My Pinterest Interest...

My pinterest interest is more like an addiction...It's sort of funny that I just love to pin away and dream about all of the craft things and/or sumptuous foods I would like to make.  In my pinterest profile I say that I'm not a crafty as pinterest makes me feel...I bet many of you probably feel the same way.  I read articles about how to NOT try to be pinterest perfect.  Well, I don't have to try that hard but I still feed my addiction and escape to a pinterest perfect world far, far away from mine own...

I have attempted several craft projects (other than quilts) which I found perusing pinterest.  The one project that is not a quilt actually turned out super cute...I have an extra set of china after inheriting my Granny's china.  I love the set so much that I couldn't bear to get rid of it so I started using it in craft and decorating projects...It was a fairly simple project of super gluing candlesticks to plates in order to create serving dishes...that's it and here's how mine turned out...super cute, right?

Lexie's Supergirl Quilt

This Supergirl Rag Quilt was made for the daughter of some dear friends of mine.  I originally met Lexie's father at work.  He was my sergeant on a couple of different shifts/assignments.  His wife decided I must be alright when I went above and beyond to save a cat and a kitten.  My sergeant and his wife are avid animal lovers who love both cats and dogs equally.  They also love comic books and superheroes as well.

So when my sergeant's wife had a beautiful baby girl named Lexie, I knew I wanted to make something for them.  My first attempt to make Lexie something was a newborn dress.  It was supposed to be so cute.  However, I don't really know how to sew so I ended up scrapping that idea after a few unsuccessful attempts.  One day I was shopping in the fabric store and ran across this incredibly cute Supergirl fabric.  Right then and there I knew I would make Lexie a rag quilt.  Lexie's mother told me that she absolutely loves this quilt and will not sleep without it.  I've offered to add more fabric to the quilt as Lexie grows but for now she's not willing to give it up!  Lexie is a precious girl~

Colter's Toy Box 2014

Colter's Toy Box 2014 was a blast!  I made four quilts this year and made a rag quilt out of Choctaw High School t shirts.  Colter's Toy Box is based in Choctaw, Oklahoma and many, if not the majority, of the attendees went to Choctaw.  I got to see many friends and made some new friends along the way.  We took our son, Landry so that he could play with his cousin, Elliana.  Elliana's brother, Lucas was in attendance as well but he's a newborn so he didn't get to do a lot of playing.

OKC Thunder T-shirt Rag Quilt

Oklahoma Sooners T-shirt Rag Quilt

Choctaw High School Yellowjackets T-shirt Rag Quilt

Oklahoma State University T-shirt Rag Quilt

Landry's Nursery

When I found out I was having a boy, Landry Lawson, I tossed around several ideas for his nursery theme.  I wasn't interested in anything too specific so I ultimately decided on a Nature and Animals theme.  As far as the nature portion of the nursery, I wanted greens and browns.  We purchased a tree wall sticker, apple green wall color, brown glider and futon.  I then began making various items for the room.  My mother in law made an afghan, my sister in law won a quilt and ginormous teddy bear at an auction.

I made the fleece fish hanging on the wall because my husband and I like to fish.  We are hoping Landry will love to fish as much as we do.  Notice the tree wall sticker.  I love that thing but keeping it on the wall has been a challenge.  I keep having to add tape to the back here and there.  The "Landry" banner was created by my sister law.  She's uber talented.  This picture is our first day home from the hospital.  The beautiful lady in the picture is my mother.

This beautiful afghan was made by my mother in law.  I LOVE the camo squares in the corners of the afghan.  Gran also made some precious pajamas and outfits for Landry as well as some hats and burp cloths. 

I made this quilt as part of the animals theme.  It's a dog park with green, brown and white coordinating fabrics.  I wanted all types of animals represented and not just a jungle theme or farm animal theme.

I made this Jungle themed quilt using two different kinds of children's jungle animal fabric and again using green, brown and white coordinating fabrics.

These pics are of Landry laying on his Dog Park Quilt wearing a white onesie with the ties my sister in law made (the same sister in law who made the Landry banner).  I will post more pics of items made for Landry when I find them.  I have taken thousands of photos of my little manchild~

My New Life...

I write this post after not blogging for over year.  I'm not sure where the time has gone.  Well, that's not so true.  I became a Mom.  Trust me, I do not believe (as others have implied) I am the only woman to have ever become a mother.  However, my road to mother hood was, for lack of a better phrase, a long and winding road.  

As a child, I always wanted to be a Mom but often could not picture myself in that role.  I sometimes wondered if I would be good enough (a thought that I often have about many things).  Two decades into my adulthood my thoughts changed from "am I good enough" to "will I even have a chance to be a Mom?"  Throw in two decades of failed relationships which left me believing I wouldn't become a Mom unless I adopted or became a foster parent.

There was something else that stood in my way of becoming a Mom (other than myself), my career.  At 30 years old, I became a police officer.  Being a police officer was something I  dreamed of for many years and I was beyond giddy (annoyingly so).  I was in a serious relationship when I went through the police academy.  The academy was tough and was all I thought about for several months.  Even though I was engaged, I could not even begin to think about becoming a Mom.  After completing the academy, field training and my probationary period as an officer, thoughts of being a Mom were that, just thoughts, distant thoughts.

A few years went by and I realized the person I was in a relationship with was "not that into me."  I bought my first house all by myself and I was so proud.  I loved that little house and I loved my job. I was yet again single and living on my own.  I really wanted to have it all.  Marriage, family and a career that I loved.  Soon after, I quickly realized a pattern in my life.  If I wasn't happy in my personal life, my career was going great but when my career wasn't going well, my personal life showed promise.

It wasn't until I was 38 years old that I met my husband, Joe.  I had known him for over 10 years and it was kind of funny because he actually worked with my ex-fiance.  We dated for a year and a half before getting married.  I was 40 and he was 45.  When we were talking about getting married we also talked about children.  Joe did not have children either and we both talked about how much we would like to try to have a baby.  We married and immediately started trying.

I believed we were pregnant right away but that didn't work out.  We continued trying but to no avail.  My doctor told me that children were not in the cards for us so we gave up.  We had a stressful go of our marriage at first.  I had quit my job in order to go back to school.  Just prior to getting married, I graduated with my bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice.  Ten days later, I began graduate school (an accelerated program).  Also, we realized that Joe's father wasn't doing well and we were not certain how much longer we were going to have him.

During the second year of our marriage, I lost two family members and we also lost Joe's father.  We thought about adopting but were told that we would have to wait two years after a major life event (losing Joe's Dad).  Two months later, we lost our 15 year Miniature Pinscher/Chihuahua (Pinschuahua), Lucy.  We knew she was sick but with medications we had her two years longer than originally expected.  Putting Lucy down was a horrible experience and it all occurred a week prior to my completing graduate school.  I'm not certain how I finished (with a 4.0 GPA) but I graduated in August 2011.

The plan was to let me take a break from looking for a job until the beginning of 2012.  Our anniversary is in January so to celebrate we took our two dogs camping.  This was a crazy trip that included our puppy escaping from our trailer resulting in a 30 minute chase, random gunfire from a competition near the campsite, a severe thunderstorm ripping the cover off of the outside vent of the bathroom, the flooding of the trailer because of the missing cover which eventually led to the puppy peeing on our bed because we couldn't take her outside because of the storm.  The next weekend I staged a redo of our anniversary by planning a 'stay-cation.'  Nice dinners, movies, no chores, no phones, just a nice peaceful romantic weekend.

Eighteen days later, I wasn't feeling well and started to do the math.  Four pregnancy tests later, we are sitting at my doctors office hearing the words I had so longed to hear.  "You're pregnant" said our family doctor.  I said, "but I'm 42 years old" to which he replied, "I know you are 42 years old."  Joe looked like he was going to pass out but soon was asking the doctor if he was sure because the test the doctor gave me looked suspiciously like the three home pregnancy tests I had just taken in the last 24 hours.  He was sure.

Fast forward, 39 weeks and a bunch of doctor's visits later, I gave birth to baby boy Landry Lawson Hackfeld weighing in at 10 pounds 4 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long.  My miracle baby looked like a three month old compared to all of the other babies in the nursery.  Proud daddy bragged about how much Landry weighed when the other fathers asked.  Some give me props at delivering such a big baby but I tell them after the last sonogram the day before he was estimated to weigh in at 12 pounds, 10 ounces!

Words cannot describe the joy, love, terror, exhaustion, etc. I felt after Landry was born.  I had waited so long and he was finally here with me, us.  I had Joe turn the guest room into a nursery, I made two quilts, a fleece blanket as well as a couple dozen burp cloths.  People were so generous with giving me their sons clothes that I didn't have to buy clothes until he was 18 months old.  I did splurge on a few outfits here and there but I felt blessed to have so much.

Then we got home from the hospital and the exhaustion kicked in.  Everyone told me to sleep when the baby sleeps.  I previously wondered when am I going to clean the house, cook dinner, take a shower?  Now I laugh and began to sleep when he would sleep which wasn't very often.  Showers even happened less often sometimes brushing my teeth even less.  I look at my blog and realize I haven't posted in a year.  I think back to the last year and a half and wonder where has the time gone!  So quickly!

I came up with the name Mitzi's Makings to blog about crafts I make.  Well, I'm going to break the rules a bit and post pics of the baby we made and not any projects.  I am making a promise to blog more often now that I have some "sense of direction" after finally getting some good sleep.

Dinosaur Quilt

As far as crafting is concerned, I love doing all types of crafting projects but I have to admit I spend a majority of time making rag quilts.  Last year I got the idea to do an online auction for a rag quilt to help out a friend.  My friend is a former co-worker of mine and is battling stage IV breast cancer for the second time.  

I announced the auction on facebook and asked several friends to share my status in hopes of generating interest.  The auction started off slow with a few offers but in the end and at the last minute a wonderful woman made a bid of $200!  This woman is a family friend of my husband who lost her young son to cancer so the bid is very bittersweet.  My mother in law found out about her bid and added $50 to the total.  

I informed our friend of her win and asked her what kind of rag quilt she wanted.  She eventually chose a dinosaur theme for a new nephew.  I found the cutest material and set out to make the rag quilt.  I also tried a new technique of sewing quilt squares on top of quilt squares.  I hope the technique is visible in the attached photograph.

Colter's Toy Box

Well, I did it!  I completed four quilt, three (technically four) rag purses and upcycled a t shirt in two weeks.  Each project was a labor of love and I couldn't stop 'foofing' on the quilts even though they were about to be auctioned!  It's kind of funny that when I made the rag purses, one of them had a very minor mistake so I decided that I liked the mistake and kept that purse for myself!  Ha!

I made three t shirts quilts for the auction and one standard rag quilt.  The standard rag quilt was made to represent the NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.  The other t shirts quilts were of the Oklahoma Sooners, Oklahoma State Cowboys and another OKC Thunder quilt.  I had an amazing experience buying the t shirts for the OU and OSU quilts. 

Since I live in Texas it is very difficult to find OU and OSU t shirts so during a trip to Oklahoma (during the tornado outbreaks, different story), I went to a consignment shop named Bargain Lady and was met at the door by the two sweetest girls.  I told them I was shopping for OU and OSU shirts.  I told them I needed a lot of them and they inquired what for so I told them I was making quilts for a children's cancer charity.  The two of them searched the store with me as well as the manager.  They gave me all kinds of discounts and even lowered the price on one shirt over 90%.  They were awesome!

Then I began shopping on eBay for more t shirts when I began auctioning for an OU t shirt from a lady named Kasie.  She contacted me about a mistake in the listing about the size of the shirt.  I told her that the size of the shirt didn't matter since I was making a quilt.  She asked was the quilt was for and I told her about the charity.  She refunded my money as well as the postage, sent two extra t shirts because her husband is from Oklahoma as well as the good cause.  I sent her a pic of the quilt and the results of the auction.  The OU quilt sold for $500 and the items I made generated $2025 for my cousin's charity.  I'm so excited for the children who will benefit from this money!

I had a great time at the event where I saw friends and family I haven't seen for such a long time.  I'm posting several pictures of the items that I made and sold for the charity.  Now I'm auctioning a custom made rag quilt for a former co worker of mine that is battling her second round of stage 4 breast cancer.  There is an online auction for the quilt and so far the bid is $200.  The auction ends at 10 pm on Friday, June 21st...my mother in law is adding $50 to the final bid amount.  Let's hope we can get a whole bunch of cash to help her with the costs!