Progress

I'm progressing fairly well on my apron. The pattern is really easy to use, and only has 9 steps. Of course, it doesn't help that I can't read and did step 4 halfway through step 3..... The hardest part about this apron is working with the double fold 1/4 inch bias tape! It never stays where I want it to :( Well, I don't think I'll have it done by Monday, but we'll see. Hopefully it'll be done by Valentine's day! If not, at least I'll have a really cute apron to wear to work anyway! :) More updates to come!

Next Project Please

I fixed the quilt today, and it is finished! I called and RSVP-ed to the baby shower for my friend, and will be giving my work of love away. That is what is so great about quilting. You spend all this time and energy into making this beautiful blanket, and you can't help but love it. I believe that all of that love gets sewn into every seam and every piece of fabric, and that whoever gets the quilt can feel that love everytime they use it.

Well, now that I am done with that project, Heaven forbid that I actually sit still and not do ANYTHING! I ran right out and bought the cutest pattern ever. Yes, it is a Simplicity pattern. How did you know? It couldn't possible be because I absolutely love Simplicity patterns, could it? haha

The pattern I'm using is B - the blue half apron with the rick-rack and binding. I am using the cutest fabric ever! So excited! But! More on that in a minute.

The reason why I had to rush right out and buy the pattern and fabric is because next week is Valentine's Day. Big deal, right? WRONG! I work at a floral. Needless to say, we will be just a little busy next week. My husband bought this really great Plantronics wireless headset for me to use to answer the phones and take orders. This is all well and good, and quite handy, but how in the world can I take orders if I don't have anywhere to put my order pad? I immediately thought that a cute apron would do the trick. Plus, I would look really festive, especially if I used Valentine's Day fabrics.

I went to Jo-Anns, and there was this beautiful Valentine print with GLITTER. Lots of glitter.

You can't really tell on this one, but it has a lot of glitter. The rick-rack was the easy part! The hardest part for me is attaching the 1/4 inch double fold bias tape. Ugh! Such a pain in the butt! I had to do it three times on the other pocket before ripping it all off and starting over!

This is all I have done so far on the first pocket! Ugh. Wish me luck! It needs to be done by Monday!!

STUPID!

So, I finally got my quilt bound. yay!! It only took me like an hour and a half. BUT! while I was binding, I noticed that I hadn't quilted in an entire spot! OH MY GOSH! I was so appalled that I had missed an entire 2x3 square area! I can't believe I did that! Fortunately I can still put the quilt on and fix it! Hopefully I can hurry and throw it on tomorrow and get it done fast! AAHHH!!!!

Finished Product

YAY!! I finished the quilt top! And, I finished it minutes before the Super Bowl started on Sunday. It was the best day ever!

Then, yesterday, I put the quilt on the Gammil. Lola and I share the Gammil, except that I am a quilt machine hog so I use it more!

This is a picture of the Gammil.

This is the quilt on the Gammil.

This is how I quilted the quilt. In the small 9 patch blocks surrounded by the brown border, I quilted a heart in the center.

In the six inch squares (diagonal print) I quilted a flower with spiraling center.

Over the rest of the quilt I just did loops. That is my favorite quilt stitch, because it is easy without looking dumb and cheap.

The fabrics I used are from the All You Need is Love collection by Deb Strain for Moda, and the Flirtations collection by Sandy Gervais for Moda. I absolutely loved these fabrics when I saw them together in the store, and knew I had to make a quilt out of them!

The pattern I used was from December's issue of McCall's Quick Quilts. The pattern was called Baby's First Christmas, and it originally used Sandy Gervais's fabrics from her Holly Jolly collection for Moda. I did this quilt in similar fabrics (my local quilt shop didn't get that fabric line in), and it was so much fun and so stinkin' cute that I used these cute girly prints instead!

Now, all I have to do is bind the quilt! I have the binding sewn together, and attached to the quilt. All I have to do is blind stitch it on. Wish me luck!

Progress Pictures

As promised, here are the pictures of my progress so far.

Although this block is shown in strips, it is actually sewn together now.



This is the medium sized block.



This is the littlest blcok. It is bordered by this brown fabric with red hearts. It also doubles as the binding, which I still need to make.

I've sewn the borders onto the littlest patchwork block, and now all I have to do is piece the top together! Hooray!!

Quilting Progress

Hello all of my dear readers! I am excited to tell you that I have finished ALL of my blocks for my quilt! Yes, that is right. All that is left to do is to sew them together into one lovely and beautiful quilt top.

You might be thinking: "Wow, she sure hasn't gotten a lot done since . . . oh, last week when she told us she had the strips sewn. What has she been doing?" Well, dearest readers, I have a 16 month old who loves to climb in the fireplace, torment the dog, play with the bark and pinecones in the decorative shelf, and unload all of my kitchen cabinets. Plus, this week he had a fever. I think he is getting the rest of his teeth. This being said, I haven't exactly had a lot of time to spend on my quilt project.

Last night, Nephew "One-Eye" stayed over. He brought some friends to play Halo 3 downstairs on the XBOX 360. At 2 am I was bushed. I had almost sewn all of my large blocks together. I couldn't see straight, though, and decided to call it a night. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at 8:30 to find Nephew "One-Eye" on the couch, and his two friends asleep on the love sac in the basement! (They were both boys, don't worry. We thought it was quite funny, actually).

Now, if you're wondering why we call Nephew "One-Eye" it is because he really only has one good eye. I guess we could call him Nephew "Bear-Bait", I didn't think of that before. Hmmm...I actually like the sound of that better. But! I digress.

Today I quilted quite a bit. I was watching movies on TBS, and during the commercial breaks would see how much I could get done. My husband laughed at me, especially when I would yell up from downstairs where I was pressing the seams "Is my show back on?!" every 5 seconds.

I took some pictures, and normally would post them here, but my dearest husband has been somewhat of a laptop hog. That is where my camera software resides. I don't know where the disc is, otherwise I would install it on the desktop. So, look forward to pictures as I continue on with my project.

My goal is to finish the quilt top tomorrow and then quilt it on Monday. Fingers crossed! The reason I'm in such a hurry is because the friend I'm making it for is having a baby shower on Saturday. Here I thought I had all the time in the world. But, no, I have until Saturday to finish it. Wish me luck! I'm off to bed so I can get a good quilting start tomorrow!

House Hunting

So, we are looking for a house to rent for about a year while we build. I know, so exciting that we will be building this summer (hopefully!)!!! We are keeping our fingers crossed that everything works out in our favor.

We have been looking for about 2 weeks now, and it SUCKS! I hate looking for a house. We have to have x number of bedrooms, and can't pay above x amount of rent. Also, we need the house to allow us to have a dog.

So far, we have found some promising choices. Yes, there was the rat-hole in Payson that sounded too good to be true. It definitely was AWFUL once I saw it. There is no way I would even let my precious Marshy-Marsh touch the floor in that thing. His growth and developement would be stunted, and, let's be honest, a baby who can't walk around and play on the floor is NOT a happy baby.

Our biggest problem is the "No Pets" rule that a lot of places have. It is sad that so many people now have pets, yet no one will let them have their pets with them. So sad! Our poor puppy might just have to live by himself for a few months :(