me to no end. They originally came with a pirate picture in the blue and a princess picture in the pink. I tend to switch them out about once a month. Right now Hansel and Gretel reside in the bottom My friend got them for me here (isn't that a great friend!).  The kids get to excited to get to the bottom and find something new.

The kids also have these to go cutlery sets. I know it seems a bit over the top but it comes in handy when traveling. You don't think about the size of a spoon relative to the size of a kids mouth until you have to. We were at a restaurant recently and were given soup spoon size spoons and asked for something a bit smaller. The only thing the had was bigger! It was an entertaining meal watching a 3 and 5 year old trying to eat with a spoon the size of half their face.

Why the name

"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings."
Victor Hugo

I read this quote and felt like that bird. We move a lot. We moved to Kansas last July and will be moving again this summer. It's a difficult thing to do - to uproot and move - especially when kids are involved. B, at 5, really knows what is going on now. Some of his friends have moved since we have been here so we put a world map up in his room. It makes things more concrete to talk about family and friends in a different place being able to touch the spot they live in. That being said, Africa is the next room to him. The scale of earth is still unattainable to him. Thankfully G is still go with the flow and too young to really know. We are already talking about our next move. B likes to talk to his school friends about where they are all going. Some are staying but it seems the ones that go like to see others excited about going to. A preschool camaraderie of sorts.

I have a motto that I like to go by. If you don't laugh, you'll cry. So I try to laugh. Or in the case of a Bird on a Branch, sing.

Mousepad

Mr. Bird bought a new laptop not too long ago. It had a touch pad but no external mouse. We finally bought a mouse after getting super frustrated with the touch pad.  The new mouse is a smaller optical mouse and we used the mouse pad we had - an old plastic one that said Dell on it. Not attractive and so dark that the mouse didn't even register it. Now finally to the point... I decided to cover the old mouse pad with something to make it "new." I first tried a page from an old atlas. It was a map  of America but neither of us liked it too much so I tried again. I have touches of red in almost every room of my house so I immediately went for red. I wish I could tell you something about this fabric but I have no idea where it came from. It's as if the fabric gods made it appear in my stash. I covered the pad with mod podge then smoothed on the fabric. I let it dry, trimmed the edges, then applied 2 more layers of mod podge. It was way too rough so I sanded it a bit with fine grit sand paper and it was just right. Even Mr.Bird likes it.

 

Fever, lack of sleep, and a table runner

The smalls are sick. It started last Wednesday with B and a high fever in the middle of the night. He had a fever off and on for almost a week. Yay. We went to the doctors and not much happened there except that we were told that he has a fever and cough. Surprise. The best thing about B being sick is that he becomes even more cuddly. I had told him that he had to stay home from school because he had a fever. That night when hubbie came home B informed him that he didn't go to school because he had "The Beaver." He was very serious and it sounded like a strange tropical disease. From then on we have all been calling it "the beaver." He was so excited that G got sick a few days later. "I touched G and she got "The Beaver"." B is now back at school today. He was so excited to go as he is snack boy today and absolutely couldn't miss it. I am happy to be able to accomplish something in the afternoon besides trying to catch up on lost nighttime sleep. 

I did finish a project that was promised a long time ago. Last summer to be exact. A table runner for a good friend in Germany. She redid her kitchen in coffee colors to match her snazzy new coffee maker. It was the kind I would have imaged the Jetsons having. Push a button and out comes the best macciato ever. Her neighbor painted some pretty coffee/cafe themed canvases. I wanted to make her a little something as a token of thanks. She has been a great friend. I just did a crazy log cabin kind of thing. Each block was about 11" square. I quilted it using a decorative stitch around each square. I  like the fabric and the look but I don't think I would have done that stitch for me.