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Any method fans out there? I love the stuff and will go out of my way to go to Target to get it. Not only is it reasonably priced, its environmentally friendly and, most importantly, well designed. Annie, our friend in Dallas, had the terrific holiday scent hand soap by all the sinks, Peppermint Vanilla, and I can't seem to find it here in Salt Lake. Has anyone else seen it out there? I'd love to stock up. . . and these other holiday scents look good too! By the way, they have a foaming soap dispenser that Hubby really likes. I looked on the method site to see if you could use their refill bags of normal soap for these dispensers and found no information (nor is it on either bottle or bag). But I'm happy to inform you, after some trial and error, you can use the refill in the foaming dispensers. . . just thin it down with water! I find about one part soap one part water works well.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and ate far too much. . . I did. We went down to Dallas to see our good friends, the Pratts . They graciously hosted the largest Thanksgiving dinner I've ever seen. . . friends, family, cousins, neighbors, colleagues, probably 40 people or more! They've been renovating a beautiful, old, craft-style house and have done a magnificent job getting it ready for this weekend. I think they've been burning some midnight oil to get it done. After that big event, we were able to relax and visit and enjoy the holiday weekend. We even helped put up their 11 foot Christmas tree. . . Saturday, Annie and I went and had pedicures, which is always a treat, and then stopped for chocolate here as an additional treat. . . talk about being pampered! That night, we all went for dinner to Tillman's Roadhouse , an amazing restaurant with a hip take on traditional roadhouse fare. . . And after a memorable and delicious meal (I had chicken fried han...

Admit it. . . those are the cutest baby feet you've ever seen. I found Kathy Miller's fantastic blog over at Michael Miller fabrics and have been following some of their tutorials. . . shown here are cloth baby shoes and applique onesies . As you can see, I've had so much fun with these! I loved the colors of the onesies but didn't like the designs that were on them coming from the store, so I covered them up and made them our own!

Last week, Mike's Grandpa Garr passed away. He was 93 years old and I think he was ready to go. . . for a long time, he would set little goals for himself: live to see the next Olympics, live longer than any of his brothers had, make it to his next birthday, etc. He finally ran out of things to live for. The family had a beautiful service for him at the Veteran's Memorial chapel, Mike sang "Goin' Home" and appropriate and touching song for the occassion. Two navy servicement fold the flag that draped his coffin as Taps was played. It was all very beautiful and serene. We arranged some flowers to bring to the service. Mike has given me arrangements in these boxes from our favorite little neighborhood florist, Artichokes&Co. , we followed their lead with this arrangement. I thought it turned out just right. Cheerful and nostalgic. . .

This little dress was fairly easy and quick to make, thanks fto the easiest closures in the world. . . ribbons! No buttons, snaps, or zippers here just easy little ribbons to tie. One pair on each side. I also just used the top half of this pattern for Lucy's ladybug costume. I have ideas for other ways to use it and since I'm clearly not getting bored of making things for little Lu I'm sure you'll see more soon.

Lucy is a little lady bug. . .

My good friend, Kate Santos, and I went through our pregnancies together. . . commiserating and sharing good maternity clothes finds. She was due 6 weeks ahead of me, but we both ended up on bed rest and both ended up delivering early. She'd stop by at the hospital after non-stress tests and then the weekend her baby was born, she was just down the hall from me so I could get wheeled down to visit. It was so fun to have her there for a bit. Now we get to go through the newborn phase together. . . anyhow, this quilt is for her cute baby, Norah. P.S. On this one I used the back pattern, an Amy Butler lotus design, to set my quilt pattern. . . maybe its the lazy way out because I hate marking, but it makes it kind of fun and challenging to find a pattern that ties the quilt together, literally!

I just put this little baby quilt in the mail to my new niece in Portland, Daphne. I usually don't put the wild print on the front of the quilt, but this one felt right this way and with a plain green on the back. I tried something new, which isn't obvious in this picture, but used the floral as my quilting pattern. I started in the middle square and free-arm quilted around some of the flower shapes. It looks really cute on the back but it was kind of stressful so I went back to a straight stitch for the outside border.

So our amazing friend, Katherine, took these beautiful pictures of Lucy. . . it's going to be hard to choose which to use for a birth announcement! She really has a good eye and gave us plenty to choose from. Check out her blog to see more of us and all the other beautiful photography she does! Lucy is still so little, she doesn't fit any of the 0-3 month clothing and have you noticed they just don't make dresses in newborn or preemie sizes? So I made this little dress for her to wear for her big photo shoot. I made it entirely from one Michael Miller fat quarter, that's how small it is!

I was supposed to go up to Seattle for my mom's 60th birthday right in the middle of blackberry season and then I ended up in the hospital on bedrest. I was heartbroken to miss the party. . . my family called to ask my favorite recipe, a to-die-for blackberry cobbler, and let me know they were thinking about me as they ate it. . . so of course, it was the first thing I wanted to make when (and eat) when I got out of the hospital. It was sooo tasty. . . and we made a vanilla soy milk ice cream to serve it with. Chinook’s in Seattle has a blackberry cobbler that is hands-down my favorite dessert in the world. . . I would crawl through broken glass to get some. A couple of years ago, someone had posted this recipe for it on the web and I’ve had pretty good success with it. It may not be Chinook’s exactly, but its pretty darn good AND it’s a good excuse to use my cute little ramekins: Wannabe Chinook’s Blackberry Cobbler 4 Cups wild mountain blackberries ½ Cup gra...

Did I mention that Hubby is crazy about our little Lucy? He can't get enough of her. . . he can hardly leave her alone when he's home and it drives him crazy if she's sleeping. He just wants to wake her up and play with her all the time. He ordered this plush hippo in orange and it arrived the other day. It's huge, three times as big as Lucy is right now, but darling. He showed me the site where he found it, babygeared .com , which has all kinds of fun plushies and softies and great ideas. . . He loves modern design and all things minimalist and contemporary. He often finds fab baby items and plenty of honest reviews on daddytypes .com , his new favorite blog.

So another fun project I did while on bed rest was to embellish these little bibs from Ikea . . . they come in a 5-pack (I still have one to finish, a robin) for a very reasonable price and they were just screaming for a little something personal to be added to them. This actually started as a project to do with my friend Kate who was on bed rest at home a couple weeks before me. . . I went over to her place to keep her company and brought bags of embroidery floss and fleece (fleece edges won't fray so you don't have to worry about turning the edges under) and we went about doing some free-style appliqué, as I call it. We didn't get too far that day, we each finished only one, but the good thing is it was all bagged up with the needed materials so when I ended up in the hospital unexpectedly, it wasn't hard for hubby to assemble and bring in for me to work on. P.S. Kate ended up having her little Norah just down the hall from me in the hospital two weeks before I had Lu...

So while I was on bed rest at the hospital I was able to finish up the quilt I'd started for the baby. I hand quilted it on a 14" hoop which was easily manageable. Here's how it washed up. . .

Here is our little Lucy Kate Law. . . she was born on August 18 at 2:07 pm and weighed a whoppin' 5 lbs 10 oz (not bad for being 6 weeks early!) She's still in the NICU, but hopefully we'll get to bring her home in the next couple of days if she keeps progressing like she has been. I'm home and can't tell you how good it feels to be up and moving around again after those four weeks of bedrest. . .

So, you wouldn't believe it, but the day after my last post I was admitted to the hospital. . . and no, I didn't remember to bring the cute receiving blanket. I didn't bring anything! I really thought I'd go in for a quick check and be right back out. To make a long story short, my water broke on Saturday, July 21st when I was exactly 30 weeks along (10 weeks too soon for those of you not used to counting and calendaring in weeks) and they put me on immediate hospital bed rest for 4 weeks hoping to keep the baby exactly where she is as long as possible by not letting me go into preterm labor or develop any infections, etc. Time has gone by quicker than I thought it would. . . so far, we're two weeks down and two to go. Not bad. So many friends and family have called or come to visit and help me pass the time. They've brought good treats and healthy dinners so I don't have to eat hospital meals 3 times a day. . . they've brought how-to books and Harry Pot...

I just made a simple receiving blanket for Baby Law. . . I'll take it to the hospital with me if I remember! I've been so forgetful lately. Maybe you can see just from the picture, but it is just one layer of white flannel cut 36 x 36" and then ironed in one inch on all sides. I mitered the edges as I went and the covered the edge with a ribbon. I can imagine a lot of variations using this simple formula. . .

This one is for my own baby! I can't tell you how much fun this was to make. . . Now I just have to quilt and bind it by September 29!

Here are some new baby quilts I've been working on. The first one is for my old buddy Sarah Lyle and her new little baby boy, Jonas. The backing fabric is a Michael Miller disco dot that I've been dying to use. And yes, that's a real Herman Miller rocker, straight off of eBay for our baby nursery! The next quilt gets its fun puckered texture from the hand quilting. The center square fabric is from an old 70's shirt I found at a second-hand store. . . a good way to find some amazing retro fabric.

I made these oven mitts from the pattern in Denyse Schmidts' book and happen to think they turned out pretty darn cute. So proud. . .

For the last couple years, my family has been exchanging hand-made gifts. It's been a wonderful tradition . . . both make the gifts and see what my talented family comes up with. The top pic is of Wind Chimes mad from old silverware by my sister, Missy. In the middle, is a fun "Date Night Kit" from my sister, Shannon. (Also notice the Date Night Mix CD from her husband, Matt.) And then on bottom, a Jingle Bell wreath made by my sister, Jenn. It was fun to be able to spend time with my family in Seattle this Christmas. I think at one point there were 18 people staying at my mom's and dad's house! Yikes! But again, it was just neat to be able to be there all together. My brother even made it from Guam for a couple weeks vacation. My sweet Gramma Gwen was there and all five of the Luke grandsons. They are constant entertainment, they're the ones pictured on the title page I posted a couple entries ago. Anyhow, I love them all.