see you soon....

As you all probably have noticed, I have not blogged in over a month. It's not that things are going badly here, it's just that things have been so good and so busy that I just haven't been blogging like I used too. I am working again (part-time at Jo-Ann's) and still need to keep up with my daily responsibilities around the house. Yes, the family has been pitching in more since I've started work. Yay for that! But, I also need time for myself. If it's watching a movie, sewing, crafting or doing whatever it may be, I need to do things for myself otherwise I go crazy. It's true. So in order to still have some "me time" I've decided to let my blog go for now. Who knows, maybe I'll be back. I won't completely shut it down. It will still be here, just no new updates. Ok everyone? Thanks for understanding!

taking off

Aaron will be enjoying a nice quiet house Tuesday night. The kids, myself and my Mom are headed off to Stevens Point to visit my Grandpa, then we are going out to my aunt's house to visit and play in their big pool and stay overnight. Good thing I made a good supper with leftovers tonight for Aaron. He'll be dining on meatloaf sandwiches Tuesday night for supper. I made the best meatloaf tonight! It's a new recipe that I found. Only Aaron and I ate it so there is plenty for Aaron to enjoy for supper.

On a side note....we are having another garage sale Friday and Saturday. I don't know how much time I'll have to blog between now and then. I still have more work to do and it's going to have to wait until Thursday since we'll be gone. So if you don't hear from me, you'll know that I'm busy, busy, busy! Have a good week!

my first ever quilt! the finale

I did it. Today I completely finished the wonky checkerboard quilt that I was making. My first every quilt is done. Now, it's definitely not perfect but I am super happy with how it turned out and learned a lot from making this one. Would you like to see pictures?

Here we go!

here's a picture of the back, I did a checkerboard row down the middle

Well, that's it! It's done! Before I start another quilt, my goal is to finish Dylan's and the baby blanket first. And I'm almost done with both of them!

baby blanket - part 2

Last week I finished the top of the baby blanket. I then realized that I didn't buy enough pink flannel for the back! I need to get back to Jo-Ann's to buy more pink. For now I will share a picture of the top!

This top was fun to do! It's a super easy pattern for a beginner quilter like myself!

Judy Moody

I forgot to mention in my earlier post today that last night the kids and I had a pizza and movie night. I knew that Aaron wouldn't be home for supper so it was the perfect night to have pizza and a movie! We brought home Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer from the library. It was such a cute movie, the kids and I really enjoyed it! Plus you can't go wrong with Pizza Hut pizza. They have their $10 deal going on right now. Every pizza is $10 no matter what size or what's on it!

Aaron did have a terribly long day yesterday. He left at 5:15 AM and didn't get home until 8:30 PM. Talk about a long day. That's what happens when he needs to cover  for someone else!

And, unfortunately Aaron's car is still not ready. Hoping for Thursday afternoon.....

stuck, stranded, etc, etc.

So far this week I have not had a car. Aaron's car is in the shop, since last Thursday, unfortunately. So what does that mean when Aaron's car has been in the shop for almost a week? A big car repair bill that's what! We have our fingers crossed it will be done today. Since the kids have summer school this week, we have been biking back and forth to school, which is fine. Thank goodness it's not so hot this week, otherwise I would have a problem with it! I am going to have a ton of errands to run once I have my car back!!!

baby blanket - part 1

I have set Dylan's quilt aside for a week or two while I made a baby blanket for Aaron's cousin who is having a baby girl this Fall. Last weekend Jo-Ann's had their flannel material 57% off, which made it $2.99 a yard. The design of this quilt does not require a ton of fabric and with the fabric being on sale, I got quite a deal! Here's a link to the directions I am following: Storytime quilt from Made by Rae

I started cutting fabric Monday afternoon and by Tuesday night I was almost done sewing the top of it! Here are some pics:

Here the fabric I'm using:

And the top so far.....

I still have more work to do but so far it is coming along beautifully! I think it's going to look so great when it's done and will make a great gift!

Once I am done with the baby blanket, I will get back to getting Dylan's put together. I just really wanted to get this one done before the baby is born, plus again, it's too warm for Dylan to use his quilt right now anyway!

Dylan's quilt - part 2

Last week I did a lot of sewing on Dylan's quilt. I also cut out the gray fabric for the quilt using my new ruler and mat. Here is a picture of what I sewed together last week:

I know it looks a little weird right now, but the empty areas are going to be filled in with gray fabric. Trust me, it will look awesome when it's done. Especially when I use red for the back and the binding! I currently set this one aside because....I've decided to make a baby blanket for Aaron's cousin who is having a baby girl this Fall! This I will share in a separate post!

my first every quilt! part 9

I wanted to give a quick update to my first ever quilt....the wonky checkerboard as I am calling it! I have made a decision on how I am going to finish it. I have started tying/tieing (spelling which one is it??), anyway, I will be finishing the quilt by hand. My final picture will be when the quilt is completely finished! It may be a few weeks though before it's done. The hand tying is a little hard on my hands so I can only do a few rows at a time. Plus, it's not cold enough to use the blanket anyway so there is definitely no rush! I can't wait to share the final pictures!

a startling discovery

It's been a pretty good past few days here. Last Thursday Aaron was home early from work, so we took advantage of Chaos' Waterpark $5 deal on Thursdays and headed over to the waterpark for some fun! The kids had a blast (and so did the grown-ups!). We were all exhausted by the time we got home that night. I know the kids slept pretty good that night.

After the rain ended up Saturday, we headed downtown for the annual Summerfest that was going on. Every year, first Saturday in August, there is a big celebration downtown to get people to come downtown and experience it. There was a classic car show, food, bands, bounce houses for the kids, petting zoo and more. After walking through Summerfest, we went over a couple of blocks to Chalkfest! We love Chalkfest in my house and this was the first year that we actually went down to Chalkfest while they were still working. A lot of them were done, but a few people were still working. Here are a few shots I got of some of our favorites:

Ok, that was more than a few, but isn't it amazing what can be done with chalk!?!? The drawings should still be there, it hasn't rained yet!

And Sunday, wow, was the weather beautiful on Sunday! After church I went to the grocery store for a few groceries, we at lunch and then enjoyed the awesome weather outside. We did some clean-up outside, the kids rode their bikes, played baseball and I made a startling discovery. In my backyard, I have a planter with flowers right next to our air conditioner. About 3-4 weeks ago I caught a rabbit stuffing it with grass and destroying my flowers. I could have saved a few flowers, but decided just to let them go and stop watering them. So yesterday, I finally get around to cleaning up the planter and guess what I found......that rabbit that I caught putting grass in my planter had her babies in my planter. There are three baby bunnies in a nest INSIDE my planter. What a strange place to have babies! I didn't disturb them, I noticed them before I did anything bad. I had gloves on, so I very carefully pulled the grass that I removed from the planter out of my bag and placed it back on top of them. The babies are nested down in the dirt a little bit and the grass is on top of them. I am guessing that they are 3-4 weeks old, they do have hair already. So the rabbit must have just had her babies when she was pulling grass out and putting it in my planter. Now, think about this....what if I had continued to water my flowers and just pulled out the destroyed flowers.... they probably would have drowned. The kids don't know they are there. I don't want the kids to disturb the rabbits. I showed Aaron and our neighbor Terri and they couldn't believe it either! I'm still in shock!!

Summer school is coming to an end for the kids. Thursday is their last day. Then three full weeks off, then it's back to school! It's just around the corner!

new purchase

I just got back from Jo-Ann's with a new purchase for my new hobby, quilting. I needed to buy a larger cutting mat and ruler. My current mat is 12" x 18" and my ruler is 3" x 18". The quilt that I am working on for Dylan requires me to cut pieces larger than my cutting mat and my ruler.  Sure, I am sure I could make it work somehow. But as I am learning in quilting it is very important that you measurements are correct and your seams accurate. Today I purchased a Fiskars fabric cutting set. In it includes......a 18" x 24" cutting mat that is double-sided so it will last twice as long, a ruler that is 6.5" x 24.5" and a rotary cutter. The set was $53.99....however I of course had a coupon and only paid $32.40 for the set. I priced everything up separately and this was a much better deal. I do already have a rotary cutter but I figure it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an extra one just in case.

I am now all set to continue cutting out the pieces for Dylan's quilt. More specifically it is the gray pieces. I should be able to cut them perfectly on my new cutting mat with my new ruler!

Dylan's quilt - part 1

Since I am trying to figure out how to quilt or tie my wonky checkerboard quilt, I've decided to start on quilt #2. This one is going to be for Dylan. The pattern is from McCall's Quilting America Makes Fast Quilts, the Spring 2012 issue. Here's the quilt I am making:

It is called Cafeteria Line. The one in the magazine is made of shades of blue, green and brown, but I have selected different fabrics.

The robot fabric is going to be where the leaf pattern is, the colorful stripes will replace the brown/white stripes, the blue/green stripe is going to be turquoise, the brown is the black/gray pattern and instead of using white for the background, I found a really cool gray. I am thinking about using red on the back (I need to run it by Dylan!) Everything is already cut out except for the gray. It was super easy to cut and will also be super easy to sew. This one should come together pretty quickly. I think this will turn out totally cool!

so stupid!

Last Thursday I was making Katie and I a frozen pizza for lunch. As I was pulling it out of the oven, my arm touched the inside of the oven door and guess what....I burned myself. Pretty badly. I would have to say that this is the worst burn I've ever had. It blistered up the next day and then it was raw for a few days and hurt. Today it is finally start to feel better and isn't so raw anymore. It is drying up and forming a scab on top of it (sorry for the grossness). I have no doubt in my mind that this will definitely leave a scar. Aaron says next time I should be more careful, as if I was trying to burn myself last night. Of course I was being careful! I told Katie I'm never making frozen pizza again. :-)

my first ever quilt! part 8

Well, today I made a sandwich! A quilt sandwich! Here is what it looks like:

I had to use the floor downstairs to lay it out. So on the bottom is the back that I pieced together, followed by batting and then the top. I pinned all three layers together with safety pins. I started in the middle and worked my way out. There were 40 in the pack and I used them all. Next step is to trim off the excess batting and backing.

First trim the batting so it is the same size as the quilt top. And as for the back, I am using a simpler method for my first quilt. What most people do is cut strips from fabric to make your own binding to go around the quilt. But there is another method.....you use the same fabric from the back as your binding. You cut the backing 1" bigger than your top two layers. Then you fold it in 1/2" and then another 1/2" over the edge of the batting and quilt top. Pin it, then sew all the way around. Here's the tutorial that I am using the complete the binding: easy binding @ Make It and Love It

Here is what the quilt looks like now:

You can see my backing color is a khaki color. I wanted a neutral colored fabric since the front has so many patterns/colors going on. I also sewing one strip of squares to go across the middle in the back. I'll have to photograph the back when the quilt is completely done.

Before I can do the binding, there is one thing I have to do. The quilting. You know that fancy stitching people do on their quilts. Well, I thought instead of doing the stitching on it, that I would tie this one instead. You take yarn and a needle, go through all the layers and tie a knot at the top. You do that every 4"-5" around the quilt. I'm not for sure yet what to do. I think I am going to think about it for a few days before deciding what to do. I want to make sure that I make the right decision!