The word of the day is Enjoy!
SAY WHAT??? Another Sew It - Show It Challenge??? Well, shut my mouth!
When Joan of Moosestash Quilting challenged us this month to come up with some kind of project featuring words I almost decided to pass. What sort of quilting project features words? I've made quilts with quotes before but I just wasn't getting inspired.
Then I saw this little magnet on my fridge -- "How Do You Feel Today?" An idea was born!
When my kids were little they couldn't always find the right word to explain how they were feeling. If they had possessed a poster (or quilt) to point at to show me how they felt, we might have communicated better. Of course I had boys, so their Emoticons would have included Grumpy, Stinky, Indifferent, Poopy, and Rabid. Just sayin'.
So for my project, I made a small emoticon quilt to hang up in a child's room.
I only chose 9 basic emotions, but there are dozens more I could have picked.
To save time, I decided to embroider the words explaining the expression. I used raw-edge machine stitching to outline the faces and features, using a flesh-colored zig-zag stitch for their noses.
If I had included an emoticon for myself, it would have been Exhausted. Although it's a tiny quilt, only about 33" x 37", it was time consuming to draw cut, paste, sew, embroider and embellish each 8" block. The things I talk myself into! But I love the finished result, and it will look cute in my grandkids' toy room.
And then another idea came to me. I have been wanting to make placemats for kids for a long time. I thought these would make great Christmas gifts for my sons and their little ones, but little ones don't stay little long, and that time has passed. Still, it was a cute idea.
I call these "Yummy in My Tummy Placemats." I have a dozen more, but I just didn't have the time to make them all. My reasoning behind these placemats was to encourage kids to eat their dinner. There is no incentive on earth that will encourage a kid to eat broccoli, but a mom does get tired of saying, "Just one more bite, please, honey?"
These were a lot of fun to make, but also time consuming.
I made 4 of these placemats to encourage kids to eat . . . and 2 to remind me to step away from the table. But just like the broccoli, I would need a lot more persuasion to skip dessert. Not all of us have Joan's willpower!
