Quilt Along Update

I had quite a few squares to make up for, and then I got carried away and just finished up until I had the 70 all done. It's not officially day 70 until Sunday, so I'm good to stop procrastinating on making Mason's valance. The above are squares #55-62.

As I was making the squares, I was supposed to cut out a few extra- 144 little squares- for the border. I decided to count them out and see how many I had. WAY TOO MANY! I decided to make the rest of these squares out of those extras, so there's only one of each of these, instead of two like the others.

Yay! 70 squares and 144 border squares. I can't wait to get this thing pieced together. Hopefully I can get it all quilted and bound before the baby comes!

Baby Shower Gift

This is nothing fancy, but I thought I would share because this ball is crazy! My friend Nicole just had her third boy and her shower was last night. I didn't know what to make for her and have wanted to try this pattern out for ages. It's in the "Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts."

The author found a ball at an antique shop years ago, and made several attempts to recreate it. It's an interesting ball and the way it's put together is really cool. It's called a puzzle ball, and I'm hoping it will be a fun little toy for a new little boy! Seriously, I should get free stuff for promoting this book so much.

I forgot to mention that the sailboat quilt pattern also came from this book.

Boppy Cover

I tried to use my old Boppy cover to help make this, but it was seriously getting crazy. They make them all weird and the pillow is such a weird shape anyways, I was really intimidated. I googled and found a few websites where they mentioned a blog called Economical Baby. Sounds like a great blog, right? Sadly, it no longer exists. But then I stumbled upon Vanilla Joy and she actually had the downloaded tutorial from Economical Baby! The luck!

When my ordered fabric for the baby's room arrived, I thought I bought way too much. But I'm slowly using it all and don't really have all that much left. Luckily the valance is the last thing on my list. I'm sure I'll come up with other stuff later. Or my friends out there who might be having boys- be ready for blue and orange gifts!

I was going to make a boat applique for the Boppy, but decided Dale would appreciate a whale so much more! And I didn't make anything yet with a whale on it. I used some left over blue felt, and embroidered a cute little face on him.

Here's the back of the Boppy. I used a zipper that I bought in a giant bag of zippers at the second hand store. Man, I love shopping there!

FYI: If you're going to make a Boppy cover for yourself, this tutorial was great- not that it's all that complicated, but it's nice to have the pattern. The only thing I didn't like, was in Vanilla Joy's pictures, the cover seemed really REALLY baggy. The tutorial said to do a 1/4" inseam, but I did more like 3/4" and I still feel like it's baggy. So my suggestion is 3/4" and then trim the seam. Or you could just shrink the pattern down a bit to get the perfect size. I also used a 20" zipper and it was perfect; the tute says to use a 24".

More Baby Stuff!

Dale stole the camera this past weekend for his YM camping trip, so I'm sorry for the long delay (MOM!) in posting these up. I finished the quilt on Friday- just in time to hurry and scramble something together early Saturday morning for Father's Day (before Dale got home). Is it anyone else, or did that holiday just creep up on you? I'll try to post up some pictures of that soon, but I have yet to take any...

I just quilted it with horizontal lines, nothing too outrageous. I thought about changing directions in each piece, but decided to make my life a little easier. I quilted it with the coordinating colors- light blue, white, cream, brown, and dark blue and kept the bobbin thread cream. The backing is the orange and cream stripe. Thanks again, Bri, for the idea to do the binding on the bias. I just wasn't thinking!

I used some of the left over scraps from the quilt to make this little pillow. I used a lumbar pillow while sitting in the rocking chair, nursing Brighton, so I wanted to make a new one to match the rest of the room. Plus, pink and green flowers don't go very well with blue and orange.

These are some decorating items I've been picking up over the last few weeks. The boat I got at Goodwill, I think, for $1. The little frame was from one of Brighton's baby shower gifts (that I never had a place for until now!). The whale, of course, from my sister. The lighthouse I found at a garage sale for $1. Finally settling on a name, I got the "M" from Michael's for 50% off! I just found the bird at the dollar store yesterday. The bottle in the back is from Goodwill too, $1.

When I was at Michael's I saw some bottles with twine glued around them, on clearance for $10. I figured I could do that myself!

Here's everything all prettied up! I have two wooden shelves that we've had no where to put until now. We'll stick those up on the wall in Mason's room, with all these fun goodies! The boat and lighthouse have been painted- not professionally, but they'll do ok. The bottle has some twine glued around it and I decoupaged some of the orange stripe fabric to the "M." I'm thinking all I need now is a nice starfish and another big shell.

I'm officially in nesting mode. I've starting pulling out all the newborn baby stuff and am getting ready to go. Too bad I still have like 10 and a half weeks. Well, 9 and a half if we induce... :)

Quilt Along Update

I'm behind already... I've been working on stuff for little Mason's room and haven't been focusing too much time on making squares! I'll have plenty of work this weekend when I finally sit down and pump a few out. It's like day 58 or 60 or something like that. The above squares are #47-54. Not too far behind...

It's the Little Things That Really Count

Isn't it those little unimportant things that make all the difference anyway?

I've been tagged by my friend Megan. The game goes as follows:
* List Six Unimportant Things That Make You Happy
* Mention and link to the person who tagged you
* Tag six of your favorite bloggers to play along

Unimportant Things That Make Me Happy:

1.) I don't like text messaging. But I LOVE it when Dale will send me a random text every now and then telling me that he loves me.

2.) I love to sew, and on a great sewing day, I never have to pull out the seam ripper. Now THAT makes me happy. Also, not running out of bobbin thread in the middle of sewing and not noticing...

3.) When we're sitting down to eat dinner and Brighton starts singing "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" (well, just the "beam" part) with hand motions.

4.) A new pair of shoes. There's nothing quite like it, no matter how much they cost- $5 or $100- or how uncomfortable they may be. As long as they're cute.

5.) When Dale rubs my feet, and actually does a decent job. He's not that into rubbing, and usually zones out after 30 seconds.

6.) Drinking 2 or more liters of water a day. I feel good about it, and who doesn't like seeing that their pee is clear?

Now for 6 friends:
Brianne S.
Emily A.
Brittany G.
Laura G.
Jessica L.
Kim L.

Quilt Top

I did manage to get this bad boy finished yesterday. I honestly wasn't sure. It took me almost the entire day just to get all the pieces cut out. My goal for today is to get it basted, possibly some quilting done. But I do have a few quilt-along squares that I need to get done, so we'll see. So far I'm totally in love with it! I'm planning on binding, and backing, it with the orange stripe fabric and I hope that adds just enough to it. I have such a hard time visualizing quilts!

28 Weeks Pregnant

Officially kick started the third trimester yesterday. Twelve weeks to go, and I can't wait! Little Mason (we've decided... for now) is kicking me like crazy all day long, but mostly right as I lay down to go to sleep. Who knew it would actually get easier to fall asleep with someone kicking your bladder and practicing karate moves in your belly? But my sleep hasn't really started to suffer yet, which is always nice.

I had my glucose test last week and I'm not diabetic! Not that I was worried, but it's nice to know. I did learn that I'm anemic, so I have to take iron suppliments twice a day. But that's what happened last time with Brighton, so nothing really knew for me. And as of last week, I'm going to the doctor every two weeks. I seriously can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going.

I've gained a total of 17 pounds so far. That's a few pounds more than I had with Brighton at this time, but what are you gonna do? My scale, which has always been a good friend to me, has become my enemy in the last few weeks. We bought a scale that tells you your BMI. Not that BMI is always completely accurate, but it was a nice feature. It finally decided to tell me that I was overweight. I know, I'm pregnant and not fat, but I really question our purchase nowadays. And my thighs are officially touching- I can't wait to get this little guy out and get back to normal!

But at least I'm not as huge and uncomfortable as some of my friends and other ladies that I've seen. I saw one who was 26 weeks along, and she looked like she was ready to get to the hospital any second. Oh, and I wanted to share this: I saw a button on one of my friend's blogs that said, "I'm so crafty, I make people" with a little pregnant woman. Too cute. So maybe I can claim I'm "so" crafty, too, even when I haven't done anything "crafty."

Newcastle Picnic

We drove down to have a picnic dinner with our great friends, the Stephens. The park is right on the lake and they have a fun little playground that the girls enjoyed so much! This was their favorite- a sort of train and they could sit in here at a "table."

Brighton and Kaylin peeking out of the caboose.

Eric, guarding all our stuff. And it looks like he's digging in a little early...

After a wonderful dinner, Bri and I got the girls into their swimsuits and set up to start playing in the sand! Brighton had her shoes on at first, then got sand in them, and that was NO GOOD! I took them off and she was a little unsure for about 30 seconds, and then decided it was so much fun digging in her toes and the shovel. Kaylin, who is a "shoe-keeper-on-er" even took her shoes off to play in the sand. Way to go!

The girls had to switch buckets and shovels several times- couldn't decide which ones they wanted- but it was a fun time with the Stephens! The weather has been wonderful and Saturday evening was no exception. Thanks for having us visit!

Lack of Crafts

Not too much crafting going on this week. I've been busy CLEANING and ORGANIZING my craft room! While it's been functional, it has been no where near ideal for creativity. I thought about taking a before picture, but it would just be too embarrassing to share. Everyone thinks I'm so clean and organized; best not to ruin my reputation.

All of my stuff is now organized and put away in the closet. There's really nothing left in the room except for my desk and another Tupperware drawer thingy. Everything that you see on these shelves was in piles all over the room, on the floor. LITERALLY covering the floor. The room is so much nicer to go into now. And it's great to close the door on all my stuff and not have to look at it!

But I did get some of my squares done yesterday for my quilt along. I now have 46 done; 24 to go!