Tara's Log Cabin Birthday Quilt

Quite possibly, my favorite part about this quilt is the binding, so I thought I would start with a picture of the fabric I used for that. It turns out that stripes make fantastic binding. I'm sure lots of people already knew this, yet I was not one of them until now.

This quilt is for my sister's birthday. Happy birthday, Tara! It's crimson and cream-ish, right?

This quilt just happens to be #1 in the Year of the Log Cabin Quilts. I don't think I've shared here how this craziness began so ...

I posted this on Facebook in December, declaring 2014 to be the Year of the Log Cabin Quilt, then I shared it here on Twitter, and of course added Pinterest to the fun as well.

After getting so many responses I actually made a calendar and intend to send a little something to everyone who responded. I'll let you know how that goes. With two finishes in January, I'm feeling pretty good about myself, even if one was a baby quilt.

This quilt is #1 in the Log Cabin series because I started it first. I did take a little break to make Cody's quilt in the middle but thanks to the truly exceptional winter we've had here in northern Indiana, I was able to get some extra quilting time in this week (snow days, ya know).

I decided to invest in some tools for myself since I've got a rather serious year of quilting ahead of me. I bought the quilt clips to keep the excess rolled up while quilting. I'm kind of ambivalent about the clips so far. Those gloves in the picture, though? Those are my new favorite thing. They are grippy over the entire surface of the glove and help you to hold on to the quilt while you are moving it around during quilting. Honestly, I was amazed at the difference it made while I was working on this project. I can't imagine trying to quilt without them now. I felt very much more in control as I was moving the quilt around.

Here's the binding in action as it's being sewn on to the quilt.

And the binding at the end. Seriously, I love the binding. It added a lot to this quilt.

I did free motion quilting on this quilt (aka free style, free range). In case you're not familiar, that means that you lower the feed dogs on your sewing machine, switch out your machine's foot to a darning foot, or a free motion foot, and you move the quilt around to make the design you want on your fabric. As you can see, I got a little fancy with the heart up there. There were just a couple of solid fabric centers in this quilt, so I threw in a couple of more deliberate designs just for fun, as opposed to the all over meander on the rest of the quilt.

So here's the finished quilt. It finished at about 48" x 64". 

And the back. I've not yet added a label ... I also really loved the way that floral fabric on the bottom looked on the back. Click the image to see it larger.

And doesn't it look good on the couch in my living room (below)? Good news, I've got another one quite similar for myself so I can give this one away without missing it too much. (And I STILL have enough of this fabric left to make at least one more quilt. Good grief).

So that's two finishes in the Year of the Log Cabin Quilt series. I'm impressed even if nobody else is. Things I'm looking forward to with this series of projects are:

*adding borders

*more intricate designs

*designs on point

*attempting a larger quilt on my home machine?

*more baby quilts

JRC "Quilt of Valor"

  This quilt took literally two weeks from late night crazy idea to ready for gift giving. 

It's not official because it wasn't gifted through the Quilts of Valor foundation but that's kind of the point of it. Today we gave it to Jon 's dad, a Korean War veteran. 

I thought it was kind of fun how well it packed into that box, too.

Audrey (the Quilt) - Finish It Friday

I've decided I'm going to start naming my quilts after people in my family. So this one is named after my grandma, Audrey (Dad's mom).

I started this quilt when I took the "How to Quilt From Start to Finish Class" at my local quilt shop. The only thing I'd been avoiding was the binding. I decided to queue up a Law & Order marathon on Netflix to "watch" and got that thing done!

Remember to enter the giveaway I posted yesterday for a copy of Seaside Home from Stash Books.

Clean the freezer day

Some of you know how when you're working 40 hours a week there are other things that don't get done, right? For the last year-ish while I've been working full time there are many, many things around my house that have not been getting accomplished. In the two and a half weeks since I've been home again, I've been a veritable whirlwind of activity.

Today, I cleaned out the freezer. Not the extra one in the garage, though that needs a good defrost and clean as well. I cleaned out the freezer in the kitchen. I've been waiting until it was almost empty to get a chance to clean it out. Today was the day! And it wasn't even on today's to-do list.

Also, this is how our kitchen looked before we moved in. I know you're jealous of that brown carpeting on the floor. And that really awesome wallpaper on that back wall.

The first thing I'll say is that sometimes, wallpaper can hide a multitude of sins. When we removed that wallpaper and painted that wall, it was no easy task.

And - look at what my fantastic husband, Jon, did while I was out of town in February. He refinished the floor in the kitchen! It is fantastic. It's amazing how much brighter the room is now that the floor is done. 

With such nice improvements and now a clean freezer you would think I would just love cooking in there, eh? Unfortunately, cooking is not one of my loves. Maybe I'll pretend it's crafting while I cook dinner tonight! 

Beach Glass Heart

Nick and Jessy got married Dec 8th. I made this for them at Thanksgiving time.

Quilt - Stripes for Charlotte

I decided to start the post with the cutest picture because everybody loves babies, right? 

Jon's brother Jeremy and his wife Cassandra has this beautiful baby girl, Charlotte, in July and we got to visit her this past weekend. She's a little peanut baby and I rocked her right to sleep. I've still got that mama rock down.

Now, back to the beginning. I was so excited because this gave me an opportunity to use these pretty fabrics that I have been eyeing for quite some time. 

I have a couple in there from BFF by Elizabeth's Studio and the majority are from Down Under by Shelley Comiskey for Henry Glass. It's a real occupational hazard that I see every new fabric that comes in to the building at my job. There are so many I want to use for making quilts.

I chose a simple pattern because I wanted to get this one done as quickly as I could and wanted to be able to quilt it myself as well. We had planned our trip so there wouldn't be time to send it out to be quilted by anyone else. I'm really looking forward to the day when I'll have a quilt that I will deem worthy of being quilted by a "real" quilter, rather than a novice such as myself.

Here's the finished product, such as it is. It's far from perfect but I think it's awfully sweet for a pretty baby girl. 

I put this label on the back so she'll know her favorite auntie made it for her when she gets bigger. I also told Jon that I'll make her a much more complicated one when she goes to college. Here's hoping my skills are vastly improved by then. 

This quilt was inspired by this one from Cluck Cluck Sew. 

Oh yeah, if you want to see where I collect quilty inspiration, here's my Pinterest Board for that. 

Loves

Have you ever looked around and realized "there is absolutely nothing I can do to show these people what they mean to me?"

Ok. I might be feeling a little overly emotional tonight. Or this might just be who I am.

Stop and look around.

Those people. Think for a minute about what they really mean to you.

Now go and find a way to show them.

Loves.

Baby blanket for Connor

I sent this blanket off in the mail today for our niece Jeannette. She's just about ready to have her little guy and we're just wishing we could head out to visit with them once he's born.

Good Grief

Today we'll go and visit to celebrate the lives of Domick and Isaac. Two little boys who left us way too soon. Tomorrow we'll say goodbye one last time. 

More than anything, I want to love on my cousin Jacki, their mom, pictured above. 

I hate these days. We've had way too many of them in our family. 

My boys asked if we would be going to the same funeral home today as when Great Grandma Young died. We're not. We are familiar with way too many funeral homes. 

I don't want this for any of us. But the only thing we can do is to keep walking through it. One day at a time. One step at a time. One breath at a time. 

Impromptu Campus Tour

Today

Easter Memories

I was realizing this week that we have many interesting Easter stories at our house. And lots of pictures to go along with them.

This year Sarah had been asking and asking to see the Easter Bunny. Not the one at the mall but an actual rabbit of some sort. We were stumped. But - this is what happened:

Jon had noticed the rabbit under the bench and told Sarah to quietly come and sit by the door. She did. After she sat down the rabbit climbed up the stairs to take a look back at her. They sat there like that for several minutes. It was amazing. 

She was thrilled because the Easter Bunny came to our house just to see her.

In 2009 we had a dinner at our house and of course the requisite egg hunt outside afterwards.

I still can’t decide if the kids look happy or cold, or just freaked out. I probably should send this one to that site with the awkward family photos.

From 2008 we at least have a way cuter picture of my Miss Pretty Pretty.

And in 2007 we were waiting (mostly) patiently for Sarah to be born. Weren't my boys little then? It doesn't seem like that long ago.

Jason, Grandma Mia (Marilyn) and Evan

Thanks for taking that stroll down Easter Memory lane with me. 

Family night craftiness

We had paper crafting night on Friday. What? That's not what you do on Friday night? Hmpf. Maybe you should.

Sarah started out like this. All nice and neat, clean and fully dressed.

And ended up like this. I bought smelly markers. It was inevitable.

Who wants to guess at what age she will get her first tattoo?

Jason meticulously covered almost the entire front of his notebook. Then promptly ripped off the cover and threw it away.

Artists. Whaddaya gonna do?

Evan took a little more time because he likes to tell us all about what he's doing and how he's going to do it. And he chose to let the cover remain on his book to be crafted another day.

They all love using mom's special papers and tools. Sarah got a great big kick out of the wave cutter and the boys really, really, really, really love the adhesive tools. Those boys are expensive even on craft night.

Jon helped keep the tattooed lady busy and relatively clean. He also helped with clean up. Isn't he great? I dream up and help create the mess and he helps clean it up.

And here's my craftiness for the evening. It's the cover of my "one notebook to rule them all." I'm going to try out a new way to keep track of some things.

With crafty inspiration from Sara Mincy.

That was our last family night. What does your family do for fun on a Friday night?

You just got pwned!

Ok, so, my boys love to play online games. Their current most favorite is World of Warcraft.

Jon and I created a single account to share so that we could play with them and better understand what in the world they were talking about when we called them to dinner and they said "But Mom! I'm in a dungeon!"

Honestly, our account is currently inactive because since I started my business I don't have time to play. The nice thing is that our characters live on and when we want to re-activate our account (resume paying the monthly subscription fee) we can pick up right where we left off.

I've been listening and learning quite a bit this week about author Jane McGonigal. Her new book is called Reality is Broken and I currently have it on hold at Barnes and Noble to pick up tonight so you'll have to hang tight for a review.

She has some crazy ideas (and we all know how much I love those, right?) about how gaming is good for us and that through gaming we can actually work together to solve some really huge problems. Her TED talk is here. I watched it last night and it really made me think differently about the time my kids spend online.

All that having been said, what if we could create a real life game for every day living? An iPhone app created by a group McGonigal works with is called EpicWin.


"EpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to quickly note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. (from the developers website here)"


I downloaded this app today to start "playing" so I'll let you know how that goes. But more importantly, I want to start thinking about a way to create a game in real life. One where the boys will earn points for things like brushing their teeth, one where they'll earn experience points for doing their homework, and for completing chores. 


I guess there should be ways to lose experience points, too; such as arguing with a parent, hitting each other, or failing to complete an agreed upon task. Of course, some activities are neutral as well. 


Ok, I'm kind of geek so this is starting to sound like fun to me. Now I just have to figure out how to make it work. What do you think? What would your kids call their game? How should I dole out experience points or remove them?


Now to sell it to the boys. Wish me luck!

Indy Trip - Day Two

Day two. Hmm. I would love to say that we slept late but ya know. Three year old.

We ate breakfast in our room. I brought groceries for that. Cause I'm cheap that way. Then we did a bit of a driving tour. Because it was fah-reeeezing. No walking tour for us this time.

We drove past the State House. It wasn't until Sunday that we realized there were tours on Saturday. Hmpf. Now we have a good reason to come back and our first free thing to add to the list for next trip.

And we drove past Lucas Oil Stadium. Evan is a huge Colts fan so he was glad to see this photo of his buddy Peyton Manning on the outside of the stadium.

Then we headed back north and ended up at the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library.

This is an amazing library. You can see the original portion of the building looking all stately, made of brick and mortar. And then there's the newer portion of the building, all modern looking and much taller than the original space. It's a-maz-ing.

From the outside the structure is very impressive. And then when you walk in, it's even more impressive. The original building is used to house all of the fiction titles and some really nice nooks and crannies for quiet reading time; at least that's what it looked like to me.

The newer portion houses all of the non-fiction collections as well as special collections and the children's area. The computer labs are also located in the modern section along with a small cafe area. And did I mention it's six stories tall? Yeah. You could get lost in this library.

The children's area is called the Learning Curve and Sarah loved it. There was a story time in progress so we stopped in to listen.

The librarian did a great job reading Snowbots, a really cute book about how robot kids entertain themselves in the winter time. After the reading, the kids in the room made a movie by answering questions about the book while being filmed. Then the librarian would play it back for them. Very simple and the kids loved seeing themselves telling about the book.

I wanted to catch the librarian's name but Sarah wouldn't let me stick around long enough. So thanks Miss Librarian! You did a great job!



Sarah also managed to find one of her personal favorite books to read, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Seriously, if you live in Indy and have never visited this library, you are missing out.


The library was definitely the highlight of day two for us. We spent quite a bit of time just checking it all out and dreaming about spending time there.