A Quilt for Jill

Well, it looks like all I ever do is post about my projects anymore... I guess I can be OK with that for now.  It's nice to have them documented all together, somewhere!

My latest finish was a Christmas present for my bosses, Jill & Scott.  There was mention of doing a "company party" this year for the holidays.  I put that in quotes because Jill & Scott own their own business, and have 3 employees.  One of them is me, who barely counts as an employee at all!  I come and do menial office work 3, or mayyyybe 6 hours a week!  Despite my lowly status, Jill is extremely generous and kind to include me in everything.  Our children are friends and play together.  I have literally cried on her shoulder about my personal traumas.  They both make work a great place to be.  She is pretty much the nicest person on earth to have given me the chance to get out of my homemaker rut and make a little money.  I love my "job" but I love our friendship even more!

I knew right away that this family needed a special present.  I knew they would throw a wonderful evening for us and that I should put a little heart into what I gifted them in return.  What else would be a little piece of my heart, but a quilt!?  So here is what I chose and made, specifically to accommodate favorite colors, and Jill's SUPER-contemporary taste.  (And I mean super.  Sleek.  High end.  ...Yikes!)

As you can see, I ended up doing straight-line quilting around each of the colored bars (above.)  

Straight-line quilting... I do not enjoy.

But my usual stippling would not do for this type of style.

Double this with the fact that my walking foot - for my sewing machine - is total crap, 

everything was extra annoying.

You can see the fabric kinda pulling in a lot of directions (below.)  

It was the best I could do

but I suppose most people would not notice and not care.

The back was this incredible flannel I bought on my trip to Utah last month.  

It was pricey and AWESOME.  Feels like a million bucks.

It makes the quilt just *that much* thicker and sooooo snuggly soft!

Plus the cross-hatchy gray lines went so well with the rest of the look.

The binding is a wacky grey print found nowhere else on the quilt,

but I needed a little print somewhere, right?  

Nothing wrong with a wacky binding :)

Final size was 62" x 79"

The husband and I got all dolled up for the holiday party last night.

It was at the Wrigley Mansion -- wowza!!!

It was the most fantastic evening filled with laughter, fun, and of course gifts.

I was thrilled to watch them open a handmade quilt in a ritzy restaurant 

built in a former mansion of millionaires!  HA!

(And I think they liked it!)

Cooper's Quilt

I have been working on this quilt for about 9 months!  Shameful.

At first, I was cutting up lots of scraps and leftovers to do another one of my favorite "scrappy" quilts.  I quickly realized that I had a lot of these 4 colors:  blue, green, orange, and yellow, so I focused on that theme for this one.

My little Cooper's favorite colors are orange and yellow, and he claimed this quilt before I had even finished the top.  So may I present... Cooper's Quilt.  I hope he loves and keeps it forever.

The front, made entirely from scraps!

The back

A little closer up on the back

Some detail on the front

The Fastest Baby Quilt in the West

My husband has a very close friend from work, and his wife is expecting their first child any minute now.  She's a doctor just finishing her residency, so schedules are pretty tricky!  We were FINALLY able to have a dinner party and have them over to our new house before the baby came.

I had promised to make her something months ago, then of course procrastinated that way into the dark recesses of my brain.  (See last post for complaints of how my recent months had been going.)

All of the sudden, they were coming over Friday night, it was Monday and I had nothing.  I also had no money to spend.  None.  Amy's fabric stash to the rescue!

Lucky me, I had these 2 big cuts of coordinating prints.  (MAYBE coordinating?)  They aren't perfectly matchy-matchy, but they kinda went together anyway.  I know it's completely not the norm for "baby" fabric, but if you knew this lady, it was going to work perfectly.

Instead of trying to piece together a design that would take too much time, I kept them whole and just had 1 fabric for the front, and 1 for the back.  By some miracle I also found a huge piece of leftover batting that could go in between.  YAY!  The boring gray binding fabric was also from my stash.... kind of a "good enough" choice.

No matter what, it all came together nicely!  I'm not sure I've ever completed such a lovely quilt in just 2 days.  It's a little bit bigger than baby-sized, but I did that on purpose because I like the idea of them growing up with their quilt for a few years instead of just a few months.

Here's a little closer up of the prints.

First Day of School 2014

Here we are, a little late!

Mitchell Man - 9th grade HIGH SCHOOL!!!

Tucker-Roo 6th grade

Cooper Scoop 1st grade

It was a pretty traumatic summer.  It felt 10 years long, yet at the same time I felt like I didn't accomplish anything and we were totally jipped!  It involved Norovirus x3, UTI, anxiety, ulcers, debt, worry, panic, tears, tennis elbow, teeth extractions, braces, more money, and prayers.

So there you have it.  I'm glad we made it (sort of, did we make it?) and have started another school year!

The Pug Pillow

I'm once again in "Trying to go Homemade" mode for gifts.

My sister-in-law is a pug lover, so I thought I'd try to put a cute pug face on a pillow.

Where this strange idea came from, I do not know. 

Here's the basic pug face I used from Google images.

I wanted to use vinyl for all the black parts so they would look more leather-y,

but all the non-finished edges looked pretty awful.

Then I switched to felt.

A bit of trial and error with shapes, and some hand-stitched wrinkles later, 

and here is the finished pillow.

Hahaha!  I love the button eyes the most.

It's not very practical (washable) being that the pug is made out of felt.

Oh well!  

He's a bit of a conversation piece.

Or a good giggle, if nothing else!

My first T-shirt quilt

Commissioned by a friend in my church, for her daughter who graduated from high school this May.

This finished at about 64x64 inches, and it was a blast to do!

Hawaii, Baby!

This is only a small sampling of about a BILLION pictures from our trip!  Everything was so beautiful, I got a bit snap-happy.

Day 1:  Dinner and straight to the beach! 

Day 2 we toured Pearl Harbor and the memorial there.

The boys stayed there to see more military stuff and museums, and Kim and I went SHOPPING!!!

This swap meet was about the coolest thing ever.  I'm not kidding.  We bought so much stuff we could barely carry it all, and it was dirt cheap.

While shopping I bought a $5 cup of fresh fruit.  It was INSANE!  The mango in there melted in your mouth like cotton candy.

I have a tradition of taking tree pictures looking up into the sky, and I thought this one turned out really cool.

The hibiscus flowers were everywhere!

Some beautiful grounds all around our hotel...

I think I saw a full rainbow everyday.  At home we think these are kinda special, 

but in Hawaii it must be no big deal.

Cell phone picture... kinda yellow... but lush landscaping! 

Our first hotel of the trip.

On this day we drove to Laie and saw the temple, BYU-Hawaii, and the Polynesian Cultural Center.

This guy (Kap) at the PCC was so talented and entertaining!  

We didn't realize how much fun that place would be!

Here is Jason with some bananas... they were growing all over.

Here are our "warrior faces" for New Zealand.

(The meaner and nastier you look, the cooler you are.)

Finished with the tour, now off to our prime rib buffet and after-dinner show!  

The next day we flew to Maui and {THIS} was our 2nd hotel... the view from my balcony.

A real picture from my camera, not the brochure or website.  Wowie!!!

It was seriously that pretty every single minute, 

but especially cool to watch a perfect sunset from our room each night.

I still have dreams about this drink.

On this day, we took a trip to go snorkel/scuba -- called SNUBA!

Do I look nervous?

...That's because I was terrified.  But I did it!

Notice how clear the water is?

The next morning's breakfast.  

Our table was RIGHT over the waves crashing onto some rocks.  Eeek!

On this day we drove a short bit of the "Road to Hana"

and stopped to explore this rocky shore.

Here's me and a gigantic sea turtle!

You can't tell, but it was as big as my husband.

Another stop at a little waterfall.

Swimming on the last night at the hotel.

Last day:  we had some hours to kill before our flight, so we walked around Lahaina.

This was the popular "Banyan Tree."

The whole thing is JUST ONE TREE.

All of this - ONE tree!

BIG thanks to my husband (and also my sister and her husband) for inviting us along

on the BEST TRIP EVER!