In need of a quilt pattern

I need help.


I have a wedding coming up this summer. Not mine, (I'm already married, remember?) but a friend's.

Anyway, I usually make a quilt for close friends and/or family who get married. This is the problem:

1) I can't tell what her colors are from her registry. The towels they registered for are stone colored, and the dishes are turquoise, red and gold. That's the only color in their whole registry.

2) I don't have a lot of time until the big day, so it can't be too complex.

3) I usually do a throw or wallhanging size quilt. Nothing too big.

SO! What do I do? I love color over neutrals, but are neutrals safer? And what's a fun, quick, and easy pattern that will look like it was hard but again, was really EASY?

Any help would be great :)

The Wedding

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I agreed to do the flowers for my cousin's wedding on December 19th, right in the middle of my busiest month of the year. Yeah, I know...I had a crazy moment, but everything turned out fine. I didn't get to go to the wedding or the dinner because I had to work those nights after doing the flowers (because I took 2 days off of work to do the flowers). But, everything looked great. Here are some pictures.
One of the photo tables (photo borrowed from her album on FB)

The cake (photo borrowed from her album on FB)

Close up of the bouquet.

The bride's bouquet had roses (Red France), spray roses, hypericum berry, salal, Italian ruscus, rununculus, and red tulips.

The bridesmaid's bouquet. It had white roses, spray roses, salal, and Italian ruscus. My MIL made this for me.

More of the bride's bouquet. Angel, my SIL, made it for me. She is so awesome!

The wristlet for my cousin's little sister.

The groom's bout (my cousin).

The bouts for the dads, grandpas, and best men/brothers all looked like this one.

The corsage for the mothers.

The corsage for the grandmas. My MIL helped me with the bouts/corsages and the wristlet.

The table settings. I did 12 square vase centerpiece arrangements, and then sprinkled some rose petals randomly around it.

One of the photo tables.

The book table. The large photo on the right had everyone's seating assignment on it.

I finished the flowers just as people started to arrive. Everything turned out really nicely.

Woah what a day!

Today has been CRAZY! I was hoping to get some work done, but alas! That didn't happen. :(

I did however get my quilting blog updated. HOORAY! Yeah, I was only like 3 weeks behind. No big deal, right? haha. I've gotten some really cute quilts from clients, so head over there and check them out.

Tomorrow my nephew, Diana's son, is getting married. I realized today that since I have lost all this weight, I have nothing to wear! My church skirts barely stay on as it is. I had to go shopping.

Also, tomorrow our land lady is bringing people by to look at the apartment we just moved out of. I needed to do some laundry and clean the apartment.

And, Mike needed to get his hair cut. (Which reminds me....he fixed our cable today. Yes, that is right. The man with no cable installation experience whatsoever fixed our cable within about 30 minutes. Remember, it took the cable guys around 4+ hours, and it still was not working? Yeah, my husband rocks!)

Well, we headed over to the shop to get Mike's hair cut. By 1 PM he still hadn't gotten it done. I was starting to freak out, because he was going to some fight night thing up in the SLC at 5:30. Mike told me to just go clean and shop and he'd tend Marshy.

YAY! Shopping childless is so much nicer than shopping with grabby mcgrabberstein! I bought a cute shirt at Deb, a really cute blue and yellow skirt and blue top at Downeast Basics, and the cutest dress ever at DressBarn. I still needed shoes, and found some really cute ones on a great deal at Payless.

I hurried over to the apartment, vacuumed the entire place, and started some laundry. Then I ran back home, picked up my boys, dropped Mike off at his nephew's house, and got Marshy some dinner. Then we went back to the apartment. I didn't get much done because of course Marshy wants to "help"...especially when I was using the steamer! I have to go back up in the morning because of this. We put our last load of laundry in the dryer, and headed for Wal-Mart. We still needed to buy ingredients for a salad we're taking to the wedding tomorrow.

Now, Marshy is watching Ni-hao Kai Lan! on Noggin, while the chicken cooks in the crock pot, and we wait for Mike to get home. Did I mention it's almost 11:30? Yeah. I'm hoping Marsh will go to bed soon.

The wedding is tomorrow....maybe if I remember to take the camera I will have some fun pictures.

Speaking of Busy.....

Can someone teach me to say "No" and to just buy gifts at the store? Seriously! I have 2 cousins getting married. One on the 26th, one on the 27th. They are sisters. I am making them their wedding gifts. Yeah, I know. I'm nuts. Just thought I'd share my insanity with everyone else. Hopefully I still have half a brain after the holidays end! :)

Please don't kill me for this!

The people in the following pictures might not like that I've posted these, but I have to share. See, when I did the husband tag I was looking through my wedding pictures for a pic of me and Mike back when I was skinny and he didn't have a beard (mostly because his mom threatened there would be no wedding if he didn't shave it off!). Anyway, I stumbled across some funny pictures. Well, some more funny than others...


This is one of the few pics I actually have of Colton. Lots of video, not too many pics. He grew up a lot in 3 years, didn't he? They all have. (Left to right: Colton, Jake, Jase). Oh, and if you look closely, the champagne glasses are actually inside their mouths. Completely.
This is one of my faves taken at the temple. Partly because Diana's hand is just in the wrong place for Mike's facial expression! It's really nowhere near where it looks it, but it is funny nonetheless. (left to right: Angel, Scott, Mike, Lola, Diana)
Another funny one.....from the temple! What is it with people having innuendo on the temple grounds? SERIOUSLY! (left to right: Jake, Scott, Mike, "Lego Hair dude", Neil, "Bob")
This one Lynsey meant to do! She knew Ernie was taking her picture, I'm sure of it! At least, I hope she knew!
And Diana, don't kill me, but it still cracks me up to find these photos mixed in with my wedding ones! It's like: wedding, wedding, wedding, OH! DIANA!, wedding, wedding, wedding.... haha This one was my favorite! :)
So, hope you got some laughs. And hopefully I'm still alive tomorrow! haha :)

What I've been busy with

Why do I feel like it has been crazy busy around here lately? Hmm...probably because it has. This feels like it will be a kind of long post, so sorry, but please keep reading because there is a really cute quilt at the bottom!

First, I had to finish the quilt for my client whose son is going on a mission. I will post pictures probably tomorrow. The quilt turned out so dang cute! Anyway, I had to quilt it on Friday. I got almost all the way done, just needed to turn it for the side borders, when I realized it was 3 PM.

Cousin Nicole's reception/dinner was at 6 PM up in Sundance, which meant that when my parents got here at 5 to babysit we had to hurry and leave them instructions and then be on our way.

So why was that such a big deal at 3? Well, because my house was a GINORMOUS mess! And we still had to iron our clothes, etc. I figured it would probably only take about an hour to turn the quilt and then quilt the borders, but Mike didn't want to push it, especially since it is a 30 minute drive to our house due to crappy construction from Payson clear up to Provo. So I took the quilt off, folded it up in my bag, and we headed home.

We went to the reception, which we thought we would be way super early, but ended up going well past the reception location and had to turn around, so we were right on time. Dinner was lovely, and Nicole and Adam looked wonderful and wonderfully happy. Congratulations, you two! Everything was so beautiful! We left around 7:30 and got home shortly after 8 PM. My parents left, and munchkin was still awake. Ugh! We wrestled him to bed about 9, only to have him wake up and want to cuddle with me on the couch while watching Baby Einstein's Baby Neptune at 12:30. I fell asleep. When I woke up, I made him go to bed. He didn't want to, but I made him.

Saturday I hurried and trimmed the quilt down, made the binding from the leftover backing fabric, and went back to the shop to finish quilting the borders for the mission quilt. Oh it is so cute I can't wait to show you!! We went home, and I attached the binding. Mike was scuba diving in Sand Hollow for Scuba Ted's annual pumpkin carving contest. He didn't get back until around 7 PM, and he had left well before 7 that morning! So Marshy and Ihad a lot of fun playing. I turned on one of my favorite cd's and played it through the tv. He loved dancing to the music (Edward and Bella cd....it's the greatest!) I'm sure the downstairs neighbors enjoyed the thumping and jumping from him, but that's their problem!

At 5 he went down for a nap, and I got him up at 7:30 so we could go to Mike's parents' house to watch UFC. It was okay. The title fight ended kinda crappy. I was disappointed. I almost could've stayed home and not fought munchkin, but left him sleeping. Oh well.

Today I finished binding the quilt. We woke up super late, so we kind of missed church. Mike and Marshy were so tired! Although, it really was my fault, because I was the one who should've gotten everyone up, but I too wanted to sleep longer. My bad! Anyway, we had a fun family day, and played video games, watched movies, and played with Marshy's toys. It was fun.

I also realized that there are now officially less than 60 days until Christmas! OMG! I am totally screwed! I bought the cutest quilt kit from Gracie Lou's back when they opened, and thought about giving it to my Grandma M. for Christmas. It's her birthday and Christmas, so we wanted to do a big GINORMOUS personal gift for her this year instead of the usual flowers, to mix things up a bit.

This is what the quilt will look like, only in way better colors, and even more GINORMOUS:

The pattern is called Jacks be Quick. I found the picture and the pattern for sale here at this site. The kit I bought came with everything I need, pattern included, except the almost 8 yards of backing fabric. HOLY COW! 8 YARDS!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I'm going to die! I'm also unsure of whether the binding fabric was included. Hmm, guess I should look into that, huh? haha

Anyway, I started working on the blocks yesterday while Marshy was taking his nap. I figured that there wer 80 blocks, and 20 blocks to a color set, so if I got 20 blocks done a day, then that would only be 4 days! Then I could piece the blocks 1 day, and sew the 2 borders on another day, and it would be ready to quilt....as soon as I buy the 8 YARDS of backing fabric! Wahoo!

Then I had another crazy idea. Yeah, you know me. Full of craziness! Well, I suggested, and Mike liked the idea so I'm holding him to it so I can buy fabric!...that we make a quilt for my Grandma H. for Christmas too. And possibly make something fun for my parents and my brother. Our reasoning: it's easier to make something than shop for people. Especially my brother. We gave him a gift card to Hollister for his birthday, because we didn't know what he wanted. Sorry, bro! Also, it is a little more personal to make something from the heart than to just go out and buy a gift card (like to Sears...haha. Right Angel?) or some other kind of dumb gift that the person may/may not like.

The quilt I think I'll make for Grandma H. is called Rainbow Rhythm, and can be found in McCall's AMerica Makes FAST Quilts September 2008 issue. I just bought it. It's great. And it uses mostly fat quarters! YAY!

Anyway, I sure could use some suggestions for my family's gifts. My bro is 21 and really likes WOW (world of warcraft....blech!) My parents are big into gardening, and remodeling, and stuff like that. My mom teaches 6th grade, and my dad does something involving HVAC and solar power....not quite sure exactly there. Can you see why they're hard to shop for?

Well, thanks for reading my super-long post. I'll try to avoid them in the future. Or at least for the rest of the week!

WOW! 200 POSTS!

I never thought I'd make it to 200 posts! I honestly thought I would get bored of blogging, and stop about 150 posts ago. The good news is, I LOVE BLOGGING, and I'm not going anywhere!

So, to celebrate my 200th post, I'm going to post a whole bunch a pictures of my cousin's wedding. It turned out just beautifully.

Some of the bouts for the groom (above) and the fathers (below)

The bridal bouquets. One for the temple pictures on Monday night, and one for the reception after the wedding on Tuesday night. My wonderful mother-in-law made them for me, because she knew I wouldn't have enough time to make them and everything else I needed to make. THANKS SO MUCH!

The arrangement for the refreshment table. I used all of the left over spray roses and delphinium to add some different colors.

Below, the 15 centerpieces for the tables. They barely fit in my mom's fridge (my aunt's fridge broke!) We had to clear off two of her four shelves and shove everything from those shelves into the door, the freezer, and the other shelves to make room for all of the flowers!

They have an in-ground trampoline in their yard, and they used yard stakes and shepherd's hooks to block it off. From the 3 shepherd's hooks, they hung these hanging "lanterns" with quart jars in them. It looked really cool.

The cake flowers.

Above, the refreshment table, sans food, with the arrangement on it. My aunt was a little nervous Monday night when I told her how big it was, but she absolutely loved it when we brought it over on Tuesday.

The reception started at 6:30, and at 6 PM I was asked to throw together 3 more arrangements for the drink table with the leftover lilies and roses. Luckily, I had over-ordered on both lilies and greens, so I had plenty to work with. Didn't they turn out great?

Above, the completed table ensemble. The tables all looked beautiful.

They had two different picture tables. One was the baker's rack, above, and the other was just a table with a table cloth, below. They wanted loose roses scattered around the photos.

Above, more flowers around the photos. Below, the bride with her bouquet. Her dress was so beautiful! I wish I could've gotten a better photo, but it was so busy and people had already started to come, and so this was the best shot I could get.

So, thankfully the wedding is over with, and so is all of the stress! I don't have to worry about keeping flowers alive, or transporting flowers, or arranging flowers. WHEW! I talked to my aunt today, and she said the flowers were still beautiful, and that they absolutely loved them.