Here’s Looking At You Kid!!! (A view into the life of a quilter, as seen through the eyes of her husband)

  A while back I asked my husband Shane to write a post about what ever he wanted, so long as it was related to my quilting or blog. Here is what he sent me, with no editing from me. In fact, I promised not to read it until it is posted so here it is. I didn't promise not to add pictures though! hehehehe

As many of you who follow my wife’s blog know, she has turned a hobby into a lifelong love. Cara has been into quilting for many years, but the level she has now reached borders more along the lines of quilters insanity, lol.  I often see her light up in ways that I never knew she could, when she gets a glimpse of a new fabric line or finds out she has new followers on her blog or on Twitter, which I must say makes me laugh when I hear her give a little giggle like and excited teenage girl who just got a smile form the Captain of the football team…yeah, you girls know that giggle as I’m sure many of you get that as well.

The level of creativity Cara has shown is something that I never knew she had within her until her love of quilting progressed into the form it is today of barely being on this side of the sane/insane line. I must say that hearing her get mad at her machine sounds a bit like me when I get mad at the referee for making a bad call against my Alabama Crimson Tide, and knowing how much passion she has gives me a feeling of happiness knowing she has something in her life that she is so damn good at and loves so much. I have been caught of guard more than one time due to her dropping a conversation in mid sentence and whipping out her idea book and penning a new idea that has hit her like a ton of bricks while we were driving down the road chatting.

Another great thing that has come out of Cara’s obsession is the amount of connections and friendships she has been making. For such a shy lady it can be hard to make new friends easily, but you’d never know Cara is the least bit shy when the topic of quilting or fabrics comes up in any form. In many ways it has brought new understanding between Cara and Little Bit, our challenging yet amazing 7 year old girl, who is always wanting to help Cara on her projects. Many times Little Bit has opened up to Cara about things when helping separate fabric for a new quilting project.The strengthening of Cara and Little Bit’s relationship due to having something that helps Little Bit's learn new things and have an open venue to talk to her Mommy openly and candidly is such a great thing and gives me some added peace of mind knowing we have other avenues to use to help her.

I am so very proud of Cara and what she has and will accomplish through her love of this amazing skill, and I look forward to many more years of seeing new projects and having to drop what I’m doing to hold them up for her to get a pic of because she is so excited to get the pic posted and share her new project with everyone she knows and has come in contact with through the crazy world of quilting. I am so very happy that she has something in her life that she loves and enjoys as much as she does quilting and everything involved with it. It doesn’t hurt that there’s always a nice new quilt to wrap up in while gaming or watching sports or a movie during the long cold Canadian winter either.

Now if you will allow me, I have a question to pose to all you brilliant and wonderful folks involved in the quilting world. Could ya’ll please find a way to make a silencer for those machines? LOL. I hope you all enjoyed my post and keep checking Cara’s blog as you never know when I might have to throw on a new apron and lay down some poses to help my beautiful wife get some good pics and hopefully some laughs as well. Take care, and as always GO BAMA, ROLL TIDE!!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

 It's that time of year again! All over blogland people are putting up quilts to show for the lovely Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival!

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 This time I've decided to re-show a quilt that has really stretched me. Not so much because of the piecing but because it represents a huge jump for me personally, and now professionally!

This is MVQ-Most Valuable Quilt and will be my first for sale pattern. I've done tutorials and free patterns for several months now, and will continue to, but this quilt is special for two main reasons. I had to get over my intense fear and contact a fabric company (Riley Blake) about doing a pattern with their fabrics for sale. This is huge for me as I have dealt with anxiety for many years and my quilting has always been a soothing thing. Here I was making it into something that I knew would cause me anxiety but decided I was going to do it anyways.
 The other reason this quilt is so special is that it is hanging in the Riley Blake Designs booth at Quilt Market, right now! My quilt! Eeek! 

This picture was sent to me by the awesome and amazing Niki of Stitchin Heaven!

 I quilted this on the long arm at my local sewing shop and am glad I did! It was a lot of fun and I tried new things getting it done.
 The more I quilt the more I find I can use it as a way to help me move on from a place where I let anxiety rule things in my life, and where I find confidence and friendship in  my work. And that is one of things quilting has always been about, community. And there is an abundance of that online!

Super Exciting!

 I have some awesome news!
I'm starting up a pattern company, CaraQuilts Designs! My first pattern will be released soon and is for Riley Blake Designs! While I used All-Stars 2, it would work well with any fabrics! This quilt is hanging at Quilt Market in the Riley Blake booth.

I  have two more coming out too, one that will work with any layer cake and some background yardage!

 Now to get them into some shops! :)

A sneak peek

 Here's a sneak peek at what should be my next Moda Bake Shop project. It uses Paradise Batiks and Bella Solids and you are going to LOVE it!

And for cuteness sake here is a fabric loving puppy.

The ones on the back of the couch are Moda Snuggles, which is what I back my quilted wraps with.

Winner of Fandango!

Sorry about the delay but things are CRAZY right now. I'll share a bit later on why, other then the house, and all the other stuff you already now about!
The winner of the Fandango giveaway, according to the Random Number generator is...pbach1! Send me you address at caraquilts at gmail.com and I will send you out your squares!

Yeah so....

Guess who just bought a house?

That would be ME! Last night Shane and I got the awesome news that our offer, ok second offer, had been accepted on a house! Which we BOTH love! And my mother loves! Yes, I took my mom with me to look at the house.

The picture is awful, and taken from the listing, but there it is!
It is perfect for us, essentially just move in and live. It is in a new school district, shocking I know. I will have a quilting room, which laminate hardwood (is that even a real thing?) so hopefully I will stop destroying vaccuum cleaners with my threads. It is going to be so awesome to have some space! And a little yard!
  So if I'm not around much in the next little while you will know why. We take possession November 30th, and are planning to keep our apartment until the end of the year to make it an easy transition.
The only things that have to be changed is the paint in the master bedroom, Shane's insistence, and what will be my sewing room as it is lime green, the exact shade as Little Bit's crocs, yes that bright, oh my god I can see you a mile away green. Everything else is either good or livable.

 Since I unloaded all the badness awhile ago on you guys I thought I'd share this wonderful news! It is still conditional on the home inspection but other then that it is great! Oh I'm just vibrating with excitement!

New tutorial!

 I've got another tutorial up over at Moda Bake Shop. This time I made a cover for your cold, ugly filing cabinet! It has pockets and a flap so everything is still easy to get to, just prettier!

The additional patterns are available here. These are the extra two 29" square patterns for the corners.

Because I feel so blessed to be able to do what I do for Moda, I want to be able to share with you! Leave me a comment here and I will draw a winner for 42 squares (cut by me) of Fandango! Closes Wednesday.

My bad!

 I was supposed to do the draw for my Thankful giveaway yesterday but got too busy with Thanksgiving! So without further ado the winner of 2 Essence charm packs and some yardage is Lis!

Lis send me an e-mail to caraquilts at gmail with your address and I'll send those out to you!

A bit more and some Autumn

  I first want to say thank you to everyone who commented or e-mailed about Little Bit and the situation with her school. I cannot tell you how much your words have meant to me and my family. If I haven't gotten back to you I'm sorry but please know I have read and appreciated your support very much.
 
  I've managed to get control of my emotions mostly, and the thing that did it was seeing a beautiful view and being able to appreciate that, reminded me that even with the crap that has happened Little Bit and I are still able to enjoy it so things will be alright.

 She will be changing schools and we are not letting the issue drop but I am going to try and not let this do more damage to our family then it already has.
    Little Bit will be seeing a social worker on Tuesday to try to discover how far things went, whether more then one of the boys touched her and what she is processing and how. This will be turned over to the community police officer attached to the school to do with as they will. I am not having her forced to go over and over things, we will try one time and from there will focus solely on helping her get over her fears and finding the best school situation possible for her.

Now some zen.

 

Speechless Two, only not so speechless (long)

  Warning: This is a long, totally not quilt related personal post. It's also all over the place, kind of like my mind right now.

  So I went in to the school today to speak with the principle and teachers. The excuse? The boys hadn't admitted the whole story, and huge surprise the speech and cognitively impaired child didn't just articulate what had happened. And why not tell me? Oh they were still "investigating" and had spoken to the FOUR boys parents. Oh and they were going to call me....today?
Now that they have been informed of the severity, they will again call parents, call in the community service officer from the police to talk to them, and not sure what else.   I'll give you they seemed genuinely surprised but not to fully understand the stupidity of their actions.

Ugh. I'm not happy. I don't know what to do or think right now.

We're not finished with this by a long shot. We've still yet to speak to the superintendent, and don't worry I will be filling various complaints as well. We are not going to let this go. I've split my thinking almost, of the incident and the the school's f-up, as two almost separate things, both of which  put Little Bit as a victim.

Little Bit is still afraid to go to school. I'm taking her in tomorrow to visit with her resource teacher. From there Little Bit is going to be the judge whether she stays or comes home. We will be moving soon, or yeah that was good news for another day, and it will now be to a different school district.

I've been promised that any and every incident involving Little Bit will be reported to me to make any judgment calls on, not them.
What else? She's going to meet with the social worker, with me/hubby there.

 I'm furious, sad, hurting, betrayed and beyond being able to trust these people again. I bound 2 wraps trying to block some of this out. I know this is about Little Bit not me but I can't help but feel so much too. And I guess holding it all in so I can be her advocate is stressful but necessary.

How can these people possibly think questioning the suspects without the victim's side of things would possibly arrive at the accurate results??? And because of their complete and utter lack of sense in this she has had to live with this for two days, including be forced to take the bus and be in school with these boys. I'd made her take the bus because I didn't know, but now I'm so worried it may have hurt her more. With a child like Little Bit it is so hard to know how things will go, because of her differences she may be able to get past it easier and with less damage then a "normal'' child, or it may make it so much worse. And I don't know how to figure that out except to wait and see. Making a deal could make it worse right now, but I can't ignore it either.

I could just scream right now. I know I'm being vague in details and that is just to protect Little Bit. It is easy to figure out who we are and I don't know where this is going and don't want to potentially cause more problems. All I will say is considering it was all second graders, four boys and my daughter, it is pretty bad. And if they were 12 years old or more they could be facing serious charges. Little Bit seems ok so long as she doesn't think she has to go back to school right now. She even wants to go to see her bio dad, which is really rare. So it's not ok but it's not super traumatized either.

Is there a wall I could pound my head against? It'd feel better then trying to figure all this out.

Speechless

 I'm just overwhelmed with emotion right now and need to share.

My cognitively delayed, speech impaired second grade daughter was convinced to do something at school by a group of boys from her class on Tuesday. It was investigated to some extent but no action taken. AND I WAS NOT INFORMED. I had to find out from another mom who called me, tonight, wondering if I needed to talk because her daughter had told her about, so the other children knew. One of the boys takes her bus to and  from school.
  This school has ignored bullying and other instances of Little Bit being abused because of her differences. But this is just outrageous that I was not even informed so I can at least help her deal with and understand.
 I'm going in tomorrow morning with my husband, and my mother to get the principle to "explain" what happened, why I was not informed, and what was done. Which she will have no possible acceptable explanation. So from there we will be going to the board, and who knows from there.
  I'm so worried about what if this has happened before? worse? What is going through her mind?? What message has been sent to all of the children about getting away with things? Is my daughter now an "officially" acceptable child to bully, abuse, and harass???
  And I feel so much worse because she had not wanted to go to school on Tuesday because she was scared of other children and I told her she needed to go and to just tell a teacher if they weren't nice to her, and I sent a note to her teacher.

I feel so many things right now. I'm going to go stab bind one of my quilted wraps for a while.

Totally cool feeling!

  The Thankful giveaway can be found here.

   Meghan at Thrifty Quilter made a quilt using my Scattered Prayers tutorial over at Burgundy Buttons and it looks fantastic!
This is the first time I've gotten to see a quilt made by one of my patterns and I have to say it is one cool feeling. So thanks Meghan for sharing! And I absolutely LOVE the purple background!
 

Go give Meghan some love!

Thank you!

 Thank you all my wonderful friends who read my last post and left me a message! I appreciate you seeing I was having an attack of self doubt and reassuring me. I feel so much better knowing I'm really not talking to myself here! In appreciation I'm going to do a giveaway! I've closed the comments for the last post and took all the names from those who commented and have put them in the tea pot and I will add any names who comment on this post.

What is up for grabs? How about two Essence charm packs, and about 22" of yardage! Such yummy fall colours. I've made a few thing out of this line and loved them all.

So just leave a comment here to win. I'll draw on October 11, which is Canadian Thanksgiving because I'm so thankful for all my online friends!