Mama Cimino Handmade

Autumn Love sew along

2018-08-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

I did a thing... I wasn't planning on doing the whole quilt. I bought the "Autumn Love" Sew Simple Shapes so I could sew just some of the block as I didn't think I'd be able to do the whole quilt. I kept hemming and hawing over buying the kit and I just decided "why not?". Autumn is my absolute favorite time of the year and I love the layout and design of the quilt.

This is designed by Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet and she designs for Riley Blake.

I can't wait to get started. This will be my first applique quilt that uses cotton instead of wool and I'm looking forward to trying this out... I may have wanted to start out with a smaller project, but I hope that doing it over 12 weeks like Lori is on her blog, it won't be too difficult!

Let's get this started... again.

2018-07-12T21:08:00.001-07:00

It's been over a year since the last time I blogged and I said last time that I hope to be able to keep it up! I'm not promising anything right now but I do hope to be more active on the blogosphere.

I've been fairly busy, let me catch you up on what we've been up to!

We bought a log cabin out in Pine Hollow, Oregon and we have been going up nearly every weekend since then. We didn't have to do much to it but we did add a wood burning pizza oven and a covered picnic area, added a hot tub and put in an air conditioning unit. This week it was in the high 90's and I thought I was going to die, ha ha ha! I guess you could say that I'm not a fan of the heat!

I have really expanded my Etsy shop the last 8 months or so. Unfortunately for me and a lot of other sellers Etsy seller fees are going up and a lot of us have been looking for an alternative. I have decided to move my shop to Fiber Crafty, it's similar to Etsy in that it's geared to handmade items and supplies for crafting. Etsy has really stepped away from the handmade niche of shops and seem to be allowing all sorts of things. I'm hoping I am making the right move. I hope to get everything moved over there with in the next week or so. For now you can find me on Etsy .

I have a few quilt kids that I've gotten through The Fat Quarter Shop and I really need to get those going. I ordered the Pride and Joy Block of the Month kit by Kim Diehl and I just love the quilts I've seen others do on Instagram, I've heard that it is a lot of cutting and that makes me nervous. I need to stock up on spray starch and get to prepping!

Well, that is all I'm going to write about now. Let's see if I can post once or twice a week for a while

Stiching Sunday

2017-07-02T18:53:00.002-07:00

So I have just recently discovered Wool Applique! I love the look of Primitive decor and Americana and there are so many patterns that you can do in wool and they look absolutely amazing! I started out by going to Pioneer Quilts, a local quilt supply shop, and they have a wonderful selection of patterns, wools, kits and thread, not to mention their quilting fabrics! I picked up a little candle mat kit from Buttermilk Basin and a pieced pin cushion with a wool sewing machine on it from Primitive Gatherings.

I started with the candle mat and as soon as I got the sheep fused on the background I realized that I forgot to reverse the design so my sheep are going the other direction... LOL! Oh well, it still looks cute and I've been stitching on it this afternoon.

We are up at our cabin in Rhododendron for the 4th of July weekend. Hubby will still have to drive back to town to go to work tomorrow but we will be attending a BBQ on Tuesday to celebrate with our friends and neighbors up here. It's right on the Sandy River and it's an amazing setting for summer get togethers. I hope you all have a wonderful Independence Day and get a chance to work on some stitching!

Been a while...

2017-06-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

I hate when I go to a blog, usually though Pinterest, and when I look to see what they are currently doing their last post from 3 years ago is titled "It's been a while" or something along those lines... I really do think about blogging often but I get easily distracted when I'm online. First I have to get on Pandora (favorite station at the moment) and find some music to listen to. Then I check the rabbit hole, also known as Facebook. I need to stop checking that on my computer, it's too easy to get lead down to watching cute animal videos or recipe tutorials etc. E-mail usually isn't a problem. I look for specific senders and then move on.
I have been pretty busy though, I bought a new sewing machine. A Juki TL2200QVP mini. I love it and have been doing a lot of piecing. I finished a table runner I started years ago that is red, blue and white and I'm glad it was finished before Summer got here. I also finished piecing a quilt top and have it all basted and ready to go I'm still trying to decide how I want to quilt it... I'm not so good at Free motion quilting yet and I really don't want to ruin it. Maybe I'll work on it this weekend. It's the largest quilt I've made to date and I'm pretty happy with it.

I started a Dresden Plate quilt using some vintage reprint fabric. I have all the blades sewn I just need to sew them together and stitch them on their background squares. Haven't decided if I'm going to use sashing in between the rows and columns...

And last in the quilting news department, I joined The Fat Quarter Shop's Mystery Designer Block of the Month Club. I got the block and made it that day! It was so much fun, I can't wait for next month's kit to come!

My week

2017-03-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

Weigh ins lately have been good. I was stalling for what seemed like the longest time and last week I weighed in 3 pounds lighter!

I just bought "The Obesity Code" by Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution by Dr. Richard K. Bernstein and I have been devouring them! So much good information and recourses! I will do a better and more detailed review when I finish them, so look for that!

On a crafting note, I have finally snatched a Hippo for Easter hank of sock yarn from Lolo Did It's shop. I've tried every Saturday for four weeks now! I love the idea of having a colorway for each of the major holidays! I also ordered a mini of her Violet Beauregarde to do knit the cuffs, heels and toes in. I think her yarn and color ways are just amazing! Some day I'll get brave and sell my hand dyed yarns too! Speaking of, I also just got my order of long hanks, I am going to attempt some self striping yarn. I saw someone knitting some socks that were in the Portland Trailblazer colors and I knew my sister would love to have something made from that. Well the yarn alone was $30.00 and it was custom so I would have to wait 4-6 weeks for it! No thanks! I think I'll give it a go. I hear Black is tricky to dye so it will be interesting. I think I will dye up mini's of it until I get it right.

I also got my Anne of Green Gables and Sookie St. James sock yarns in from The Yarn at Home Mom. She does beautiful work too and I've purchased from her multiple times!

The other day I went to one of my local fabric stores, Fabric Depot and bought some of the Anne of Green Gables fabric from Riley Blake as well as some of their Goldilocks and the Three Bears fabric.

Sneak peek of one of my project bags

I have already made one bag from the material and I just adore it!

I have a lot of ideas of what I want to make, finding the time and energy is the problem for the most part! Some day I'll have it all figured out and have lots of things in my shop for sale!

I am still going to school every day to help one of my kids in their class. He really does seem to need more one on one help. And he really lacks the motivation to do the work on his own. He loves to goof off and he is really easily distracted.

So that's all for now. I will hopefully have some things up in my Etsy shop this week, it may just be retired Stampin' Up! stamps and things so until then...

Have a great day

Over the Sea to Skye shawl pattern

2017-03-19T11:45:00.001-07:00

Some of you know that I'm a huge reader, especially of the historical variety. Fiction and non-fiction, I love them both! The whole of the United Kingdom's history is what I especially like to read about. Fewer of you know that I love the Outlander series. I was on Instagram the other day and saw someone's photo of a shawl they made. It's called "Over the Sea to Skye" which the theme song to Outlander is based and also a popular folk song in Scotland. It's about the bonny Prince Charlie and his escape after the second uprising of Scottish Highlanders in 1745. History, knitting and reading all in one go!

© Kalurah Hudson

So I bought the pattern and I'm now deciding on yarn choices. 

Weigh in's and crafty purchases

2017-02-28T17:16:00.000-08:00

On Tuesdays I weigh in. My younger sister and I are keeping each other accountable. So today, I weighed in at 188.8... 10.2 lbs lost in 7 weeks. I've been following the Keto diet guidelines and it has really helped my blood sugars stay even... if that's even really possible. Let's just say I haven't had a serious high or low since I started and that on it's own is a huge motivator for me. Slow weight loss is still weight loss. My A1C is 6.4 and that's the lowest it's been since my diagnosis three years ago. My insulin needs are much less and hopefully that will help with this stubborn weight too.

yarnsupply.com

Today I went to Michael's craft store and bought some yarn today, my boys have been asking forever for me to knit them socks so I figure I would. I bough some Patons Kroy Socks yarn in Blue Striped Ragg.

I've never used this yarn before but the colors are great and I was thinking I'll make everyone in the family the same pair so when we go hiking we'll all be wearing the same socks... LOL! I think I'll need three skeins of yarn to knit hubby's socks but I'm pretty sure my younger two will only need one each. My oldest is almost 10 and he and I can fit in the same size.

Click on photo to follow me on Instagram!

I also went to my local craft store today, Craft Warehouse They have a nice selection of most crafts and hobbies. I picked up some fat quarters and zippers to make some knitting project bags. My mom suggested that I put them on Etsy but I don't know if I'm that good of a sewer yet to put them up for sale.

"The Boys Who Lived" sock yarn

Sunday and Monday I bought some yarn from Etsy. One of the colorways I've wanted for a while but had to wait for a new batch to be dyed called "The Boy Who Lived" from Crazy Dog Yarns (currently sold out!)

"Anne of Green Gables" sock yarn

The other is named after one of my all time favorite heroines Anne Shirley, "Anne of Green Gables" from The Yarn at Home Mom shop. I can't wait to have them in my hot little hands and make some beautiful socks or what not... probably socks.

My life so far...

2017-02-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

In my adult life I have started blogging about 1,000 times. I had different blogs for different topics and moods... I've decided to start blogging in a way that is more like a journal. I can't juggle what to put in what blog and sometimes it feels repetitive and uninspiring. One place to put all my thoughts on the hobbies that I'm pursuing at the moment instead of a different one for paper crafting, knitting, my health journey and our homestead. It's too much and I found myself unmotivated to do any of them after a while.

My mother likes to write, my older sister has a degree in journalism, I think it's part of our DNA... I hated writing in school but I love reading, I loathe math but I find Biology interesting and I absolutely adore history!

Some of my current interests are knitting and spinning wool and fiber into yarn, quilting and sewing, learning to live with Type 1 Diabetes (I was diagnosed just over 2 years ago!), raising our animals on our little farm, bringing up three boys to be strong Godly men, being the wife to my husband that he deserves,

I enjoy watching knitting podcasts on YouTube and documentaries on history and historical figures. There have been a few series with Ruth Goodman and it's basically a year in the life of someone from the past, fascinating to see how their lives were in a actual setting and not a dramatic retelling. British history is something I especially love. I don't know what it is but I've been infatuated with British history and culture for as long as I can remember.

My friend Kara introduced me to the "Outlander" series and that brought back my love affair with reading. It's been so long since I've read anything that I couldn't put down! I love the romance of modern calligraphy, it seems to have taken off with in the last few years and I want to pick it up again. I took it a couple of terms back in college and love the new techniques using pens and markers.

I hope to use this blog mostly as a journal for me to keep but if I share something with you that makes you laugh, think or try then that would be amazing too!