Q

Q is for queen...

and quilt.

Yes, I made a mini quilt. My father-in-law thinks quilting is silly because, "You have a perfectly good big bit of material, then you cut it all up into little pieces, just to sew it all back together again." There are some fabric patterns in WalMart that agree with him and have a 'quilted' pattern printed on the material. This to me is the ultimate in cheap. I couldn't do that even in a small scale, things have to be done right.

I bought the little crown for the queen and at first the thought was just to perch it on top of the Q but then it just looked like a crown and not a queen. So I had to paint this little lady. This is a fabric paint. I tried to make this book washable. I don't imagine that I will even stick it into the washing machine and dryer but at least it can be spot cleaned and hand-washed.

P

P is for piggy bank, purple, pink paisley and...

pennies.

Australia went to dollars and cents on Valentines Day 1966. Before this they had the English standard of pounds, shillings and pence. Shannon is a bit of a coin collector and he made me some buttons out of these two pennies he had doubles of. They are both from the year 1951, which really means nothing. However, the US pennies are from 2009 (the year I finished this book) and 1980 (my birth year). I considered having a penny from 2006 and one from 2007 (the years the girls were born) but I figure there is a good chance there will be more babies and I didn't want anyone left out just because they might be born late.

O

O is for octopus...

overalls...

and owls.

I am a tiny bit of an impulse buyer, unless you talk to Shannon he might say more of compulsive buyer and not just a little bit. In all honesty, we are probably both wrong and I am somewhere between the two.  The tiny overall buttons on this owl were one of those purchases without a plan. The funny thing was that I had been working on O got stuck and moved on to another letter. When I came back to O I had purchased the buttons and re-discovered them during an idea search of my stashes, and personally, I think they work perfectly and I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner and spend a lot less time thinking about what to do with O.

I had all manner of ideas and I even bought the ribbon that I used on the jellyfish to use as octopus legs. I was going to have all the legs have little magnets that would connect to the main part of the octopus and I was going to stretch things by saying the legs 'Opened' and really the Magnets had nothing to do with it and we didn't have to mention an M word in O.

Back to the impulsive/compulsive buying, after I used these buttons on the octopus I went back to the store and bought another pair (in my defense they were on sale) and again without a plan. I guess I just really felt I needed to have them on hand for something.

You should see the enormous bag of buttons I got for the golf club on G because you never know if, in the future, I might need a button shaped like a dog house or ballerina slippers as well.

N

N is for numbers, nails and...

nest.

I had a hard time finding a number material that didn't also include abc on it. This is a print from an Eric Carle illustration line. The same line that I got the bear and bird from in B, there are a lot of cute prints if you enjoy Eric Carle. Beverly's carries them.

The nails I made. I had some silver fabric paint that I thinly painted onto some black material. I had to paint thinly because I was running out but really it probably turned out better this way. The tiny bit of black material showing through makes it look more like a cheap nail.

M

M is for mountain, mailbox, music, and...

monkey.

I think that M is my favorite. I love the little monkey and his cute little smile. I love that the mailbox works including the flag.

I love the snow capped mountains and the music in the sky. "The hills are alive, with the sound of music, la la la la..."

L

L is for leopard, lady bug, leaf and laces.

The laces do come undone but this book has only been through one church service and already that last blue rivet on the bottom of the L has come off. I think that I need to go invest in some larger, quality rivets. 

Personally, form a design standpoint, I find L tacky. I really think that it is the leopard print. I am just not that into the jungle scene. However, overall, I am still congratulating myself on my cleverness of the laces down the L.

I made the leaf applique and if memory serves I even had it on the pages before I remembered that I had the leaf buttons. So I went for the over-kill and put them both on. 

The more that I blog about this, the more that I want to actually put it all together in a pattern book. That would probably involve making another one so that I can do illustrative pictures of the process. I'm not sure Shannon could handle that. 

K

K is for knit, key, khaki, and...

keyhole.

I have everything that can be moved tied down in ribbons. I thought that with little kids pieces that can go missing, will. This little key is something that I have had for so long that I don't even clearly remember where I got it. I think that it might have something to do with collecting things from the neighbors perpetual garage sale with the Fitzpatrick twins. The other keys I found in the scrap-booking isle, another one of those great finds in the paper section.

I knit the K without a pattern or really knowing how large it might turn out. So of course with this experimental way of doing things I did it twice. I gave the first and larger K to my cousin Katie. I have the pattern all written up for one of those days I get my act together.