Dresden Challenge

The official quilt.

 Earlier this month I finished my dresden quilt for the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild's dresden challenge. I started working on the dresdens for this quilt back in May I think. I made one or 2 dresdens at a time in between working on other projects. And slowly but surely this quilt was made.

 

Isaac likes it.

 I'm not much for making a quilt without a purpose. I enjoy quilting but we already have plenty of blankets for TV watching etc. But we needed a new quilt for our guest bed so I decided this challenge was perfect for guest bed. It is a full size quilt and is by far the largest quilt I've made. It was difficult to work with so much fabric but I got it done :) I used a sheet as the base for my applique on the top and as the back. Simple is good for me.

I chose to do raw-edge, flat dresdens in various sizes in a random layout. It evolved a lot from the much more structured plan I had in my head when I started this project. I love how it turned out. I did all of the quilting myself. I'm pretty proud of that. It's not perfect by any means but I think it's the best quilting I've done so far so I'm pleased. I bought a quilting frame in large part to quilt this quilt. It will come in handy for quilting other quilts in the future too. I used a design from the free motion quilting project blog. Can't remember the name at the moment though.

 

Close up of the quilting.

He deems it cuddle worthy.

It doubles as a great fort!

So now this quilt is on our guest bed bunched on the couch where it was thrown after the photo shoot. It has already been used once by my father in law and it will be ready for my mom when she arrives in a week and a half. It will get lots of use and it makes me happy every time I walk past the guest bedroom. All in all a quality project.

This one is for you Bridget...

So Bridget wants people to blog more. I get that. My excuse (not that I need an excuse not to blog) is that at the end of a long, often hard day the last thing I want to do is tell the world about that long hard day. I know that it is cathartic to some people to write about their day. I'm just not one of those people. I've never been much of a journal keeper because I end up looking back at what I write and feel stupid.

I do however want to start blogging more about my quilting. I would really love to make my quilting into a business. I feel like blogging about quilting would help get my business out there. Problem is that all of that requires a lot of time and commitment. I don't have enough of either at the time. I would really love to get things started now but having an Isaac makes that difficult, really difficult. I'm sure having another child or two will make that even more difficult so for the moment I'm working it all out in my mind and biding my time. Hopefully it will be sooner than later that I take the leap.

Until then I'll be plenty busy doing a lot of this...

My boy loves him some dirt.

 

And rocks.

He's been "helping"us do some decluttering.

  A few weeks ago I was feeling like our home was just so cluttered. We have so many things and we are blessed to have everything that we need and so many things that we want but it was just taking over. It's no good to feel like you're outgrowing your house when it's plenty large and there are only 3 in your family. So we've been sorting, donating, recycling, and trashing lots of things. It feels great!

My new quilting frame. Now that I'm getting the hang of it I like it :)

Dress up time

Yesterday I decided to make myself a new dress. I've been wanting a new dress for a while now but couldn't really find anything I liked or if I did it was too expensive. Recently I came across a couple of tutorials on Pinterest. And I found one that seemed fairly simple It is a T-shirt, elastic and fabric. I won't go through all the steps. If you're interested check out the blog.

I had a few little problems, pretty much because I haven't sewed clothing in years. When you measure and sew your elastic, try it around your waist to make sure it is the correct fit before you sew the skirt to it. That will save you some time unpicking and resewing. Basically just think things through. I sewed this after Isaac was in bed and I just am not thinking right in the evening. I think if I hadn't made the stupid mistakes I did that it would have taken me around an hour to sew. Mistakes and all it took me closer to three hours. Stupid mistakes. but I like how the dress turned out and I think if I sew clothing in the future I won't make as many mistakes.

So I'm happy and I relearned some things. And I can't really complain about a $10 dress. Now I have something fun and new to wear to church today.

1

His new toy from Brad and Amy. He was more interested with the buttons and cars than with riding it around.

And this is the first birthday cupcake. He thought it was really weird when everyone was singing to him and then when we set the cupcake in front of him it took him a few seconds to decide what he was going to do with it. I gave him a taste of the frosting on my finger then he went for it and devoured it.

The fact that he is 1 today is pretty amazing. In the past year he's gone from a baby I didn't know to a baby I often wished I didn't know (sorry it's true) to a baby that I'm excited to get to hang out with everyday! The first 7 months were HORRIBLE and so SLOW! But since he decided to be a bit independent the time has gone so fast and he has just been a delight. I love to watch him play and discover things. He is walking like a pro now and it's just the cutest thing to watch him toddle around. He is such a big boy!

He has 3 teeth now and is working on three more at the moment. He loves Ray Ray and Daddy and Mommy and his friends. He likes to give hugs and cuddles. He quit nursing cold turkey a month ago and is just a big boy using sippy cups now. He loves his books and will have me read the same one over and over. He loves to skype with Pop Pop. He loves my phone. He likes swings. He is so sweet.

He got several fun presents from friends and family. We got him a bucket swing that we are going to hang on the tree in the back yard, a blowup pool for the summer, and a fun movie that we want him to have. He doesn't watch movies yet but we hope he likes this one when he does start watching them.

We love Isaac so much and our life wouldn't be complete without him. He is such a sweet boy. And he's 1 today! Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

The past couple months

So I have totally fallen off the blogging wagon. It's the last thing I want to do when I have some time to myself. But Isaac has been doing so much in the past couple months I feel like I should write it all down.

He has just become so independent and that is AWESOME! He loves to crawl all over the house and get into anything and everything. We've installed some child locks on cabinets and started moving things. But pretty much if he can't hurt it and it can't hurt him he can play with it. That's my no fuss parenting haha.

A few weeks ago he started trying out a word or two. His first word was dog; he really loves ray ray. And yesterday he tried out the word "done" at the end of his breakfast. It's really cute to see him figuring things out. He nods his head a lot. If we ask him if he's done eating he gets a big smile and nods his head vigorously.

Every week we bake with a few other moms from church and their kids and Isaac is starting to play with the other kids or at least try to keep up with them. It's really fun watching him develop into such a confident social guy. Last week at church a 2 year old was following him and sat right across from him on the floor and they started touching each others hair. It was pretty cute.

He is FINALLY taking good naps. And it's heavenly! I know I can count on an hour nap in the morning and a 1-2 hour nap in the afternoon. I can get some things done and have some me time that is consistent and that alone has made things better.

People ask me if I can believe he's 10 months old and I say yes and no. The first 7 months were the most horrible, slow months of my life but the past 3 have flown by and been so fun. I love little Isaac. I loved him through the horrible part and I love him now. He's just so much more fun now and I finally get why people think being a mom is the best. It pretty much is.

One week, one thing: Art Gallery Scraps Quilt Top

Art Gallery Fabrics generously offered scraps of their beautiful fabrics to people on facebook. I was lucky enough to see their post and get my information to them in time to get some scraps sent to me. I received the scraps in the mail about a week ago and have been working on this quilt top this past week. I am thrilled with how it turned out! I loved working with these fabrics! They are beautiful and feel great! I love this quilt top. I hope to finish this quilt up this week (my little boy came down with a cold today though so that will be dependent on how quickly he recovers I think). While I was working on it I found myself thinking of my cute 4 year old niece so I think this quilt might go to her. Her mom welcomes that idea because, I'm told, she constantly tries to snatch her mom's quilt. I think this quilt will like its new owner.

And just in case you're wondering if you should really be that careful with your rotary cutter, the answer is "Yes. Yes you should." While I was cutting charms for a swap I got a little too into the cutting and sliced my thumb pretty bad. Luckily it took a little while for it to start bleeding so my fabric wasn't ruined. Also lucky is that the cut wasn't vertical because it was pretty deep and if it had been vertical I'm guessing I would have had to have stitches. So now I have yet another quilting battle wound. Totally worth it!

Bee crazy!

I finished this baby quilt. I has the top made a few months ago. My quilt guild did a dot fabric swap last November and I decided to do some bento box blocks with them. I think it's a super fun baby quilt. I did a simple stippleish quilting on it. I like it a lot more after the quilting than I before. Not sure who this will be going to yet; I have a couple pregnant friends so I assume it will go to one of them.

I decided to jump into the world of online quilt bees so I've been working on a bunch of blocks for these bees the past couple weeks. The first 6 blocks are for the 4x5 bee and the other is for We bee modern too. I'm really loving making the bee blocks. It's fun to be able to do something new every month/quarter and learn some new things. I'm addicted to the online bees :)

For Jessica

For Jenn

For Pam

For me

For Em

For Julie

For Heather

I really loved the simplicity of this block and I started working on another project with this block today. More to come soon.

8 Months (1 day late)

I'm cute.

And I'm gonna getcha!

Got ya!

I love pasta!

In the past couple months Isaac has grown so much and learned so much! He loves solid food now! Some of his favorites are pasta with spaghetti sauce (which is ironic since tomato of any kind made me super sick while i was pregnant), eggs, pancakes, any fruit, rice, green beans and cream of wheat with fruit. He really loves food.

He is also starting to get mobile. He does a little army crawling and quite a bit of rolling these days. He is trying to pull himself up on everything and has succeeded without help once on the bathtub (terrified me as i was laying his towel out!). He gets on his hands and knees with his belly off the ground but only in his crib (weird huh?). All of his new found mobility hasn't really made things easier, it just makes him more capable to get to me for me to hold him. I do not have an independent little boy. And holding him constantly is killing my back, he is HEAVY.

The past couple weeks have been really really hard. I think I've had more days with tears (from me and him) than days without. He has just been so clingy and never wants to be on his own any more even for 5 minutes and it's wearing on me. So after 2 weeks of that he pinched his finger and was holding his breath while working up his scream (you know what I'm talking about) and I saw that he had cut a tooth! So that explains the super clingyness (i hope) and maybe it will get a little better after he cuts the second tooth which seems to be any day now if I can judge from the amount of drool he has. Despite the clingyness he has been quite the trooper with the teething. I didn't even realize that was what was going on until I saw the tooth.

At least he's cute to make up for the pain that he is a lot of the time! Happy 8 months little guy!

The quilt I'm letting my sister in law "have" :)

Front

Back

I had so much fun working on this quilt. I used this tutorial on Moda and it was fun and easy to make. I did a lot of chain piecing in the early stages of the quilt because you sew 144 pieces together several times before you're ready to organize your top and piece the rows. For my second border I just pieced the leftover pieces of fabric at their 2.5" width. I didn't bother cutting them down to 1.5" pieces. It was simply more efficient to do it the other way. I also didn't sew full ovals before piecing them together. I simply arranged the quilt then piece the quarter ovals into rows and the the rows into the quilt top. So much faster.

I used Stitch by Betz White for Robert Kaufman and I fell in love with about every fabric in that line. I love the colors and the designs.

My friend Amy gave me the idea for quilting it. I started quilting inside a square then every 2" throughout the rest of the quilt. It was easy and fast and I love how it turned out. This was a really fun quilt to do and I'm finding it hard to part with this one. I told my sister in law that I will just have to enjoy it every time I'm at her house.

Happy Birthday/Christmas Carolyn!

stitch oval with borders

I got the borders on this quilt top Friday. I love the scrappy border, I think it adds a lot to the quilt. This quilt was easy and surprisingly fast to make. I did lots of chain piecing in the first stages of this quilt and I've decided I love it!

My goal is to get the back pieced and the quilt basted today. Sundays are usually kind of crazy around here but the back is really simple and the basting shouldn't take that long so I'm hoping. I can't wait to get this quilt quilted and bound. My friend Amy gave me a fantastic idea for the quilting and I'm excited to get to it. my goal is to have it quilted and bound by this Thursday so I can bring it to show at our modern quilt guild meeting. If the little man gives me some good naps I should totally be able to get it done. fingers crossed...

it's amazing...

It's amazing that i can put Isaac down for bed thinking "how have i done 7.5 months of this?" and "i don't think i can make it through another day!" Then he wakes up the next day gives me a big grin with wide eyes ready to explore and learn and i think "ok i can handle one more day i guess." This is motherhood!

7 Months and Michigan

This is the only picture I have of the day he turned 7 months. He was getting sick and when he woke up that morning he had boogers all over his face. The next day we flew to Michigan to visit my family. The plane rides went better than expected. We had a lot of fun visiting family, most of which Isaac had never met before. He loves all of his family.

Great Grandma Gloria

Playing with Grandma, Pop pop and Uncle Joel

Wearing Pop Pop's hat.

Playing with cousins Ian and Lexie (they loved him and were so excited to watch his poopy diaper be changed lol)

Great Aunt Becky

Uncle John

Daddy Cuddles

Uncle Joel

Great Grandma Jackie

Playing the Piano at Jackie's

Uncle Ethan

It was nice to get back and see everyone. Thanks mom and dad for watching him twice so we could go out! We hope you can all see him again soon!

2 days 2 quilts

Baby Quilt #1

Baby Quilt #2



These quilts will be going to twin girls due in the next few months.

I made these simple baby quilts this week for a friend of a friend who just immigrated to the US and then found out she is having twin girls. Talk about a shock, huh?

I had a lot of fun making these quilts. They are super simple so I was able to get them made start to finish in two days, one Monday the other Tuesday. I felt so accomplished after finishing them. It was fun to make something cute and girly. Since having Isaac I've been drawn to little boy fabrics and haven't looked twice at the girly stuff. Looking through my stash (which is embarrassingly small to begin with) I realized that I have no girly fabric. No pinks or purples whatsoever and not really any girly prints either. But I did have the yard of the yellow flower fabric which I think is adorable; I've been wanting to make something with it for a while but the scale is so large I didn't really want to cut it up. I thought about an apron but then my brother made me an apron for Christmas so this was the perfect opportunity to use this fabric. I had the orange jelly roll quilt top laying around for more than 6 months not quite sure what to do with it and it was perfect for the other quilt.

I dropped the quilts off to my friend today (she'll be delivering them to the mom next week). I'm so thankful that I am developing a talent that I can use to help others. It's fun to quilt for yourself but in my opinion it's more fun to quilt for someone else. I hope the baby girls love their quilts.

Socks!

My husband got me this book for my Dec 23 birthday last month. I put that book on my wish list a year or so ago but I was actually scared to get it because I've never done any knitting other than a pretty simple Afghan. Even though I was scared to get it I was also excited to learn something new. So I got to work while we were in Denver over Christmas break. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to knit a basic sock. I finished my first sock on the drive home from Denver and then needed to make the second. Amy had a one week one thing challenge and it was just what I needed to get that sock made.

Here are my completed socks! (I have no idea how to take a lovely picture of socks so forgive me.) They both fit great and I'm loving them. I hope to never buy socks again. These are just the basic pattern, nothing fancy yet. Now that I have the basic sock down I need to dive into some of the beautiful patterns in the book. Hopefully I'll be able to show a picture of a more intricate pair of socks in a month or so.