checking in with my NewFO and my quilt along square

When Jo posted the patterns for the Quilt Square Quilt Along, I only ordered the first one. If I didn't keep up, I wasn't going to let myself buy the rest. I tend to start these quilt alongs with good intentions, and then I fall behind, and then I move on to something else entirely...

It was a good strategy. I only got this month's block done in time because I really want the rest of the patterns for the year.



I had to take a second picture with something in it beside the quilt just to show you how TINY those triangles are! And there are so many of them.... I wound up scavenging pieces that I'd already cut for two other projects, then cutting them down to size. There are some bits of my drab postage stamp pieces in here, and some bits of my spiral log cabin. But that's okay -- I had extra for the postage stamps and needed to cut more log cabin strips anyway.

Head over to Jo's Country Junction to see everyone else's finished blocks. I can't believe she did this one twice!

My NewFO for February is the drab postage stamp quilt. You can read how I got started on this one in this post.



After making the two drab lap quilts, I wanted a big one for me to snuggle up under. This project is perfect for mindless piecing. And for using up fabric that didn't play nicely with the rest of my stash.

Now that I've got the pieces cut for my March NewFO, I want to work on them both. And I've got a whole list of projects I want to get done in March. There might not be enough days in the months for it all!

Check out the NewFO linky party today at Cat Patches.

Leap Day Giveaway -- Want to Carve Some Pumpkins?

I know -- it's February and not October -- but if you win, you'll have time to get a project done for Halloween!



The Prize: One set of die cut pumpkins, backed with fusible web and ready for you to carve for your own quilt, and coordinating yellow fabric for their faces. The quilt only uses nine of the larger pumpkins, but I'm giving you five each of the two larger pumpkins and two of the little ones. Just because they're cute.



Pumpkin Carving is a free pattern available right here on my blog for anyone who wants to give it a try.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post on February 29. I don't want to make anyone think to hard to figure out time zones so just do it on Leap Day where you are. I'll use the random number generator to pick a winner.

Head over to Such a Sew and Sew to enter the other Leap Day Giveaways, and if you haven't entered already, check out my Back to Charm School Giveaway. Happy Leap Day!

yummy swirls of fabric

Aren't they pretty? I could just stare and drool, but I know exactly what they're going to be and need to start cutting them up.



And, no, they're not all going into the same quilt! My daughter was really questioning my judgement when she saw me open the box.



Have you heard about the Leap Day Giveaway? My giveaway will run from midnight to midnight, so make sure you check back and enter.

design wall Monday

My design wall, which isn't an actual wall, is full this week!

I'm making good progress on the second little quilt for the Quilt Square Quilt Along --




I've got Do Not Put Your Elbows on the Table from Back to Charm School cut and machine stitched and all ready for the hand stitched portion. (If you don't have a copy of that book yet, make sure to go enter my Back to Charm School Giveaway) --



And I had to make a test block for Never Leave the Table Before the Other Guests. --



Would you believe that those gorgeous blue and gold blocks are only 3" square? I'm going to start ransacking my stash for gold and mustardy yellow prints as soon as I get the chance.

I've also been cutting stacks and stacks of squares for the Cheddar Bow Ties and my March NewFO --



All while I wait for fabric for two new projects!

To see more projects, head over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

waiting patiently

The fabric for my big new projects should be here by the end of the day on Monday, so I'm finishing up -- and starting -- a few last things before it gets here and I plunge in.



I've got the last squares cut for the drab postage stamp quilt and I'm sure I mean it this time. I cut six hundred 2" squares out of the thousand I'm going to need for another project. While I was messing with the two inch strips for that, I cut a bunch of pieces for cheddar bow ties. And I finally got started on this month's square for the Quilt Square Quilt Along. Those bear paws are so tiny!

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yard
Fabric Used year to Date: 14.5 yards
Added this Week: 8 yards
Added Year to Date: 28 yards
Net Added for 2012: 13.5 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times. And don't forget to enter the Back to Charm School Giveaway.

Back to Charm School blog hop and giveaway

I buy different quilting books for different reasons. Sometimes I want to learn a new technique. Sometimes there are enough great projects in the book to justify buying it -- and now and then, it's just one project that I want really, really bad.

And there are the books I buy because they're total eye candy and I want to haul them around the house and drool over them. Back to Charm School is one of those books. If Mary at Country Threads hadn't sent me a copy to review, I would've absolutely bought it for myself! You could win the second copy they sent me, so make sure you read down to the end of the post to find out how to enter.



I can see myself making fourteen of the twenty quilts in the book. Just look at these little baskets!



I'm already making Do Not Put Your Elbows on the Table, which combines machine and hand piecing. The directions just made it seem so possible...and I had a charm pack with no plans for it.




Next on my to-do list from this book is Never Leave the Table Before the Other Guests. I was sucked in by the fabrics in the photo -- and then I read the pattern and realized that each 16 patch is made from two charm squares -- they're itty bitty!




Other things to love about this book? The instructions are clear and easy to follow. If there's a particular technique involved, like the set in seams in Leave Your Napkin on the Chair if You're Coming Back to the Table, or the hand piecing for
Do Not Put Your Elbows on the Table, it's explained right there in the pattern. And did I mention how cute those pattern names are?



Although the patterns are written for charm packs, the instructions for each one include a "making do" section that tells you what you can use instead. Sometimes you do need 5" squares and sometimes it's 2 1/2" strips or scraps of a certain size. For a scrap quilter like me, that's very helpful!

Want to win your own copy of Back to Charm School? Ten other bloggers are also hosting giveaways, so there are lots of chances to win!

To enter my giveaway, just leave a comment on this post before 11:59pm Friday March 2. I'd love it if you wanted to follow my blog, but with Google Friend Connect going away soon (not for my blog, but I don't know how that will affect my readers), I know lots of you are changing what you follow and how you do it. No one needs the extra stress right now! I'll use the random number generator and choose a winner.

Good luck!

more little baby quilts

It's Friday, time to show off my finishes for the week. I'm still loving the teeny tiny NICU quilts. I got all three of these quilted and bound in one night, without even working too hard, and I've already started on a couple of new ones.

Here's a smaller, less scrappy version of the bloodthirsty baby quilt. This one wasn't out for blood and went together without a hitch.



This one was an experiment. I still can't decide if I like it or not, so I'm planning on trying it again as a controlled scrappy.



This is the one that came before the experiement. I thought it might have too much white, but it's growing on me.



This post is linked to Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew and Tell, and Can I get a Whoop-Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Make sure to come back tomorrow. It's my turn to give away a copy of Back to Charm School.

I won fabric!

My picture of it isn't as nice as the picture in the contest post, but there's a lot of very nice fabric here and as soon as I get a chance I'm going to hack it into little pieces and use it in my scrap quilts.



See all of those triangles? I'm just betting they were cut with the 3" HST AccuQuilt die, which means I could cut more from my own stash and make something really big and wonderful. Or just make something little and wonderful. Maybe another scrappy baby Swoon?

Thanks so much to Kelly at Blue Bird Sews for hosting this great giveaway and to Lucy at Charm About You for coming up with the whole idea for the Fugly Fabric Giveaways!

New fabric is a happy distraction after my awful morning at the dentist's office. The Novocain has worn off and they've offered to call in a prescription for pain pills. I'm trying to tough it out, but I'm not a very happy camper right now.

Make sure to come by Saturday -- It's my turn to give away a copy of Back to Charm School.

hoarding cheap pens

I used to buy expensive (meaning about a buck a piece) pens. I'd buy one pen and use it until the ink was gone and my big goal was to someday splurge on a box of a dozen of them, but somehow I never got around to it.

Now that I could buy a box of expensive pens if I wanted to, I've got kids. Every pen I own has been taken apart or hidden in the couch cushions and many days I'm lucky if I can find a broken yellow crayon to jot something down with.

I started buying pens by the dozen years ago, but they're the cheapest ones I can find. Those cheap pens leak. Sometimes they don't work at all. If they do work, they get taken apart.

About a month ago, I found the perfect pens. They're not the cheapest ones out there, but at $1.99 for a pack of ten, they're close. They come in a pack of ten different colors, so they're good for little boys who want to draw pictures. They don't require sharpening like colored pencils and they don't snap like crayons. They write without glopping and no one has figured out how to take them apart yet.

And they're good for sketching out pictures of quilt blocks with! This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday at We are THAT family and Waste not Wednesday at Jo's Country Junction.

something new -- hand piecing

I'm definitely trying something new this week -- hand piecing!



Ever since my best friend hand pieced the first quilt she made, I've been tempted to give it a try myself. Just to see whether I could do it or not. But there've been many other projects calling to me that I haven't sat down to actually do it.

This pattern, Do Not Put Your Elbows on the Table from Back to Charm School, is a mix of machine and hand piecing. The quilt in the book is gorgeous. It's not very big. And I had a charm pack in my stash...



I know I bought a charm pack once, for a Moda Bake Shop pattern that I never got around to starting, and I really hope this one that just appeared on my ironing board wasn't it. No way would these prints have worked for that pattern. I'm not completely convinced that they work for this pattern.

I'm trying to declare this one a learning experience and not worry too much about how it turns out. But I really want this quilt!

We also tried Colorado Lady's stuffed chicken shells this week. They're the yummiest thing I've made in a long time -- even my hubby liked them! For more Try it out Tuesday posts, hop over to Jo's Country Junction.

playing with a charm pack

My design wall is a little bare this week. I got the last of the squares for the drab postage stamp quilt cut -- then immediately found another stack of fabric that I'd pulled for it, so I've got some more cutting to do. And I still haven't found the pumpkin print that started this whole adventure. Maybe I used it up in the first two little drab quilts?



Now I'm cutting pieces for a quilt from Back to Charm School. Have you seen this book yet?



As soon as I saw it reviewed over at Jo's Country Junction I knew I wanted to find a copy to browse through. Then Mary invited me to participate in the blog hop and sent me a copy. It's even better than I hoped for -- Jo missed the quilt that is my absolute favorite!

The blog hop started today, and there are lots of chances to win your own copy. My day to gush about the book, which deserves some serious gushing, is Saturday.

February 20
Maureen's World
Sweet P Quilting and Creations

February 21
Humble Quilts
Jo's Country Junction

February 22
A Quilting Life
Selvage Blog

February 23
JulieKQuilts

February 24
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Colorado Lady

February 25
Silver Thimble Talk
Michelle's Romantic Tangle

To see more projects, head over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

weekly stash report

I spent Saturday puttering in the sewing corner. My goal was to keep tidying things up. Instead, I wound up mostly finishing three baby quilts and hand sewed the bindings late last night while watching a documentary about midwives in Georgia in the early 50s.

It was the oddest feeling, working on NICU quilts while watching them put a premature baby into an incubator heated by hot water and caution the mother to leave it in there to keep it warm. It just boggles my mind, and makes me so sad, that they wouldn't have wrapped the baby up with its mother. I wonder when they realized that skin to skin contact was the wonderful thing it is.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 3.5 yard
Fabric Used year to Date: 14.5 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 20 yards
Net Added for 2012: 5.5 yards

I did buy a grey sheet, but I'm not going to count it as stash until I decide whether it's going in a quilt or on a bed. And I finished the Irish Chain, which I'm not counting as fabric used because it's been pin basted since 2010 and the fabric wasn't actually sitting in my stash... that'd be another 6 3/4 yards, which totally cancels out the sheet whether I use it or not.

By this time last year, I'd already added 195 yards of fabric that I got dirt cheap on craigslist. I'd like to claim that I'm being good, but there just hasn't been anything out there to tempt me. To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

sewing room thoughts

In a few days, I hope, I'm going to have to drop everything else that can be dropped and get to work on a couple of big projects. While I'm waiting for the fabric to get here, I've decided that I'd better clean up my sewing corner.

I've got a space of my own, two actually, where I can leave my sewing machine set up. One is legitimately mine. The other, I claimed because if I had to actually leave the kids alone in the house and go out to another building every time I wanted to sew... let's not think about that too hard.

I was looking at this post, with the cute little sewing spaces at the top and the "before" photos at the bottom, and trying to figure out just what it is I want to have here.

Have I mentioned that there's no light in my sewing room and there's only one working electrical outlet? And there's no heat. Even when it's clean, it's not quite ready to function as a sewing room yet.

Pat Sloan has written a great post about organizing what you've got. There's another great post about project storage.

My goal for now is to find all of my projects and get the rest of the fabric back out to the sewing room. I'll deal with the mess out there when it's warmer and I've got some free time. It wouldn't take long if I wasn't checking every box and bag of fabric for pieces of my current projects and pulling out things I tucked under the fabric so the kids wouldn't get at them.

As I read blog posts about sewing rooms, two things hit me. One is the idea that you can't be productive in a mess. I can work quite well in my mess. The other is the idea that you have to have cute furniture and the right color walls. Cute furniture (the kind you actually have to go out and buy) is not my goal. The sewing room of my dreams would be more like like this one, which belongs to Teresa at Fabric Therapy. I don't lust after pretty furniture. I lust after fabric.

Do you have a permanent space to sew in? Is is picture perfect? Do you want it to be?

And, while I'm interrogating you, do you have a blog? Do you have word verification turned on for your comments? If you do, please go over to Humble Quilts and read her post about why you should turn it off. Blogger does a great job of filtering out the spam. And this new double word verification makes my eyes and head hurt.

procrastinating and making excuses

It's almost a little hard to believe that this one is done. I started piecing it in early 2009, right after discovering Bonnie Hunter's leaders and enders page and decided that I wanted to make pretty much everything there.



I had the top finished by mid-March, less than two months later, but once I did, I was paralyzed. I didn't have the skills to quilt it myself at that point and even after I did have the skills, I was afraid to touch it. I finally broke down and pin basted just before Christmas 2010.

Then it sat. And sat. Even thought I'd decided how I wanted to quilt it, it got moved from my sewing corner in the dining room out to the sewing room and back inside and back outside quite a few times. I started to worry that the safety pins might have rusted, but I was afraid to check. Then I thought about quilting it but didn't have brown fabric for the binding, and if I couldn't bind it, what was the sense of quilting it? When it comes to this quilt, I'm good at making excuses.

Even after I pulled out and and decided to get it done, I kept putting it off. It was going to take days and days to quilt. And days and days to bind. I had other projects I could get done faster.

It took two days to quilt and two days to bind. And now I can snuggle up under it.



I did finish a whole lot of other quilts while I was avoiding this one. I think 2009 was the year of the 20some quilts I kept. And 2010 was the year of the almost fifty baby quilts. (I don't want to talk about 2011 -- that year doesn't count.)

What have you been putting off that you could finish and enjoy if you just set your mind to it for a few hours?

This post is linked to Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew and Tell, and Can I get a Whoop-Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

cookie sheets!

Ever since Bonnie posted about using cookie sheets in the sewing room, I've been looking for some cheap cookie sheets. There are none to be found in the thrift stores, none to be found at Walmart.

There's no stealing the cookie sheets from the kitchen -- first of all, they're icky and stained, and second of all, they're in nearly constant use. I'd just about decided that I wasn't going to get any unless I found some at an estate sale this summer.

Today while I was shopping for a dust pan, I discovered that the Dollar Tree sells real cookie sheets. Smaller than standard, but I think they'll work for sewing room purposes. And if they don't, I'll use 'em in the kitchen.

A New Spin on Curved Piecing

Quilts with curved piecing just scream at me to make them, so when I saw A New Spin on Curved Piecing by Joyce Lawrence Cambron at the library, I had to bring it home. There are some gorgeous patterns in this book!





The patterns don't use the type of curved piecing that I know how to do. Instead, the author has developed a technique using freezer paper and glue. I haven't tried it myself yet, but some of these projects are so gorgeous I might have to. Those round centers on the projects pictured above -- they're pieced into the backgrounds. I can't tell you how much I love that!

There are seven projects in the book, including a pretty scalloped placemat that serves as a practice lesson. It's the kind of book I'd buy just so I could learn the technique, thinking of the purchase price as kind of a class fee.

wfmw -- finding free children's ebooks for the Kindle

Now that the kids have Kindles, the kids want lots and lots of books on their kindles. And they're not completely satisfied with the old classics. They want new stuff too. I don't want to spend seven or eight bucks on an ebook that the kid I buy it for is going to fly through in an hour or two. I'm mean that way.

Jo told me about this page, which lists the top 100 free ebooks for Kindle. I check it regularly to find books to add to my own reader. Now and then, there's a children's book or two listed, or a book that looks like it might be for children.

After digging around, I found another page, one that shows just the top 100 free children's ebooks for Kindle The books in the right hand column are free (but check before you click, because things change quickly). Use the categories in the left hand column to refine your search. Some categories may have only a couple of free books and some might not have any. These lists are constantly changing, and sometimes publishers will offer a book as free for only a day or two.

Please look over the titles yourself and make sure that they are actually children's books. Amazon's lists aren't perfect. Have a New Husband by Friday, which is #1 on the list as I type this, definitely doesn't sound like a children's book to me!

Some "books" are just previews of the first few chapters -- great if you want to let your kiddo try it out before spending money, but no fun at all if you aren't going to buy the rest of the book. Some books are self-published and just not that great.

Read the reviews. Skim the books yourself if you've got any doubts. I'm more cautious choosing books for my eleven-year-old than I am picking out titles that might interest my older teen.

There are some great free books for your kids out there -- it just takes a little searching to find them!

This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday at We are THAT family and Waste not Wednesday at Jo's Country Junction.

I need to cut up more scraps

I've been playing with baby quilt ideas in my head and have lots of different things I want to try, but my container of 2 1/2" squares is down to the dregs again. What's there is usable, but I need to add a lot more variety if I'm going to get pretty quilts out of it.

Sometimes I have a hard time deciding if that feeling that I'm stuck with the dregs is because I'm actually down to yucky looking fabric or if I'm just so tired of looking at those prints after putting them in so many quilts one after another. As soon as I add a variety of new-to-me fabrics in different colors, it'll be fine again.

I tried starting the center of this quilt with the random scraps on Sunday, but got frustrated and gave up with my selection of colors and went back to the drab postage stamps.

Monday, I decided that I might have enough blue squares to make it work, even though I didn't want to make another blue quilt for this batch. I've got to convince myself that I'm the only one who cares if there are quilts with similar colors in a batch of baby quilts that are all going to wind up with different mommies!



It did take more than the fifteen minutes I had planned, but that's the whole idea -- to lose track of time and piece for longer if I can. And while I was piecing, I came up with two different ways I could've laid this one out. I think I'll try them both once I have this one done. I just need to decide how many more rounds of blue I want to add.

catching up on projects

I've been working on quilts this week!

Until I realized that I don't have enough of the white fabric I need for the borders, and saw that white muslin I just bought doesn't match what I was using (not that it was supposed to, but it would've been an easy fix), I thought I'd be finishing this one Friday night.



Oh, well. The pinwheels and pieced borders are together and the rest can wait a bit...now that I've figured out what else I can finish fast! This is the second year I'm participating in the Stashbusters UFO Challenge and I'm way too close to the top of the list for comfort.

Because I couldn't get the red pinwheels done Friday night, I pulled out my brown Irish Chain. I thought it was going to take forever to quilt, but it was already pin basted and it's the only other UFO I've got a prayer of finishing quickly. Took a few hours, but the quilting is done, and all I've got left is the binding to hand stitch. That'll take a while, but maybe I can get it done before I hit the top of the list.

And then there are the drab postage stamps. I'm still sewing those together into four patches as leaders and enders for everything else. These are just a bunch of four-patches laid out to see if the colors are playing nicely together.



This is my favorite kind of quilting, when I've got lots going on and lots more to start as soon as that's all done. How's your design wall looking this week? To see more projects, head over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

weekly stash report

My youngest son has an imaginary snake which is from Canada and has rabies. It doesn't seem to have a name -- he calls it "rabid snake from Canada." I would love to know how he came up with that one!

We've had a handful of nice days and althought I can't see anything around us blooming, the bees are coming back to the hive loaded down with pollen. They seem to have made it through the winter, but it's still too cold to do a hive inspection.

Have you seen the Fugly Fabric Party over at Charm About You? It's going on until Valentine's Day. A lot of cute fabric is being given away, and a lot of fabric that looks perfectly serviceable. There's a little bit of ugly stuff there, but nothing that competes with the gambling cartoon coyotes I found in one of my scrap bags. I really should've taken a picture of that stuff before I cut it into little bits and used it in baby quilts!

What do you do with your own ugly fabric -- use it? Or toss it? Or are you one of those quilters who carefully chooses every piece and doesn't wind up with these challenges?

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 1 yard
Fabric Used year to Date: 11 yards
Added this Week: 5 yards
Added Year to Date: 20 yards
Net Added for 2012: 9 yards

I've decided to stop listing yarn until I actually use or buy some. To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

snowball blocks using AccuQuilt half square triangles

For a quilter who claims to dislike snowball blocks, I sure make a lot of them. In the past, I've always cut squares for the corners and sewed along the diagonal, then wound up with waste triangles that I lose before using them for anything else. I've seen lots of great things done with waste triangles, I've just never pulled it off myself. And sometimes I'm working with limited amounts of fabric and want as much as possible in the quilt I'm making, not in a box of waste triangles for some possible future project.

This time I wanted to use up a bunch of half square triangles left over from my two Extra Scrappy Pinwheels quilts.

As far as I know, there isn't a die available that cuts the shape you'd need for the center of the snowball blocks. And if there was, I'm not sure it would be on the top of my wish list, no matter how many of these blocks I make.

For these blocks, I used 6 1/2" squares of white muslin and triangles cut with the 2" finished half square triangle die (which would be equivalent to triangles cut from 2 7/8" squares)

Cut a 2 1/2" square of paper to match the squares you would have used for the corner triangles, then lay a fabric triangle onto it and cut off the excess paper. That's the same excess you'd trim as waste triangles if you were using squares for the corners.



Using that extra little triangle that you cut off, mark the corners of the 6 1/2" background square and trim away the extra fabric.



The diagonal edge of the half square triangles lines up along the edges that you just cut.



Stitch and press and you've got your snowball block.



I'm not sure if this is faster than the "stitch and flip" method, but I suspect that it is. I stacked my background squares and trimmed several a time. And I didn't have to rip out and re-sew any seams that weren't quite down the center of the square. Which technique I use in the future is probably going to depend on what pieces I've already got cut.

This post is linked to Try it on Tuesday at Jo's Country Junction.

littler baby quilts

I decided which layout I liked better and finished up Itty Bitty Blue Barn Raising.



I absolutely love little baby quilts. It's so much fun to make a few blocks and experiment with a color scheme or layout. I'm almost always happy with the results. Sometimes I'm so happy that I decide to make a bigger version. Sometimes I make it again with a slightly different layout or color scheme.

When I started the baby quilts a couple of years ago, I was making them about 30" square -- the same size as the receiving blankets that I always tucked into my little babies' strollers or car seats. Then I kept reading that people liked to make bigger, much bigger, baby quilts, and I gave in to peer pressure and started making my own quilts bigger.

This past week, I found out that a local quilt shop is collecting quilts for the NICU and wants them 30" square. KaHolly is collecting even littler ones, starting at 24" square.

So I bought myself some white muslin and I'm having fun. I had a whole lot of half square triangles left over from the two Extra Scrappy Pinwheels, so I decided to try repeating the bloodthirsty little quilt again, this time with only two colors and checkerboard nine patch blocks.



And I haven't put aside my drab postage stamps. I'm using those as leaders and enders while I play with the baby quilts.

This post is linked to Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew and Tell, and Can I get a Whoop-Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Found it!

While I was cleaning up the table for dinner last night, I found my scrap of bright yellow paper mixed in with the pile of fabric I hadn't cut yet. It turns out I'm almost done cutting. I'm going to make a last quick scan of the sewing room to see if I can find any more promising drab fabrics lurking there, then I may just drop everything else and see how many little postage stamp squares I can piece before my enthusiasm fades.

wfmw - It has a wrecking ball!

Last Christmas (not the one a month ago -- the one before that), my youngest son got a Disney Handy Manny Manny's Workshop and Construction Playset. I took one look at the box -- Over 70 Pieces! -- and decided to tuck it away for a while so those 70 pieces didn't get mixed in with the pieces of every other Christmas present the boys had received. And I might have sort of accidentally-on-purpose forgotten about it for the next twelve months.

Did I mention that it has over 70 pieces? And that my boys have lost just about all of the pieces of everything they have ever owned -- usually within the first hour of owning it? Unless it's a coconut.

I might have been wrong with this one. Or maybe they needed a year to grow into it. I think that's the story I'll stick to. But for the past couple of weeks, they have been putting most of those pieces carefully back into the box they came in. They've been working together, using the pictures on the front of the box as a guide for assembling a clock tower with cinder blocks and a garbage chute. And using the wrecking ball to knock it down so they could build it again.



As far as I know, they haven't even watched Handy Manny once. It's definitely not the television show that's the appeal here. And it's not the first building toy they've had. I think that smiling wrecking ball might be the secret to the success of this toy.

This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday at We are THAT family.