Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice

My dear friend M.E. is expecting a baby girl in February (just six weeks before we will hopefully welcome our little boy). It has been so nice to have someone on base to be pregnant with. We are often out on a slow walk together or comparing notes on maternity clothing. Anyway, several of the girls and I have been planning her shower for months. I've additionally been planning to make a little baby quilt. I had the fabric and the pattern all picked out but just couldn't quite get motivated to get it done. With the shower fast approaching I got to work over the holiday weekend.

The fabric is a combination of scraps and randomly ordered girly fabric. I machine quilted it myself using the lovely painters tape trick to mark out the quilting pattern. I also used basing spray - which for some reason I previously missed the memo on. The basing spray sure made the job allot easier and avoided all those nasty snags that I used to wrestle with. Once I had the top done the rest of the project was finished by the time Santa made his appearance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Mini-Log Cabin Quilt

When I finished up the quilt for our little baby boy I had another quilt using the same fabric line (Moda's Hideaway) that also needed binding. I'm thinking I will also use this one in the baby's room since it matches.. but I may change my mind still. This one used a modified log cabin pattern that I made up using the scrap fabric from the other quilt. Its nice and red!

We walked to the park to take some pictures but it was so windy we couldn't get the quilt to hold still!

Giving Thanks

I celebrated my one year sewing anniversary over Thanksgiving. Last year my husband gave me a sewing machine as an early Christmas present. Although my first official project was the apron B taught me how to make - the first project I did on my own were Thanksgiving placements. I finished them last year just in time to host Thanksgiving dinner with my family and our Edwards family. Unfortunately, I never got any pictures before we put them away. While we were in Texas we had some mice move into our garage and the pilgrim hat and mayflower designs were eaten - the others survived the attack and I was happy to see these beauties again this year. (I only took pictures of the two letters and a turkey - there are a few more in the collection.)








We didn't host Thanksgiving this year and instead got to focus on just making our favorite dishes. I made the same Pecan Pie (which we pronounce pee-can in Georgia) I made last year - only because I remember it being amazing - but it all being gone by the end of the night. This year was no different but I did sneak an extra piece!

Jeff focused on baking bread. His bread baking skills just get better every year. I can only imagine what the bread will look like once we have an oven that properly heats. (The cheap ovens in base housing don't maintain their temperature very well making bread baking a big difficult.) The bread was one of the highlights of the evening. Here are a few pictures of the deliciousness that came our of our kitchen for Thanksgiving.

The Fabric Picks the Project

I was in JoAnn's on Wednesday and found this amazing whale fabric in fleece.





My sister loves whales - she is always teasing that my baby needs more whale stuff. When I saw the fabric I knew I needed to make her some PJ pants. It's a quick project and they just came out of the wash and I snapped a picture while they were line drying.




I think they are actually going to be a bit shorter then she typically wears them.. but they are adorable. Plus they are made with love and isn't that what counts.

I have some leftover fabric that I'm going to back a little baby quilt with...when I get to it.

Happy Crafting!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Quilting for Our Baby Boy

It has been a long time since I have finished a project!

I have plenty that are in various stages but between traveling and being pregnant I have made little to no progress. This week, as the cold rolled in, it finally felt like time to get back to work. I finished this little guy up just as we found out that we would be welcoming a baby boy in early April. The quilt is in Hideaway, which incorporates some of my favorite colors so I've already set it aside for our little one. I have a few more projects to finish in the next few weeks but sometimes it just takes getting over the hump to finish a bunch of things.


Hopefully I'll get a few more done over the long weekend! Happy Crafting and Happy Thanksgiving!

Birthdays, Baking and Binding

Last weekend was B's birthday so a group of us headed down to San Diego for some beach camping. She asked for a carrot cake and I was happy to oblige. I used a recipe from the Complete Americas Test Kitchen TV Shop Cookbook. This cookbook has never let me down - I cooked most of Thanksgiving dinner from it in November to rave reviews. The cake turned out perfectly - the book even suggested cooking it in a square pan for easy transport. This kept the cake nice and most even on the beach. I still have some work to do on my cake decorating skills.. luckily by the time we served the cake it was dark (and the car with all the flashlights had not arrived yet!) and no one was able to see my writing anyway. So Happy Birthday B! Thanks for letting us share your big day.


Meanwhile, Jeff's baking has gone from hit and miss to excellent. I've been the lucky recipient of Cherry Danish's, pasta, pizza crust, and, just this weekend, soft pretzels. I can't find any pictures of his creations - although I'm sure I took some - so when I find them I will post them. Anyway...

When I got back from camping I had the newest complete quilt waiting for its binding. I love to get a quilt bound - it just doesn't feel complete until its all finished. I had some trouble getting motivated but finally put on some old movies and just sat down and pushed through - I did the finishing stitches in between turns at game night.

The pattern is Random Reflections and the fabric is Central Park. I should have made two of these - because for some reason it screams "put me on a twin bed in a little girls room." haha. Maybe its just me.

This afternoon, with the finished quilt in hand we went on a little adventure to the park. I had fun taking pictures on the jungle gym and later relaxing on the new quilt in the shade - I even tied it to the back of my bike, all rolled up, to ride home.

So.. in the words of John Stewart "Here's Your Moment of Zen."

Millions of Pieces

I did a lot of piecing these last two weeks. I was super motivated by all my friends recent pregnancy announcements. Time to get my current projects finished so I can start on baby quilts!

In other exciting news, a group of ladies here on base have been tossing around the idea of a quilting group. I'm very excited about the prospects!

Enough of my rambling. These all still need to get quilted, but I made so much progress this week I wanted to post pictures. (More details to come on these when they are finally done.)








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone