Me Me Me!

That's right folks, I'm finally taking some Me Time.  No seriously, this time it's not even "me time that's really working on a project for someone else".  It's "me time and this time I get to keep the damn quilt". 

In February, I found some VDay fabrics that weren't too horribly Valentinesy, and bought myself a couple yards worth.  I'm finally getting around to doing something with that.  I've been dying to try a disappearing 9-patch, so that's what I'll be doing with it. 

I put together the first block but can't decide how to arrange the pieces:

 I think I like this one best.

I didn't try the traditional way (turning two pieces 180 degrees and leaving the other two alone), but I'll try that tonight and take a picture.  This one doesn't even have my totally absolute favorite of the fabrics in it either, so I'll get pics of that too.

In other "me" news, I'm in another blog!  Natalie has this fantastic weekly thing where she posts definitions of "beautiful", as defined by her readers.  It's really cool to see what others think (a lot has to do with child-rearing, I'm noticing) and has been inspiring for me to come up with how I define beautiful.  Swing on over and check her out!  She's an inspiration to me personally because she is so independent, strong, and convicted in her faith.  She's an LDS woman, and as the prevailing stereotype would lead you to assume, that's not always easy to find.  I'm glad that she's a leader of young women and that she uses her independence for good to inspire other women to be, well, better women!  I've never given much thought to my gender, but reading her blog makes me proud to be a woman on a daily basis.

In any case, back to me.  :-D  I had another finish the other night, but I don't know who reads this so I won't post pics until the person in question gets the finish.  It might be a while.

Another project I want to work on for myself is making grocery bags.  I've found all kinds of cool remnants of upholstery and sturdy apparel fabrics that just scream "make me a tote!" I have a stack in my stash, and I'm hoping to just go to town one of these nights and make a whole bunch.  If you have a nifty (and quick) pattern to try, I'm open to suggestion. 

Breath of Life

Last night, I finally got to revive my sewing machine and get some work done!!  I even finished a quilt!

Quilts for Kids number...what, 6?  It's called "Half Pipe Dreams".

Here it is in the box with the other finish...I have one more to go, and I actually need to wash HPD anyway, so it's not ready to be sent...just close.

I also got some quilting done on Ride a Cowboy last night.  I stitched in the ditch down the blue lines, with variegated blue on the top and light blue on the bottom.  Tonight I'll do down the brown lines with reddish brown on the top and tan on the bottom.  I'm thinking I'll do something down the centers after that, for good measure - probably freemotion, but we'll see.

Here's the current setup.  The door stays closed, so no critters allowed in this space.  Kini might be allowed in later, if she can learn to stay in her spot.  We'll see.

And last but not least, the design wall!!!  This is Mai's quilt, so far.  It's smaller than it looks in the picture, but the effect is there.  I need to sew the strips together, then do some hacking and slashing (and praying) to get it to its final look.  I hope it turns out like I'm thinking, but I'm not sure...I suppose we'll see.

I'm so excited to be able to join this month's Friday Night Sew In!  MOTU will be heading on his boys' trip that weekend, so I'll have the house to myself...ish.  The kitties will have to sit outside the door and Kini will just have to be good for a few hours. 

Good to be back!!

Practically Super Models!

Yesterday, MOTU (Nick) and I had our engagement shoot with our photographer (well, the first of two shoots anyway...Helen wasnt ready for her closeup, so we did half this weekend and will do half in August).  They turned out incredibly well!  We took Kini with us for this shoot, and she was the best puppy ever.  There are some great shots with her smiling face in them!  All images copyright Margaret Michaels Photography. Enjoy: 

 Man, even just looking through them again, Im just floored by how well they turned out!  I cant believe thats us!  Margaret is just phenomenal (and she does baby/belly/family/senior pics too!) and super easy to work with.  By far, shes my favorite vendor.  

The location is where we.ll be having our reception, at Snow Farm Vineyard, in South Hero on Lake Champlain.  I highly recommend stopping by for a tour or a tasting if youre ever in the area.  Harrison (the owner) is a hoot and kept telling us to ..quit necking!..  (Sorry, my apostrophe key is DOA right now.) 

We hammered out some of the timing details for the big day, and that actually  took a LOT of weight off my shoulders.  As Im typing this, Im taking a break from (you ready for this?) organizing MY NEW SEWING ROOM!!!!  It has been a fabulous weekend.  I might even have a design wall again soon!! 

Anyway, enjoy the pics and enjoy the weather...its been great up here! 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=231545&id=102318335878&ref=mf

Holy Unintentional Sabbatical, Batman!

Oy vay!  Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything even remotely entertaining!  Life's been CRAZY the past few weeks, and Shelby (the 6 lb little troll MOTU calls a kitty) has kept on with her campaign to puke or pee on everything dear to me.  Seriously.  MOTU is out of town for a week, and Monday night I came home and couldn't find Shelby...she was sitting in the bathtub, all but beaming over her "handy work" on the new bath mat I bought Saturday.  ARGH!  She couldn't have just peed down the damn drain???  Now she's sleeping under the sink, in the cabinet.  I don't get it.

In any case.  The wedding plans are coming along nicely.  I've been watching unholy amounts of wedding shows while I work on the bouquets, etc. and it's doing me no favors...either I get a complex (thank you, David Tutera) or I get all paranoid that I'm a brat (thank you, Bridezillas).  Not to mention Girl Meets Gown (way better than its TLC counterpart), Say Yes to the Dress, Bridal Bootcamp, etc.

The new room is coming along nicely...I need about 6 more coats of paint total (3 coats in 2 colors), and then I can move bedroom stuff into the bedroom and reclaim my sewing space!  Since Shelby's taken up residence in the bathroom, the bedroom has become critter-free, and I'm hoping to keep it that way.  Kinda want to keep the bedroom that way too, but we'll see what MOTU has to say about that. It would reduce the amount of dust kitties floating around for sure.

Given that I started this post 3 days ago and am completely scatterbrained now, I'm going to leave it at this and post when I'm more with it.  thanks for your patience.

2010-06-28-17.13.29

Finally! Something with Fabric!

Ok, it's not much, but it's what I've got.  I've resurrected the flower sweat shop table in the living room, in hopes of maybe finishing the rest of the bouquets soon.  Unfortunately, I only have one picture for you for now though:

This is the flower I put on the back of Alishia's bouquet.  (She's the one that gets the Save a Horse quilt, and is one of my bridesmaids.)  I have another button like this for Jimmy.  We've had a long-standing series of pirate-related inside jokes, and when I saw these at JoAnn's, I couldn't resist.  I think it's hysterical.  :-D

I suppose I do have a couple other pictures I can post, just for kicks:

These aren't us, but the strip down the middle is what will go in the middle of the strips that come out of the photo booth I've rented for the reception.  I can't tell you how excited I am to have unlimited photo booth pictures for our guest book!! 

And this steaming pile o' potential is our cake topper!  It's about 7.5 inches long, which I hope means that the wheels are less than 6 inches apart, since that's how big the top tier of the cake is.  If not, we'll have to get creative.  Since Helen isn't painted yet (she's getting a makeover), I don't know how I'll paint this one, but I'm looking forward to it for sure. 

I saw these at a winery in CA last weekend and just fell in love with them!  I have a friend who does metalworking, and he said if I come help him, he can make these for centerpieces!  I'm thinking leaves around the base, and I can give them away to guests at the end of the night (with his card, of course). 

 Also in CA, we found where the seals/sea lions hide out at one of the docks.  There's no zoom here:

 No zoom here either.

 And here's the bait:

On that note, happy Thursday, all!  :-D

Bloggin on the Sly

Taking a quick breather between meetings to post some good stuff.  Unfortunately, none of it is quilting-related, but you know what?  Life is good. 

This weekend, my baby brother graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.  He has been through some tough times through his college career, but you know what?  He pulled himself up from rock bottom (not without the help of our awesome parents, whose love and support have gotten both of us through some mess) and is officially a college grad with a GPA just shy of 3.0, if I remember correctly.  I can't tell you how proud of him I am.  He's awesome. Here's us about 4.5 years ago.  Still one of my favorite pics.

Today, MOTU finally got some answers.  Well, one at least.  His waiver got accepted at BuMed, so now he can move on to MEPS and keep moving towards OCS.  Anyone catch that?  :-)  Basically, someone stamped a piece of paper saying the ulcer he had when he was 16 was a fluke, and he's now fit enough to take the medical exam so he can eventually (soon I hope) take the fitness exam, then submit his application and all that.  We still don't know if he'll be in the October or January class, but he's on his way.  You can't imagine the sigh of relief (and subsequent happy dance) this invoked. 

I think I'm finally at peace with him joining the Marine Reserve.  Don't get me wrong, if he decided it wasn't for him, I'd be more than a little thrilled.  But the thought of being away from him for an indefinite amount of time while he's in some God-forsaken country doing things I don't even want to think about doesn't phase me as much anymore.  I'm sure that will change when he gets his first deployment, but for now...I'm excited to see him in uniform.  :-)

That said, on my way home from CA this weekend I saw some poster thanking our troops, and I felt that all-too-familiar lump in my throat come creeping back up.  Maybe I lied.  Maybe I'm ok with him going off to training, but I'm not at all excited for deployment.  I'll make it - I'm tough and Kini is cute - but it's not going to be easy.  I'll make it though.  And so will he.

Last night, I tied and stuffed 90+ invitations, and all the counts came out correctly.  The first time.  Phew!  MOTU, bless his heart, tried to tie one of the cards for me but it came out so badly I told him he could just walk Kini instead and that'd be enough help.  But, the important thing is that they're all done.  I'm just waiting on my special stamps now, and then in a couple of weeks I can put the whole mess in the mail and wait for either RSVP cards or return to senders.  We'll see. 

Anyway, back to work.  Hopefully I'll have more pics of the critters and the wedding chaos later.