What a week of destashing!

ahhhhhh the memories.....
Take a trip down memory lane with me.........
20 years ago on december 16 1988 I gave birth to my first baby girl. I was expecting to have a boy so I had nothing for a baby girl to wear! She was a healthy lovely little baby, quiet and happy all the time (what happened!)
anyways, I was a single Mom with a newborn baby in arms and counted on help from the social services and charity to get me through the rough times. At that time I was living in a really old house that only had wood heat, and it was way out in the sticks of Bothell Washington.
Well, I went to Crisis Pregnancy center in Bothell/Seattle and asked them for assistance with the newborn baby. I had literally nothing for her to wear except some used sleepers I had bought at St Vincent De Paul right before she was born. Of course they were BLUE hehehe.

They gave me a call a few days before she was born, and told me to come in, have a friend bring me in a car because they had a bundle of goodies for me. Ok, that got my attention! I walked in and there were THREE large stuffed full boxes!! There were some warm cute clothes for a little newborn girl, plus a couple outfits for her to grow into. A gorgious crocheted layette set with bonnet, sweater and booties, a hand made quilt with pink bows and rocking horses, on the back was flannel pin stripes of pink and white (I still have the layette and quilt!) baby wipes, powder, bath and lotion, a baby tub and disposable diapers to last a couple weeks! I was in SHOCK let me tell ya, I started to cry!

They also gave me a donated crib and bedding for the crib, what a wonderful thing!

Ok so what does that have to do with the pictures today? Well.....
This coming December my daughter Melodie celebrates her 20th birthday!!!
And I decided that this Christmas for my charity donation I would make up a bunch of flannel baby quilts and give them to my local chapter of Crisis Pregnancy Center in her honor!
They are all FLANNEL. And made with all my scraps that I have been hoarding for a couple years.

They measure about 45 x 55-60 so its a good starting point for a newborn baby who is in need.

This particular pattern is one that I have made up and have used alot for making quick quilt tops. I have made a twin bed size one for my mother in law 2 years ago, and 3 years ago I made one for my korean daughter who lived with us as an exchange student and is still an active part of our family unit.

For my DESTASH Challenge, I would say using up 90 percent of my flannel scraps was a HUGE Dent! I still have one shoe box with bright scraps I have not used. Since there are 6 quilt tops, I would say thats about 8 yards of scraps I used up! the BOX that they were all collect into was the size a computer monitor comes in from the store! NOW that box has been disposed of and the last of the scraps are in the little plastic shoe box! Progress!

******update: Quilts donated on Nov 14 to the local quilt shop. Very happy to see and wanted show and tell. Lots of ohhs and awwws to my embarrassment hahah.

AND NOW.....to kick off the Special season of Christ's Birthday! Im turning my playlist on to play CHRISTMAS Music!

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Another update! This past weekend Nov 15-16 was Judy's Quiltathon(http://www.patchworktimes.com/)

and I spent it sewing up these blocks for American Hero. (http://www.americanhero.com/)

Two tops made for 2 wounded soldiers to cherish! That was fun!

This is the dinner I made for myself for the Quiltathon! Nummy! Koreans call it Gim Bap. Japanese call it Sushi. I would rather call it Gim Bap because when Japanese say sushi, they mean that it has raw fish in it, where the korean gim bap does not have raw fish.

There is rice, precooked and chilled. then dried seaweed. And veggies of choice. Mine were water chestnuts, cucumber, carrots, and avacado. And I used kanimi imitation crab.
Here it is ready to dip in soy sauce and wasabi! I had dull knives all over the house so I just dipped it whole like this and bit off the end. DELICIOUS!!! Nobody else eats it, its all for ME!

Halloween is OVER Thank Goodness!

WHEW!!!! Im not fond of halloween with all the candy everywhere and the kids who are all jacked up on the sugar overload. Wont even go into what my job is like at night when I have to clean the schools after their halloween parties hahaha. Exhausting!
Heres some cute pics for ya.........
Justin my son, just got his new hat! I had a custom order made up by Carole S, of a chulla hat in purple, green and orange with black seperation. He LOOOOOVES His new hat! You should have seen this kid when I gave it to him. Jumping up and down and screaming "AWWWWESOME.....SWEEEEET........FREKEN COOL!!!!!" hehehe. Hes only 6 ft 4 inches and towers above me so I had to aim the camera up high to get his face! (of course he humored me and bent over just a bit)

I am the owner of our local Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) chapter and right after halloween I posted a message that I would like to adopt everyones discarded pumkins so I could make breads and muffins for winter. Well, four people responded and I made arrangements to pick up. EACH person had multiples of uncarved pumkins so by the time I did all 4 pick ups, my backseat was full! heheh. The one on the floor is so big and heavy I cant pick it up so I will have my son get it to the kitchen table for me when the time comes.

All these baggies of frozen pumkin puree!!! *sigh* Theres 7 in the front plus another 8 behind those! And one loaf of pumkin bread sitting on the top, the other one was quickly gobbled up by the starvin martins as soon as it was out of the oven. it took me all day from noon til about 8 to cut the whole pumkin, take skin off, chop and then boil it down. If I had thought about it I would have shown you my stove, I had three very full dutch ovens all boiling at the same time! And while I was doing the peeling and chopping I was watching HGTV, with cutting board on my lap, bucket for peels at my feet and big tupperware bowl at my side for the chopped pieces. Very industrious! OH...By the way. All this work was just ONE very large pumkin, the twin to the one sitting on the floor! All the others in the pic above HAVE NOT been cooked yet (as of today nov 10)

Stashbusting 2009

Ok lets see. With our finances in bad shape (like everyone else Im sure!) I decided I want to use more of my own stash instead of buying more. I do have PLENTY here I can use! Oh gosh I have a collection of orientals, fairy frost, red/whites, batiks galore plus Im an avid scrap saver!
SO here we go! Im gonna sign up and dedicate to use more of my own! So I guess I should start COUNTING how much yardage I actually have. Hahaha and my math sucks bigtime!

Who's gonna join me on this adventure? Heres the link to the original post by Judy Laquidera http://www.patchworktimes.com/category/stashbusting/

Have a great fall leaves colorful Monday!
Robin