A Special Day with Lily

Last Saturday, my favorite 9-year old came to spend the day with Mike and me. Lily is my friend Jeff and Dorothy's daughter and we've been friends since she was a little tiny baby. Lily loves owls, so she has a vast collection of owl pillowcases as well as an owl quilt that I've made for her. The last time I visited her house, she showed me her special drawer full of pillowcases and we counted them. There were 18, predominantly owl fabric, of course.

I purchased two craft projects from Joann Fabrics to do with her. The last time she visited, she wanted to learn to sew, but I wasn't sure if she had liked it that much. She was only seven and I think that she found the sewing machine a little intimidating. She did enjoy pinning.

First, we made a pom pom owl. This was pretty easy to do. It has a felt base and you apply a sticky-backed adhesive to which you apply the pom poms. Once all the pom poms are in place, you iron it to make the glue permanent. Then you stuff it and pull it closed with a drawstring at the bottom.

Lily had a lot of fun making this and she was excited to add another owl to her collection.

Next, we worked on a friendship bracelet with safety pins and beads. This kit was a little harder to do because it required some manual dexterity to thread the beads onto the safety pins. I opened and closed all the safety pins for Lily. They were a little hard to close after you put the beads onto them. I also strung the finished pins onto the elastic cord. The cord that came with the kit was really flimsy, so if we decide to make another bracelet, I'll buy something stronger.

Lily wanted Mike to join in on our fun.

Here is Lily modeling her bracelet. She also wants you to notice her special pug t-shirt that she wore for her visit to the Pug Pack.

Here's a close-up.

We finished the craft projects way more quickly than I had anticipated. After Mike made Lily a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and we took the pugs for a walk, Lily insisted that we visit my quilt studio to make some pillowcases. I warned Lily that the Studio was kind of a mess, but she told me not to worry about it.

When she saw the piles of fabric on the floor, Lily dove right in. She told me that her Mom likes everything neat and organized (Note to self: do NOT invite Dorothy to visit), and that she would fold the fabric while I made her some more pillowcases. She also insisted that we take "before" and "after" photos. Lily's Dad is a photographer, so I think she gets that from him.

WARNING! If you are excessively neat and tidy, you may want to stop reading now.

Here is Lily among the storage pile on the floor... Lily is wearing a silver sparkly bow on her forehead. It's important to look nice when you are cleaning.

Why yes, there is a rug under there! Now I can cancel my casting call with Hoarders...

Lily did A LOT of folding.

Lily took this photo of me making pillowcases for her.

Here are Lily and her Mom with Lily's five new pillowcases. There are two flannel owl pillowcases, a goldfish pillowcase and two "weather" pillowcases. Lily loves studying about the weather and wants to be a meteorologist when she grows up. I made her a lightening pillowcase and a rain cloud pillowcase for her new weather collection.

Lily had a GREAT time folding all the fabric. We had a lively discussion about all the different prints, designs, and colors. She chose the goldfish fabric from the big pile that she was sorting. She also went through my box of owl fabric and chose two more owl fabrics for pillowcases. Lily was fascinated by sorting through the box and she pointed out the various prints that I had used in her pillowcases and quilt. We decided that next I should make her a large floor pillow with all the leftover owl fabrics and maybe an owl tote bag too.

Lily wants to come back next weekend to sort all the fabric that she folded and put it into boxes. I may start renting her out to my Brown Bagger quilting friends. She will work for pillowcases!

Here I am with my darling girl. I can't believe how big she is getting!

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy