Quilts!

Finally. Sorry. =)

First, the finished one...



And then the next one I'm working on, this one was quick and easy...



And finally what's coming up next...

http://dontlooknow.typepad.com/

Specifically this one for Kate's bed.

And John's surgery went fine and he's recovering well. It kills him in the morning when he's gone several hours without pain medication but it's manageable the rest of the day. Says the wife not going through it. But really, I think he's doing well. His mom's coming to stay with us this week, she'll be here today to help with the kids. And I turn 30 this week! AHHHH! Not ready for that one.

Little Girl Standing

This has always been my favorite time ever in my kids' lives. I love the stocky baby, footed jammies, crawling/sitting/standing time. I love snuggling her and having a good amount of baby to hang on to. And I love their independence. Kate started crawling for real on February 10th, about a day after I posted that "almost crawling" video, and started pulling herself up on things she can get a grip on the next day. She uses the wire tracks at the top of this toy to pull herself up. And doesn't she look proud of herself!

A Quilt Top...

And a 10 on Thursday...

First, here's the quilt top.





I still have to pick out the reverse side fabric and actually quilt it together, which I have a feeling is more difficult than sewing the quilt top! I'll let you know.

And my Ten on Thursday, the quilting edition.

1. Make sure you check the size of the quilt you're quilting before you get started. I seriously thought this was a lap quilt. I'm pretty sure it will fit on a twin size bed. =) Whoops.

2. Don't try to think up 10 things about quilting while you're trying to sew a straight line.

3. If you tell yourself "it's ok, nothing's perfect" ten times over about a particular imperfection, it's not ok and it's going to drive you nuts.

4. Rotary cutters are the coolest invention ever.

5. They're also wicked sharp. Ouch!

6. Just because you can cut 10 layers of fabric with a rotary cutter doesn't mean you should.

7. Quilting isn't as hard as I thought it would be. It's just fabric and thread.

8. If you don't cut something precisely, it'll drive you nuts when you have to sew it. The sashing on the side (the white pieces) were cut like 10 layers at a time and there's a tiny wiggle in my cutting that echoed through all 10 layers. Trying to sew that in a straight line is no fun at all.

9. I need one of these. Aren't they beautiful?

10. I totally see why some quilts are $200 bucks. They're not the cheapest things if you use nice fabric and it's a fair amount of work! I'm sure the more intricate designs REALLY are. This one probably cost me around 75 bucks not counting the tools to get started.

Here's the Product list...

First, the quilt top I saw that made me want to do it...

http://retromummy.blogspot.com/2010/01/quilt-top.html

(See? Does it look huge? I was thinking lap quilt and just forced that image into a lap quilt size, I think.)

The Pattern

The remarkably helpful directions.

The fabric was from here, but I bought the last set. It was Amy Butler Daisy Chain fat quarters. There were 10 of them, and they were 30 bucks.

Then batting, and sashing fabric from Hancock, the batting is cotton instead of polyester and was 34 for 3 yards, and the sashing was 16 bucks or so. Add a couple of spools of thread and there ya go.

I'll post pictures when I finish it, which saying that is like the kiss of death as far as actually posting them, but I think in this case I most certainly will show it off. Maybe I'll get it done this weekend, we'll see.

Crawling... almost...

So... close...

10 on Tuesday

1. We had a lovely Christmas. Did you?

2. Dash and Kate with their loot from our house.



3. Dash sweetly gave his sister both of her presents. He didn't even try to keep them for himself. =)

4. We played around with the camera the day after Christmas...

These are my favorites.







5. John got a fry daddy for Christmas from me, we've already Christened it with onion rings and chicken fingers. Yum.

6. Did you know Big Bob BBQ sauce mixed with white sauce is delicious?

7. The radiator is acting up on the truck so I drove the car today and John was going to look at the truck while I was at work. I also accidentally took the truck keys with me to work. Whoops.

8. I'm looking forward to Krispy Kreme on New Year's Eve. =)

9. I'm also looking forward to 2010. Surely it will be better than 2009, right?

10. We got our nooks at work and I'm on the fence about keeping it and downloading every free book known to man or selling it on ebay and buying something else.

11. (Bonus!) We're tearing up some new Super Mario Brothers for Wii at our house. =) I bought the Mario and Sonic olympics game, too, we're checking that out tonight.

Christmas Finery

I had to bribe Dash with a Christmas present to get him to sit with her for our Christmas card photos but in the meantime I got a few good ones of Miss Kate...

St. Louis - Day 1

There was just too much to post about it all at once. It was a whirlwind trip but we tried to cram in as much as we could.

So, the regular route is I-65N to Nashville, then I-24W. Well, we forgot about that turn. We didn't miss it, we didn't even look for it. The only way we knew we were going the wrong was is John started telling me what his GPS said and it sounded super wrong. We could either go back 30 miles to Nashville and get on the right road or we could take the back way. We opted for the back way.

Am I the only one to realize that the middle of Kentucky has quite a large Shaker community? No? Good. It does. Lots and lots of Shakers. We saw four or five horse and buggies, a Shaker Museum and a Shaker Bed and Breakfast. We also saw a TON of tobacco fields. And zero bathrooms. We turned off on a little two lane highway and it was 45 minutes before we saw a gas station. Not a good thing.

We're podunking along, not really paying attention, and all of a sudden we see this:



In the middle of NO WHERE. Seriously. That thing was huge. It's a marker for the birthplace of Jefferson Davis.



It was also in the middle of a park with a playground so we stopped and took pictures and let Dash run some steam off. Turns out our detour cost us an extra three hours on an already seven hour trip. With a two and a half year old and a four month old.

We FINALLY got to St. Louis. And saw this.



That crazy little structure will forever do funny things to me. It's such a symbol of my hometown.

New Busch was right behind it, and it's just not.the.same.



It's just a regular ol' stadium now; nothing special. Old Busch was something special.

We quickly checked into our hotel room (anyone ever stay at a Drury Inn? Holy moly, what a great hotel for the price. Free hot breakfast, adult beverages and snacks every night (three free per person!), indoor pool, great staff... And I think it was 65 bucks a night.) and headed out to meet my best friend from the fourth grade! It had been all of 16 years since I've seen her.



We had so much fun. Sarah is as sweet as she ever was and found herself an equally sweet husband. We picked up where we left off like we never skipped a beat. She took us to The Hill, the Italian district in St. Louis, to an awesome little restaurant called Rigazzi's



And this crazy little thing was sitting out front. =)



After dinner we headed off to Ted Drewe's, one of my all-time favorite St. Louis places.





and filled up on Chocolate and Oreo concretes. Oh-so-good. More to come tomorrow... (do you believe that? You know what kind of blogger I am, right? I'll try for tomorrow though. Seriously. =) )