Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

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  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

4 years ago.  I realized this week that when Will was Ellie’s age, he was crawling and pulling up.  Ellie looked like she’d crawl early, then decided she was perfectly happy just rolling everywhere.

(And doesn’t this picture totally look like a fat Ellie?!)

Our house is boring.

Will.  Who spends a great deal of time discussing whether or not his house is boring or “the neighborhood friends’ house” is “cool yet.”  The 6 year old next door is to thank for this.  He has told Will on numerous occasions that our house is “cool” and his is “boring” whenever Will wants to play THERE instead of HERE.  What makes our place so cool?  Two words:  Nintendo Wii.

two cups of tea and a 10 minute nap later…

I’ll say something nice about Will.  One of my favorite of his phrases is “nice and cozy and snuggly.”  He says it so nicely, too.  Just hearing him say it makes me want to take a nap.  (Although that doesn’t say much.  At this point drinking coffee makes me want to take a nap.)

oooh–pretty

I love ripping out pages from Pottery Barn catalogs as inspiration for future quilts (especially the kids stuff–they have such adorable applique quilts).  I love this color combo:

Kelly Henry - Traci–Super excited about this blog! Thanks for the props on the Star Trek quilt…still one of my proudest accomplishments! I’ll call you tomorrow and ask me about my new co-workers and what they think about my love of Star Trek. Love you and can’t wait to see what you do!

Susanne - I love this color combination too!

Is having one of those days of limited patience where I desperately wish Will didn’t have to say “Mommy?” requiring a “what?” before he says whatever it is he wants to say every 2 minutes.  Who else would he be talking to?!  I’m right here—just SAY WHATEVER NONSENSE YOU WANT TO SAY.  Because it’s all nonsense. 

“Mommy?”  “What?”  “I want to have little boy workers.” 

30 seconds later.

“Mommy?”  “What?”  “Ellie has a frog in her throat.”

10 seconds later.

“Mommy?”  “What?”  “Did you draw this when you were a baby?”  “No—you drew it yesterday.”  “NO—you drew it when you were a little baby.” 

I’m going to check myself into one of those monasteries where the monks have taken a vow of silence. 

up next – a tablecloth for the kitchen table

A couple of weeks ago I recovered our disgusting kitchen chairs in this cute oilcloth stripe I found at our cute local store.  I’ve been so happy with them, but finding a tablecloth to match has been a little tricky.  I found one at Target that works okay, but there was definitely room for improvement.  I looked for the coordinating fabric in a non-laminated version, and found some on sale (!) on Etsy.  Bingo!  I totally love the floral–totally looks like a tablecloth from the 50s.  Now the only problem is deciding how to do them, if I want to keep large pieces and do just a 4″ border around the edge or if I should do something patchwork.  I’m so in love with those florals I’ll have a hard time cutting into them.  I’m hoping to get two reversible tablecloths out of this fabric, so four designs total.

Mom - Love it! (Think Meryl Streep feeding baby in Heartburn)

Laurie - Hi Traci-
Sorry to be lame and comment on your post in response to your comment on my blog – but I couldn’t figure out another way to contact you! I do love Nicey Jane – and the chair looks great. I would vote for large patchwork squares- keep it simple so that you can enjoy the look of the fabric designs.

You asked about my Good Folks quilt on my blog – that fabric is not voile – so it was very easy to work with. I bought a teeny bit of the Little Folks voile – but there is no way I am going to quilt with it. Too slippery, expensive, etc. But wait till November – Anna Maria Horner’s new line is coming out in a quilting weight cotton (wooohhoooo!) as well as voile and velveteen.