Christmas tree and small pants!

I'm attempting to post from my phone so we'll see how this goes! My pictures will probably be quirky.
:)

We spent the day with good friends: shipping, out to lunch and then to a Christmas tree farm for two trees. :)

Finishes!

Hello! It's been over a month! Sad.

But I have a few things to post real quick here!

My mother-in-law picked out some fabric when she came to visit a couple months ago, as well as a pattern, and I started right in! I think I actually finished it pretty quickly (for me!). I gave it to her this past weekend when we were visiting for Thanksgiving.

Double Wedding Ring Finish!

OH my goodness has it taken a long time to finish this quilt! And I actually finished it several weeks ago, but my busy schedule and a few rainy days prevented me from taking some good pictures until now!

This quilt was made at the request of my sister-in-law. She requested a DWR and pink. She has three dogs. So...pink and dogs! I believe I started it back in late January/early February? Hmm. Maybe it first showed signs of life as early as December last year! So...nearly ten months! Yikes!

Phew! That white is BRIGHT in the sun! Note to self...take photos on a slightly foggier day.

I decided to make one full circle in brown. It's not super obvious when it's on a bed, and still a little subtle in the pictures. It's very large and hard to take pictures of! :) But I'm not complaining.

I tried to follow a pattern, but didn't understand the directions (and possibly printed the paper piecing patterns different sizes since I had to go back several times to make more), so I made it up! I appliqued circles in the connecting corners. I think it turned out very cute and a little twist away from traditional!

I'm linking up to Crazy Mom's Quilts Finish it Up Friday!

Monday I will be linking up to Sew Modern Monday. :)

Update

My mother-in-law requested that Hubby and I post on our blogs and let the world know about our lives. :)

There has been a lot going on. I have finished a few projects and started several more. I've moved closer to finishing long projects and started a list of things I want to hand make for Christmas gifts.

I also nearly completely switched around my work schedule. No more days off for me. (I was only working 3 days a week...very full and LONG days, but still...5 days off! Who would complain!) Hubby and I started a couples bible study with some friends. I'm actually babysitting quite a bit. Weekends have been even busier than week days!

Here are some things that have been going on:

Finished adorable quilt (not good pictures...will do a longer post when I get better photos!):

Nearly done with a LONG project for my sister-in-law...just in time for Christmas!

Picked up crochet. My friend Erikka, who I made this quilt for when she married Greg, has her own Etsy shop and makes the cutest crochet things. They keep popping up on my Facebook...so I decided to learn to crochet. :P This may or may not be a Christmas gift...

This last weekend was spent in Yosemite with a (slightly smaller than normal) group of our awesome college friends that now live spread out all over California. My knee has not been happy with my half marathon training (only 6 days away, EEK!!!), but it was a champ when we hiked Vernal and then Nevada Falls (straight up!).

We were supposed to have bible study tonight, but since one couple is still in college and barraged with homework (tends to happen around week 4), and the other couple includes a fisherman who was heading out tonight for a trip no shorter than 24 hours...we postponed this weeks meeting. So...I got a little ambitious and decided to make pumpkin pie from scratch (including the pumpkin part!),

and make some strawberry jam. Buying strawberries, jars and instructions was about as far as I got. It is a little more involved than I thought. :P So in my spare 3 hours tomorrow, that is what I will be doing. I grew up on this stuff and I'm sure my siblings would love to receive a jar for Christmas?

I've also been hanging out with these kids at work:

Seeing this little guy once a week (he loves throwing rocks in the creek!):

Taking this guy to Avila Valley Barn (today his mom said I wiped him out and he fell asleep for the first time during quiet time in a long time!):

And hanging out with these guys after they get out of school two days a week! Last week we went to the pumpkin patch where they played on these things:

The pie was delicious. :) I'll let you know how the jamming goes!

Clothes!

So...I bought Handmade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner. One of my favorite bloggers wrote about making some pants for her one year old. They had the book at my local Beverly's and I kept picking it up and flipping through...and putting it back down. Then I had a 40% off coupon, so I decided to finally buy yesterday.  

And today...I made a pair of those adorable little pants!

Front:

                      

 Back:

And the best part...they are reversible! :D

See those cute little socks!? They're on the back, but I didn't get a good picture, so this'll have to do for now. :)

And the even better than best part...they are going to look adorable on my friend Alyssa's second son! I made them as a gift. Shh!

Linked up at Canoe Ridge Creations!

Homemade Pesto!

I did it! I have lots and lots of basil and not too many uses for it. A friend suggested pesto, and I remembered Brett making some that was delicious (though I'm not generally a pesto fan), so I decided to try it! The first store I visited didn't have pine nuts, the second did - boy they are expensive!

It even looks like real pesto! I used this recipe, but instead of fresh lemon, I used a tablespoon of lemon and a tablespoon of lime (I'm not a huge lemon fan, but I have had a recent lime addiction, so I thought I'd just do a little of both). It tastes pretty good! I'm going to make pesto chicken tonight using this recipe!

(I spent about an hour last night trying to get the labels and glue off of 5 glass jars I had saved, so I figured I'd use one for the pesto. Perfect!)

Free Stuff!!!

I am going to offer a giveaway sometime next week for my followers. If you are not currently following my blog, do so now so you will be entered in! I'll probably post again next week with the details of the giveaway and give you a few extra days after...but keep this in mind!

Sore and Feelin' Crafty!

So I've been pretty crafty recently! It's been kinda nice. I've almost finished my "Playful Petites" - so named for the size of the squares and the fabric used (Children at Play by Sarah Jane) - really, I could finish it in the next two episodes of White Collar, (in case you don't know, I'm a multi-tasker and my favorite thing to do while quilting is watch TV shows...I finished Monk a few weeks ago and am now in Season 2 of White Collar) but lots happened this weekend and I didn't get to work on it. I'm going to wait to show pictures until I finish. :)

My grandparents gave me a piece of furniture they no longer wanted - that is absolutely perfect for storing fabric! I just love it. Look! All the beautiful colors, right where I can see them all! 

I spent time organizing and going through everything I have (I think!), and I came up with a lot of "cheap" fabrics I had purchased before I got picky about quality! So...what to do with all those old fabrics?! Not throw them away - certainly not! I had also been saving my string scraps because one of the blogs I read had a tutorial for making a string rag rug...so, put those together, and I've got my solution! Unfortunately no pictures for you yet, but I have started two different rag rugs and made a little hanging basket for my plants a similar way. I will show pictures when I get them!

Speaking of my plants...

This looks a little silly, and it really is. No hiding it. :/ Learn by doing...and check your facts! Haha. I saw a story on Pinterest about a girl who, using rooting hormone, "turned her sisters wedding bouquet into a dozen rose bushes for her first anniversary". Well. I didn't go and look at her link or check my facts...just went and tried it. The rose doesn't really have any growing parts on it once the flower is cut like this, and, well, needless to say, this didn't work. :P

I also tried the rooting hormone on some jasmine...I have not had a conclusion (I didn't check facts for this either, and I really don't know what I'm doing...), but I'm pretty sure they are dying. :P Parts have turned brown, but I haven't given up quite yet. This little milk jug contraption is my attempt at a little green house.

Don't worry Nampa (my grandfather, who is the green thumb of the family and had a successful nursery for years!), I'm not going to give up, and I'm going to look up how to actually do this with the right plants. :D 

These are my herbs. Mint, basil, oregano and cilantro. The basil I grew from seeds, the others I cheated and bought as already growing herbs. I'm going to make pesto tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes! (I love basil, and I have 4 plants, but they are just growing like crazy and I don't use it fast enough, so I'm also going to attempt drying it as well!)

Anyway. We had a busy weekend. Camping in Montana de Oro. It was beautiful (and close for us!). We had friends join us - some we've camped with for up to three years for me, five for Andrew!, and others who we have not camped with before, but were super great! Most are Cal Poly grads or currently attending, so we all have San Luis Obispo in common - six of the 17 of us still live in SLO. It was great getting everyone together, especially since we don't see each other very often, and I hear camping is very bonding for a marriage (and 3 couples - including Andrew and I - got married last year, and another set got married three years ago). Anyway. Campfires, air mattresses going flat, sharing food (our fisherman friend fished for 4 hours and brought back 9 fish, cooked them up and shared them with everyone!) and growing closer as a group. So great!

I sort of took a break from camping Saturday (a nice thing about camping only 30 min from home) and did my Saturday long run with my friend Alyssa. We are preparing for a half marathon that is happening in October (as some of you may remember), and Saturday our goal was 9 miles! Whoot! We took a road out into the country that we haven't run before - it was very hilly! Goodness. I guess I should be running more hills during the week if we are going to keep that up! I usually have trouble breathing and have to stop often - doctor said I have "sports induced asthma" and I usually forget to use my inhaler - but I remembered my inhaler, and my lungs did great, so I was able to push myself more than normal. Alyssa is the best running buddy a girl could ask for and the day was absolutely perfect (cool, cloudy, but with a gorgeous light coming through, not windy, but at times giving us a nice little breeze). We impressed ourselves with how well we did, and I do have to admit that I am quite proud of myself. :D After that I hiked a couple miles and then chased a three year old (Alyssa's son, Josiah) around for a few hours, climbed up rocks, through holes in caves, etc...

All that to say...boy, am I sore today! I had to ice my knee (I've been having some hyper-extension problems :/), and it takes me a few seconds to unfold when I've been sitting. :P It's kind of a good pain, but this is the worst I've ever felt it!

And all THAT to say...I was going to finish my Playful Petites tonight, but I have to even up the edges and cut off the excess, and I do that on the floor, on my knees...since my knee wont bend fully at this point, I'm not able to do that. So, I did this instead!

I finally made a "date jar". I had seen this a while ago, and I had all the supplies, but just never got around to it. I did three categories of sticks - green=stay at home; teal=go out, but stay in SLO; blue=plan ahead for a day or weekend trip. I used this tutorial for my base, and I had compiled a list of dates several months back that I added to the original ideas from. (We got a new camera last week and it has some fun settings that I was playing with, which is why the picture is saturated weirdly. :P)

For the rest of the evening, I'm going to be using a similar idea for a "housewarming" gift for my sister - who will be moving into college dorms next weekend! I will fill it with encouraging verses, silly jokes, and ideas for ways to release college life stress.

This was a long post and I'm proud of you for getting through! Have a great week! I probably wont be on until next week, because hubby and I are going on our "anniversary" (our real anniversary was back in June, but this was the best time for a trip for us) trip to San Diego. Adios all!

Tiny Things!

When my friends, Brett and Emily, and I went on the quilt shop tour, I came across this SUPER cute little pattern of socks on a clothes line. It's teeny! Tiny! And Adorable.

I immediately thought, "I should find other tiny prints and do something with it!" So before I even bought it, I started keeping my eyes open, and came across several more prints. None AS cute as the original, but still pretty cute. So I collected them.

I wanted to use a pattern that didn't overwhelm the small prints, but that also wasn't too busy. So many small things can easily become too much. So I threw in some bright solids. I think it came out pretty well!

I've also been really wanting to try out a quilting pattern I've heard called "orange peel", but I'm not sure if it's the official title or just the one blogger. :P It seemed like something with same size squares would make this pattern work well, so I tried it with some bright, color changing thread. I love how it turned out!

The patterned green backing was what was leftover from the baseball quilt. It wasn't quite wide enough, so I added a strip of green. It actually worked pretty well! It turned out a *little* crooked after the quilting and square-ing up, but it adds charm. :) You can find it for sale here. 

And here is a sneak peek at me next project...

Apparently I'm on a "small pieces" kick. :P

Baseball Quilt

So I haven't posted in a while, but I've actually been very busy! :)

I started and finished a twin sized quilt for my little three year old friend, Josiah. He LOVES baseball, and my local quilt shop was having a sale of all fabrics...so I just couldn't help myself. :) 

I did "pebble" quilting on the green and blue sections. It was really fun and not very hard, but used a LOT of thread! It fit really well with the style of the quilt and looks really fun!

I had fun having hubby take the pictures. Even though he is the better photographer, I had to arrange a lot of the shots because he hasn't spent any time with the fabric or seen many creative quilt shots like I have. :)

We also went to a baseball game in the park between our houses (we live about a quarter of a mile from Josiah and his parents, and there is a nice large park right there!). They had a bounce house, but Josiah spent most of the time glued to the game! Great patience for a three year old!

I've started and nearly finished another quilt since then, and have been working in my "garden" and running! So I have at least two more posts to write, but I think I want to actually spend some time quilting today, so I will be done for now!

Josiah

My little three year old friend that I spend a lot of time with really likes baseball. I started this last tuesday. It's just a sneak peak of the whole thing! Hopefully I'll finish it this weekend!

Today

What a beautiful day today!

I woke up with a migraine and had to cancel a morning with a friend. :( stayed in bed til noon, then ate and vegged a little. Suddenly felt like running at 1:30 and decided I'd better do it since I hadn't since tuesday.

Gorgeous run. Tried through the neighborhood near our place since I'm bored with the running track. Thankfully it wasn't as hot today as the last few days and I made it two miles when I was only planning one. :)

Got back and decided to stretch outside in the grass. It felt so nice and peaceful with the breeze, looking up into the sun-spotted maple tree. It reminded me of all the time I spent just enjoying being outdoors growing up.

What a blessing!

Birthday Projects

So...today is my birthday. Hubby made me breakfast in bed and then I went and saw my little preschoolers. They made me an art apron with all their handprints all over it. So adorable!

One of my requests for today was some time for sewing. I haven't really had much time in the last couple weeks, so hubby understood. 

As I have mentioned before, my sister likes giraffes. Yes, she is 18 so maybe these are a little young for her, but who knows, she may like a soft pillowcase every once in a while. :P

I also spent some time working on my sister-in-law's double wedding ring. I'm trying to keep it out so I will work on it when I can. :P

I also started a 9 patch. These are 6.5 in square. I'm going to call it "Tiny Things" because of all the tiny things! :)