everybody say oooh ahhh

check it out, a new style of flower! me gusta.

UPDATE: 

By request of Inchworm Fabrics: 

The flowers are loosely based off of this tutorial: http://sewritzytitzy.blogspot.com/2008/11/from-annas-gardenfabric-flower-tutorial.html

I didn't cut the circles in half or do any sewing...I folded them into quarters and then followed the same steps of sewing the rounded edges.  The big petals started life as 3 1/2" squares and the small ones started out as 2 3/4" squares.  I didn't particularly like the look of two layers of same-sized petals, but the bottom layer ended up with a gaping hole that wouldn't have been covered by the button so I added a smaller layer of smaller petals.  I think in the future (ie, once I cut some red fabric) I'll use some reds to highlight the differences better. 

If that doesn't make sense, let me know...I can post a tutorial next time I make one. 

Holy Two Post Day, Batman!

Bear with me folks, I'm gettin' my creative on.

So last night, I came home to a darling (woah, did I say "darling"?  Seriously?  Yikes) thank you note from Matilda's momma-to-be.  It was clearly hand-made, happened to be in my wedding colors, and contained a challenge.  She said, "I can't wait to see what kind of creativity you use in your wedding."

Damn.

And yesterday I was looking at florists and online invitation printers.  Damn damn damn.

TODAY, I am looking at making the flowers, making the decorations, making the invitations...someone please stop me?

Here are a few of the ideas I'm toying with:

source

These little holders are so cute and so easy!  They would look so great for the ceremony, with maybe some ribbon instead of twine, and my autumn colors.  For reference, here's what the inside of the church looks like:

Maybe I'll nee to find a better way of attaching them to the ends of the pews.  I'm thinking I can make tissue-paper flowers.  I should probably practice that first though.

These flowers would make much better boutonnieres than the ones I made.  The ones I made look kind of like clown flowers when standing on their own on a man's jacket.  These remind me of carnations though:

If you look at the end of the tutorial, you can see them a little better.  Maybe adding a couple of those to the bouquets would work too.

This, I LOVE. I'm thinking I can find some battery-operated strings of white Christmas lights, then highlight the flowers from behind. Maybe use a different kind of vase (thinner, taller) and yellow/gold/orange/red papers. I think it'd make a really cute centerpiece.

I'm also loving these boutonnieres:

See the tutorial for separate pics...that's a bunch of them clustered together.



Here are some more ideas:

This is a super cute guestbook idea (and finally, something quilting-related!), but I have other ideas...I haven't decided if I'm going to clue my guests in to the fun that awaits them though, so I can't post those ideas yet:

Phew!  That was exhausting! 

I think I'm done for now.  I won't even bother with invitations until I hit up Joann's tonight on my way to Rising Stars Quilt Guild in Lexington...a friend from middle school (I don't think I've seen her since 8th grade!) invited me to come with her...should be awesome! I'm a little tempted to bring some squares to make into flowers. 


Anyways.  Enjoy the inspiration!

Infinite Awws

Get ready for some adorableness folks!  This post is just loaded with it!

 First up, Miss Shelby.  Yeah, she's the adorable destroyer of hard drives.  That computer no longer functions. Probably not related to her, but I can blame her anyways.

 It's a comfy quilt.

 The man of my dreams chillin' with his third ladylove.

 Asleepin'.

 Eater of hair.

 Nom nom nom.

 <3 Sun

 Purdy girl

 My design bulletin board.

 I have a few blocks for the princess quilt done.

Sort of playing with the idea of using these as flowers in my bridal bouquet...thoughts?

Design Table Monday

Finally, a few pics:

 First up, where the flower ring lives now.  I love it.

 Next up, my design table.  Those two stacks are the blocks for Wrapped in Hope waiting to happen.  The center piece is stitched to the two smaller border pieces, ironed, and piled up with its respective border pieces.  Once I get them all done, I'll lay them out to see how they'll go together.  Maybe by then I'll have a formal design wall.

 I dropped my travel Battleship game while packing this weekend.  After hours of moving, not enough sleep, and so many little pieces on the ground, this landed me in a fit of giggles where all I could think was "damn!  I just sunk my own battle ship!" 

 This should be on my cooking blog, but it's yummy looking enough to post here too (and I'm too lazy to delete it now that it's in).  This was the pork tenderloin salad thingy I made.  Lord was it good.

 This is how Kini lays in the sun.

And this is how Kini mopes in the sun while I'm looking at bridal magazines.  Grisgris keeps a close eye on things.

So that's all I've got for now.  My camera is at home, so I'll have more pics later. 

See more design walls (and better projects) here!

I wish I could claim lack of sobriety...

...but the fact of the matter is, I came up with this while I was driving:

(this is in the copy/paste format of facebook updates, for those of you who aren't friends on there.  Yeah, I publish this crap publicly and my momma's proud (or at least tolerant) of it.)

"just realized how awesome my wedding date is. It's the square of two consecutive primes. That only happens three times a year, and at most one of those dates falls on a Saturday (ie, a usable wedding date). On our 38th anniversary, the date will be the square of three consecutive primes (9/25/49 -> 3/5/07). So in conclusion, I don't just get a wedding anniversary, I get a square root anniversary every year. :-D"

Then today:
"WOAH. I just realized that we both got engaged on and are getting married on perfect square dates (4/16 and 9/25). And if you set them up month/month/day/day, the square roots of the whole thing are 2/3/4/5. WOAH. Just WOAH. I also have deep mathematical insights into my mom and dad's birthdays if anyone's interested. On that note, good night."

And on Mom's wall:
"Was thinking about this while I drove today. Did you know the odds of having a birthday mathematically similar to yours in a given year are 8 in 73? You have fractional birthdays occuring on 3/10 and 6/20. You share that mathematical phenomenon with only 39 other birthdays. Dad has a fractional birthday on 3/2. He shares that mathematical phenomenon with only 89 other birthdays a year. HOWEVER, the fact that his half birthday is a date consisting of two prime number is significantly less common...that only happens 24 times a year. The Boy and I don't have fractional birthdays because either a) one of the numbers is a prime (mine) or b) there's no common denominator (both). So you and Dad have pretty awesome birthdays. The Boy and I have the
whole counting up thing going for us though (11/12 and 8/9) so that rocks too. Only happens 12 times a year, so the odds of having 2 kids like that are...well, they're something. "

Yup, that's what I think about when I'm driving.  Also what I think about when I'm swimming (which I haven't done in almost a year).  I think in fractions.  Is that weird?  I know the answer to that, hush.

Anyways.  Paddington is as done as it's gonna get before I ship it off to Mom to finish.  Unfortunately, I finished it the morning before she sent me an email about a charity that sends dresses to little girls in Africa, which she's really excited about.  Damn. Oh well, maybe I'll send a couple pillow case dresses along too. 

Wrapped in Hope is coming along.  I've got an assembly line thing going with that and I've got the top and bottom pieces in place on all the center pieces.  Trust me, it'll make more sense when I have pictures to go with the rambling.  Alishia's quilt remains in the pile, and I think there's one more I'm forgetting...maybe a QFK?  Crap.  It's been a busy/mildly hellish week.  My company got acquired officially on Wednesday and while the new parent company is super excited about the whole thing, the first thing they did with us is lay off all our favorite manager types and give us new bosses we don't know or love like the old ones.  I've been there less than a month and I can vouch for the quality that they let slip between their fingers.  Sucks, but I guess that's life, right?  Anyways.  Between that and lining folks up to interview when we go up to VT (where the wedding is) and lining up all the paperwork to get married Catholic-style, it's been a crazy crazy week.  I think I also put together a registry, our wedding website, and our Save the Dates in there too.  Templated the invites as well.  Oh, and tentatively booked the photographer who I've been playing phone tag with.  Check him out and tell me what you think: www.erichauserphotography.com

Anyways, it's late and I've had a nontrivial amount of wine.  Time for bed.  Night all!!

Quick Pic

Just a quick update...trying to get work done on Paddington, so I left it on the machine when I left this morning.  I forgot, this is Shelby's territory. 

guess what???

I'M GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday Fave Five: 

1. MOTU

2. MOTU

3. MOTU

4. MOTU

5. MOTU. 

And this concludes my Friday Fave Five.  :-D

Friday Night Move In

I was so looking forward to Friday Night Sew In tonight, but alas it is not meant to be.  Instead, I'll be packing up all my junk so I can move it up to MOTU's (and a storage unit) tomorrow. After puppy play class. My landlord said she had someone interested in my place, and that she'd be willing to move in May 1st...which is great, it means I get out of my lease 2 months early. But that gives me a week to move...and since I don't go to my place ever anymore, that means tonight I'm going to Staples, buying boxes and tape, and spending the night packing like woah.  Yay.

In other news, I finally started on my Wrapped in Hope quilt.  Here are all the pieces cut out:

And here's the first block:

I don't really have much else to report...Kini's been good (MOTU says she's hyper during the day, which is why it frustrates him at night when she falls asleep and I put her in her kennel so I can get stuff done...because I never see the chaos I guess). Still haven't quite gotten the idea of peeing outside during the day through to her, but we'll get there. 

Anyways, wish me luck on this whole moving thing.  It's raining and in the 40s, so just about as miserable as you can get for a moving day.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Quick quilt update: 

Got Paddington and QFK skaters basted.  Ride A Cowboy is still waiting, since I haven't had the space available to lay it out yet.  Fencing Matilda is in an envelope, but not in the mail.  Sigh. 

I've been taking Kini out for her morning walks every day, about half a mile in total.  She doesn't really like crossing the main road out of our development, so we're kind of stuck with a quarter mile out and back.  Hopefully soon she'll be able to handle either traffic or car rides so we can hit the trails.

Here are a couple new pics:

Kini and Shelby share space...sort of. 

 How stinking cute is this dog??

 She likes noming onMOTU 's bed head.  He doesn't like it but I think it's hilarious.

 The standoff.

 All tucked in.

When she gets off the couch by herself, she likes to stretch, but that usually means her legs get stuck  between the cushions.  Comedy ensues.

She likes stretching in general.  She also likes licking.  Hence I end up in awkward positions.  MOTU graciously gave me a pillow.

There are a lot more, but they're scattered in a variety of albums so I'll need to consolidate at some point. You can still go here for the most pictures (there are updates, promise).

In any case, that's part of what's been keeping me away from my blogging duties lately.This weekend is going to be busy as well,

Night!

Design Pile Monday

Oh, I am just dreaming of the day that title says "wall" again.  Wendy, I might do as you suggested eventually, but for right now the space is still too cramped and the main purpose of this room *is* still sleeping.  Also, there's a much bigger open wall on the other side of the room I plan to repurpose for my own quilting needs.

Anyways.

Here's the pile:

Left -> Right -> Bottom:
Gabby the Gremlin, who we all know and love. Orange/yellow fat quarters for this flower project, and the first flower. Quilts for kids. On bottom, a finished one, on top a finished top.  The backing for the top is the same as the 1 inch border.  Next, Paddington.  Still haven't done anything with him. Next, Ride a Cowboy.  Haven't had space or time to get that basted.  On the bottom, a finish!  Fencing Matilda is done and will be shipped today.  I'll have a close up of that in just a second.

My goal for today is to get Paddington, the skater QFK, and Ride a Cowboy basted.  If I can do that, it will be a successful quilting day. Oh, and Fencing Matilda, gotta get that mailed.  Anyone out there have a good source for boxes?  I'm finding that the Flat Rate thing isn't as good a deal for shipping quilts as it is for shipping, say, bowling balls.

So some close ups.

I don't think I was supposed to see this.  She's usually very secretive, but I *have* been up at all hours of the night lately, so I think she just didn't expect me.

Of course, once she knew I knew, I had to ask her to take a picture with her masterpiece.  She obliged, but hid her face. 

A little bit better of a close up of the flower.  I originally tried this with a smaller button and stitching the pedals through the middle then the bottom.  Going through the top corners then the bottom corners worked like a charm.  I like the pearled button too. I haven't figured out exactly how many of these I'm going to make, but it's entirely possible there might be 50+ by the end of it.  If you have orange/yellow fat quarters you don't want anymore, feel free to donate.  It's not a good cause (hopefully I can tell you exactly what the cause is in a couple of posts...I know what it is, but it's secret for now), but your fabrics will be well-loved if you need a new home for them.

And of course, the reason I've been up at all hours:

She's so smart!  We had a puppy play n learn on Saturday, and she just went NUTS!  She's super good at sitting though, and is getting the hang of sitting and being calm for her food too.  Not so much at sitting at the open door, but most of the time that's probably because she really has to pee.  I think she's also figured out that if she squats like she's peeing, even if she doesn't actually pee, she gets praise.  We've been setting alarms to take her out proactively, but in the end she still ends up crying to be let out at some unholy hour anyways. Thank God for my evolutionary womanhood, I can hear her before she pees in her crate.  Doesn't always register, but I can hear her anyways.  We'll get there.

So that's that.  I'm hoping to have 3 quilts basted tonight and the same 3 quilts quilted by the end of the week.

I've also decided to go a different direction with Mai's quilt...something simpler since I just don't have the tools or the time to do the hunter's star the way it should be done.  I'll post pictures when it's ready to be shown.  :-)

And, of course, once I get all 4 of those settled (Mai's might get pushed back since I still have until June to finish hers), I need to get cracking on both the Wrapped in Hope quilt (due in like 2 weeks) and Arman's play mat.  I may never sleep again.