Monday, October 10, 2011

Scenes from this weekend

• Buffalo chicken sandwiches on Friday night. So good & so easy.

• I stuck a pot roast in the slow cooker Saturday morning. Yummy.

• Connor & I stayed in our pajamas until WAY late on Saturday. & then we took a nap!

• Even though I felt a little disheveled I had to get out of the house for a minute. Connor & I went down to Top Foods & picked out some very large pumpkins. I think I brought home 60ish pounds of pumpkin. We’ll probably carve them this coming weekend or the next.

• Garrett woke up at 7 (he works graveyard) & we had the delicious pot roast that had been cooking all day. I put extra carrots in this time. I love roast carrots. Yes, that’s a dorky thing to love. Deal. & Garrett doesn’t like cooked carrots so, more for me!

• We hung out & played with Connor for the rest of the evening. Out of the blue he brings us his potty chair & asks to sit on it. We take his diaper off & he sits down & goes potty for the FIRST TIME! I was so proud of him.

• After the boy went to bed, Garrett & I enjoyed the first hot tub of the fall. We haven’t used it since it started to get warm earlier this spring. It was nice to relax & enjoy uninterrupted conversation.

• Sunday started with a shower & some Eggos. Then a trip to the fabric store. On the way to the fabric store we stopped at Starbucks. A pumpkin spice latte for me & a kid’s vanilla steamed milk for my boy. I stuck a straw in that puppy & he had it chugged in about a minute flat.

• Once the Starbucks was drained we got onto shopping. I had a coupon to use at JoAnn’s & there was a great sale going on. I guess they were celebrating Columbus accidentally finding North America. I found 100% cotton batting at $5.99/yard (90” width). With my 20% off coupon that made the batting $4.80/yard, down from the normal price of $13.99! I also got the backing fabric which was on sale for $2.99/yard. The coupon was 20% off everything, even sale items!

• I found a pattern that I really liked for my Christmas quilt. I decided to forgo the subway tile idea for now. For whatever reason writing the pattern was stressing me out. I’m just going to follow this pattern & enjoy the pretty fabric stress free.

• On the way home I knew Connor was tired. I had to keep saying, “STAY AWAKE!” Which he always thinks is funny. I got him home, got a tuna sandwich in him, watched a few minutes of “Toys” (Toy Story) & then put him down for a nap.

• I picked the specific fat quarters I would be using. I need 20 out of my 32. Then I ironed them flat. Then Garrett woke up & we watched some House Hunters International.

• We got Connor up from his nap, made dinner & headed out to Home Depot. I’ve wanted to redo an armoire we inherited. It is a dark cherry color that has several scratches & outdated hardware. I want to turn it into a statement piece. I got some primer & 2 coordinating dark blue shades. This primer is serious stuff. I can’t get it off my hands. Rubber gloves for the next round of primer. I did one drawer last night but hope to get some more done on it tonight.

• Connor went to bed & I finished up the night by cutting 3 of my 20 fat quarters & watching this last week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model.

• In bed too late.

• It was a full, happy weekend of minimal stress. I need to do this more often.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Perfection



The house isn't perfectly clean, I'm not wearing a perfect outfit & I don't have the perfect physique. However, I literally have no words to describe how perfect this moment was.

Quilting update

I haven’t done a proper job of updating this blog. I told you guys awhile back that I was working on Connor’s tie dye quilt. I finished that several weeks ago. A long while after I had said I would. Whatever, it’s done! It’s not my very favorite thing I’ve ever made but that’s probably because it’s loud & kid like. Hello Natalie, that was kind of my goal all along to make it loud & kid like. I guess I hit the nail on the head. I didn’t make it for my tastes, I made it for Connor. And guess what??? The kid loves it! He sleeps with it over him every night. Although, he’s lucky he got to keep it. His father almost stole it from him because he loved how minky soft the back is. It’s ok Garrett, I’ll make one for you soon. Although I do detest working with minky fabric. It stretches, the “fur” gets EVERYWHERE & it just kind of has a mind of its own. But I do love my husband. Maybe I’ll be willing to work w/ THE MINK one more time, maybe.



After the tie dye quilt, I had something a little different in mind. A fun little quilt for a very wanted baby boy due on Halloween. I gave myself an obvious deadline of 10/31/11 for this quilt. Although in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to have it done before Mom’s baby shower. I immediately fell in love with this quilt & finished it 2 weeks before the baby shower; about a month and a half before the ultimate deadline. I simply couldn’t step away from this one. My original inspiration came from this tutorial for an easy charm pack baby quilt. Just rows of 5” squares. I used the mom’s registry as my color inspiration. Just looked at the bedding that they had registered for. It ended up a little brighter than the original inspiration but I still love it. I wanted to start with a color in one corner & then have it fade into another color. One corner started taupe which faded into orange, which faded into yellow which faded into green. Once I had decided on the fade idea I knew the squares needed to be smaller to achieve a more gradual fade. I decided to cut those 5” squares down to (4) 2 ½ “ squares. The added seam allowance made the quilt a few inches smaller but still big enough for a tiny babe. I backed it with a really subtle white on white fabric & used some random bamboo batting I had in my sewing stash. This is the first quilt that I spray basted. The others quilts were basted w/ safety pins. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I’m a spray basting convert. It works so well! It sticks together like it should but is easily adjusted, no more pulling out pins as you’re quilting, NO SHIFTING, & washes out very easily. I quilted diagonally through each line of squares; corner to corner. I then bound it with a simple quilt binding. After a quick wash & dry it came out with the perfect amount of pucker. I really wanted to keep it but knew its true home was with Mr. Halloween. Can’t wait to meet him!



What’s up next you ask? Well, this self-proclaimed Christmas Nerd is making a quilt from Moda’s Jovial fat quarter collection. 32 different Christmas prints in the most yummy colors imaginable. I’m planning on doing a subway tile pattern. It’ll be a large lap quilt. One that I plan to put out every Christmas season. I am making at least one of these quilts but I have enough fabric to make at least 2. I’m thinking maybe a Christmas gift is in order. I’m giving myself a deadline on the 1st quilt of Thanksgiving. That gives me 7 ½ weeks. I’m thinking that’s pretty doable. The deadline for the Christmas gift version will obviously be Christmas Eve. I’m planning on doing all the cutting in the beginning so the 2nd quilt shouldn’t take me as long as the 1st. I’m super-duper excited for this quilt. We’ll see how excited I am in the middle of cutting 32 fat quarters into little subway tiles. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Ten Things Tuesday (I'm alive)

1. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this.

2. Someone brought in WAY too much Halloween candy into the office. The butterfingers keep calling to me.

3. Garrett & I have set an end date for my job. As of July 1st 2012 I’ll be a stay at home Mommy.

4. I have finished 2 quilts in the last several weeks. A post documenting said quilts will be up shortly.

5. I need to order new checks. Mine (which are packed somewhere…where are they???) still have my maiden name & parent’s address on them.

6. Connor is 2!!!!

7. I made pot roast in the slow cooker on Sunday. It was delicious! I think I’ll need to make this more often.

8. It’s October! I love the fall. October through the end of December is my favorite time of year. Cooler weather & holidays make me a happy girl.

9. Connor picked out 2 pumpkins this year. Such a big boy.

10. Halloween is coming!! I can’t decide what we’ll dress Connor up as. Last year he was a frog prince & was so so so cute. I want to top last year’s costume.