Josh's quilt.

I finally collected the fabrics for Josh's quilt before Christmas. I had no intention of taking my sewing machine on a road trip, so it stayed here awaiting my return. I finally cut into the fabric last week and in a few days, the quilt top was completed! I used the Bizzy Kid pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew. 

Put some fabric on the floor and miraculously children and pets are drawn to it.
True story. 

It turned out a lot brighter than I envisioned, but I'm not sure that comes across in the photos. I think it's the perfect size to snuggle with or take to the beach! I'm deciding on the backing fabric now because I have a fun blue polka dot that may be perfect, but Josh was leaning toward a solid colored back. I would have to buy the solid, and buying online is tricky color-wise. No matter what I decide, I hope to have this one in the mail to my favorite quilter in the next week or two. I love the way this one turned out. Now I'm on to a robot quilt for Gray's big boy room! 

Quilting!

I haven't set aside much time lately for some 'me time' with all the craziness of travel, partying, visitors, etc. I decided that this week was the week for some sewing. I had to have one of my machines worked on back before I left for the holidays because Gray loves the presser foot, and I foolishly left it on when I walked away for a second for a glass of water. He somehow managed to destroy something in the machine in .3 seconds, so it was off to the shop for a cleaning and repair. In the mean time, I figured I could get some quilting completed before our trip (as I had just finished a quilt and wanted to get it finished for Christmas gift) with my other machine. 

Mom gave me a Bernina several years ago that she never could seem to get working. I took it with a very humble comment like, "I'm sure it's the operator, not the machine." She generally is the problem with technology, but in this case she was right. This machine, while pretty expensive, gives me more trouble than it's worth. It needs to be re-gifted back to her but I doubt she would take it back from me knowing it's history of being a trouble-maker. With the deck stacked against me, I decided I could hand quilt the quilt (which is hilarious as I've finished about 1/4 of the quilting since November) and wait until my good machine was fixed. 

Lots of baby things for pregnant friends are now in boxes to be shipped! 

The VW fabric is what I centered the quilt fabric around
because Josh could die happy if he had a VW Bus. 

Now the machine is fixed, and I'm taking full advantage of Gray's new train table and the amount of time he is spending with it this week. I have gotten a great deal of things done that were on the 'to do' list and gotten pretty far along into a quilt for Josh. I have been buying the fabric for this quilt gradually over the last year and deciding on a pattern, but I finally cut into it yesterday. At the rate I'm putting it together, I'll be done in a few days! Hopefully I'll have a completed top to show you soon, but for now I'm headed back to the sewing machine! 

Something to think about...

Just to give you a final picture of the quilt I finished a week or two ago. I'm still deciding weather or not to rip out the binding and re-do it by hand. 

Last week I finished a quilt top (Josh being gone makes me much more productive) for my niece. It's twin quilt was completed and gifted to her sister quite sometime ago, so it has been on the 'to do' list for a while. I've decided to send it off to have it quilted by the nice lady in Arkansas (who I mentioned in an earlier post) so I can get started on my next venture. I'm not ready to quilt something and gift it. Not yet anyway. 

Besides having the fabric for one quilt top in the beginning stages, I've decided to make a quilt for Gray for Christmas. I have a few ideas, like a pinwheel quilt, a wonky blocks quilt, a plus quilt, a zigzag quilt, a string quilt, and about a million others. Do you have any favorite patterns that you would like to share? I'm looking for more fabric to add to the selection for the quilt (especially some green fabrics), but this is what  I have so far. I've got to decide before I can start cutting. I'm head over heels in love with the helicopters and the blue fabric (an older Lizzy House print that is becoming more and more difficult to find). I'd like to get this one together rather quickly, but may finish it after the one I've already sort of started, to give me something else to practice quilting first!

This is what I have to think about...

If my quilting posts bore you to pieces, I'm sorry. Most of my friends don't sew/quilt so you get to hear about it! 

Keeping Busy.

Josh has been busy preparing/training for this deployment, so Gray and I have been looking for ways to keep ourselves entertained. I finally started (and finished) quilting the a quilt top I completed piecing a few months ago. To be honest, I was pretty scared to quilt it. I've made quilt tops, but I always send them to a fabulous lady in Arkansas to have them quilted. After considering taking the next step in the quilting process for a LONG time (and reading a lot and watching a ton of YouTube videos), I finally decided to just try it. I was scared to potentially ruin the whole project, but as it turns out quilting isn't really all that hard. I wouldn't want you to inspect the finished product up close, but I like to think it's a pretty good first try! I don't think I ruined it! The binding is also completed, but I'm considering ripping it out because I'm not ultra-happy with the end result. I should have just done that by hand... 

Back of the quilt. 

Gray loves the finished product!

Gray and I tried a new church last week. It's super close to the church we had been going to, but Josh wanted to try something different and a little more traditional. A friend told me about this church several months back and I'm really glad we tried it.

Headed to church. 

After church, Gray and I went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 with a friend and her kiddos. It was a super cute movie and Gray loves popcorn so he was happy. 

No worries. We didn't even get close to finishing this bag of popcorn. If you get the small, Gray spills it all over the ground and freaks out. If you go medium, it's all of .50 more and he never spills much. It's a win-win situation. 

Watching the Cars 2 preview.
He is SO excited about that coming out this summer!

We have gotten into a few other things (like starting a new quilt) and cleaning up the house and yard in Josh's absence. It's all too exciting to blog about. I know that makes you sad, but maybe my next post will be about washing out the baby pool after Gray threw no less than 15 rocks and 1 lemon into the water last week.

*Don't judge my iPhone pics. :)

Pintrest.

I follow a great quilting blog (Simplify) and several weeks back she posted about this new website, Pintrest. I fell in love instantly. This site allows you to 'pin' photos from all over the internet to your 'boards.' I find this utterly fantastic, because I find things that I want to recreate, buy, or just remember then I forget where I originally found them (never to be seen again). Some of the pictures I have pinned serve no purpose, I just thought they were pretty. 

Anyway, if you are like me and bookmarking things makes you happy, this is an awesome way to do it because you can just 'pin' the photo and it saves the location on the internet for you. It also makes for a beautiful webpage. Seriously. Check it out. If you love it, let me know!

The latest quilt.

I started this quilt about 6 months ago and after I finally got the top pieced together, I started thinking about the back. I also started thinking about if I was bold enough to try to quilt it myself. In the past I have always mailed my quilt tops to a fantastic woman in Arkansas (my Aunt Doris discovered her and they became very good friends). I decided this hobby would be more cost-effective and a little more fun if I could complete the quilt start to finish. I think I have also decided a baby quilt would have been an easier starting point...

The top.

This is what I came up with for the back. 

I sat in the middle of the kitchen floor and pinned this one day several weeks back during Gray's nap time. It has been folded over the back of my sewing chair since. I'm very anxious/nervous to start quilting it because I'm afraid to totally mess it up and make it look terrible. My original plan for this quilt was to be a beach blanket (it could obviously be used at home too), so I would like to have it finished within a month or two so we can use it this summer with that fantastic half-tent I got a few weeks back at Costco. If that's the case, I am actually going to have to switch to the walking foot on my machine and get after it. Hopefully I used enough pins AND hopefully the straight lines I plan to quilt with will be fairly simple! I plan to start on it this week after getting some baby stuff made for some pregnant pals. Wish me luck everyone! I think I'm going to need it!