Brian's Birthday!

We had a great time celebrating Brian's birthday.  Birthdays are always fun with little kids around -- Tanner insisted on making Dad a football cake, getting party hats, and balloons.  

We had steak for dinner -- first time making NY Strip Steak and it was delicious.  The boys could hardly wait to have Dad open his presents.  I gave him a gift for work (Tervis cup filled with M&Ms), a gift for home (a Utes Puzzle to do with the boys), and a gift for the train (my old kindle that I loaded up with books I hope he'll like.)  Happy Birthday Brian!  We love you!

Fall Reading Quilt

In addition to quilting and watching the kids, I spend a good amount of time reading.  It's been a favorite hobby of mine since I was a kid.  I really love books.  If you need a good book to read,  "Wonder" by RJ Palacio is one of my absolute favorites.  Currently I'm reading "Ordinary Grace" by William Kent Krueger.  It's a sad one.  Very good, but sad.

So of course I like random stacked coin quilts because they remind me of stacks of books.  I decided I'd better make one myself.  I used the instructions in Block Party, a book featuring several improv projects.  It was fun to just be able to cut the "books" to whatever size I wanted, but I did find that a lot more trimming was required and time consuming.  I ended up putting a corduroy "shelf" at the bottom of the columns.  I like it.  I bound it with Corduroy too.  Like the black corduroy in my last project, the brown is also a lint magnet.  But since it's hanging on the wall it probably won't be too bad.

Points I pondered while making this quilt:

• Improv style means that you might ran out of background fabric.  Drat!  I wanted to the columns to be uneven stacks.  I used up all my background fabric, and then I squared up the quilt ended up trimming off much of the background on the left side.   
• A crooked quilt is more obvious when hanging on a wall.  I think that crooked edge might bother me every time I walk down the stairs.  Maybe I can create some diversion by adding some more decor to the shelf.  :)  I will have to look into more tips on squaring up quilts.
• I am planning on creating a quilt for each season for this particular wall, so I found a quilt hanging method that will make it easy to remove/reinstall the quilts.  I found this method on Craftsy which uses corner hanging pockets, a yardstick, and 3M Command picture hanging strips.  It was easy and looks pretty good.  The one problem was that the middle of the quilt still sagged away from the wall.  I fixed this by simple adding some special double stick tape (Hollywood Secrets Fashion Tape) to the top of the quilt and sticking it to the yardstick.  The tape is made especially for clothing, I use it often for my high fashion wardrobe (ha. ha.) and have never had a problem with it leaving residue, so I think it should be fine on the quilt.

So enough of the quilt details.  Thanks for letting me talk it all out.  It helps me kind of cement things in my brain and remember what I can do differently on future quilts.  I am linking to Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.

On a completely different note -- Brian and I went to an Elton John concert last night.  It has been many years since I've been to a concert of this scale.  We actually won the tickets from a newspaper contest.  So that was pretty exciting.  The traffic was horrendous (1 hour to go 2 miles) and put a damper on the evening for us.  We had fun, but I'm not a crowd person and frankly, I'm just kinda boring.  We watched the energetic folks in front of us dance the night away -- and there we sat tapping our feet to the beat, bopping our heads a bit, and both wearing earplugs to muffle the high volume.  ha.  We are awesome. ;)  Anyway, the music was fun, and Elton John apparently isn't getting older like us -- at age 67 he sounded great!  

Tanner is 4!

So my baby turned 4!  I'm afraid he won't admit to it though -- he'll tell you all about his birthday, but if you say something about him being 4-years-old he'll say "Me not 4!"  His excuse is twofold -- his legs aren't big yet, and he doesn't want to give up his diaper.  (We've tried -- they say not to force it, but if we don't I'm not sure he'll ever give up "diapy" without some serious pushing!)

On his birthday, while his brothers were at school and Dad was at work, we went to the park with his "best buddy", Paxton.  I asked him if he wanted to take a treat to share -- he chose a Batman Pez dispenser and some Pringles.  Paxton brought him a donut, too.  A well-rounded snack.  ;)

That afternoon our generous Home Teachers (some friends from Church that come visit us each month) stopped by with a gift.  They gave him some "Cat in the Hat" lacing cards -- we practiced "Up, down, up, down" lacing.  My first sewing lesson with him.  ha ha.

My brother that lives about 30 miles away also had a birthday that weekend.  So my parents decided to drive down and see us both.  It was so fun to have them here for Tanner's birthday.  Tanner loves Grandpa and had to show him all his presents first.  And the boys all love Grandma's loving hugs and kind words she always gives them.  I can tell they just feel good after seeing Grandma and Grandpa.

This year Tanner requested a Volcano cake.  It was simple - but the kids thought it was cool with the candy lava exploding out.

So happy birthday to our ever-changing NOT 4-year-old.  One day he is Spiderman, the next he is a Cowboy Superman, and once in a while he is just Tanner.  I love this fun and fiery little guy.

Solids Sampler

Well, I finished up the Solids Sampler.  These blocks were done in a local quilt shop Block of the Month class.  I finished it in the same setting as the Summer Sampler quilt.

Points I've pondered while making this quilt:

1.  Black Corduroy is a lint magnet.  I used corduroy for the corner triangles.  I knew it would be linty,  but it is even worse than I thought -- and I am reminded of it every time I look at the quilt and the random threads and fuzz everywhere.  

2.  I pondered and pondered the thread color and quilting pattern.  I am not a very experienced quilter so the thought of switching thread colors for all those blocks scared me.  I decided to just use a medium gray thread to quilt some straight lines through the center portion of the quilt.  I don't like it much.  I even contemplated picking it out, but I'm not sure what to do instead.  So for now I'm just letting it be.

3.  I washed this and wish I hadn't, at least not before showing it to the quilt class.  Perhaps because the quilting lines are farther apart (2" or so) the fabric just looks wrinkly rather than cozy and crinkly like quilts that are more densely quilted???

4.  I had to cut 30" squares for the corners -- kind of difficult.  I feel like I need a REALLY large counter and a REALLY long ruler to do it more accurately.  :)  

5.  On a more positive note, I was extra careful each month as I sewed the blocks and so my blocks were (mostly) 12 1/2 inches, just the size they were supposed to be.  

Below is the back corner of the quilt.  I had 3 extra blocks since we made a block each month.  Two of them I didn't really like so I didn't include them.  But I do like this spools block, and I was running out of backing fabric so I pieced it in.  You should see the random piecing on this portion of the quilt...actually, you shouldn't.   It looks much better from a distance.  

And here is a picture of a new project I'm working on -- it is made with fabric from "Bluebird Park." I am practicing "gentle curves" with this quilt.  I don't do curves (on purpose) very often.  So I thought doing some gentle, improvised curves would be good practice.  So far, so good.   

I am linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.

I am also linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday.

Red Baby Quilt

I made another Vintage Baby Quilt (pattern by Yoyo Mama Designs.)  Back in May I made a boy version.  I tried something a little different this time and here is what I learned:

1.  I glue basted the squares with Elmer's Washable Glue and then ironed the squares down so they wouldn't fall off when I was shifting it around.  The ironing really set the squares so they didn't shift!  Yay.  However, I did just a little X in the center of each square so I didn't have to sew through the glue.  (From what I hear this wouldn't be a problem for the machine, but I was being extra cautious I guess.)  Since the edges weren't secured, there was still some shifting when I sewed so the squares are a little wonky.  Luckily, with this raw edge style it is not too obvious.  But next time I would probably just do a thin line around the edge, then iron, then sew.

2.  I love texture.  I really love just rubbing this quilt -- it makes me kind of want to do one to keep just so I can enjoy those raw edges!

3.  When basting, align the backing!  Argh!  I had a big enough piece for backing but I was too hasty in putting them together.  Since I started quilting in the middle, it wasn't until almost halfway through quilting that I realized the top was crooked and 2 corners were off the edge of the backing.  I ended up having to stitch two small strips to the corners.  Once again I was reminded sometimes when you hurry too fast, things take longer!

This was all made from fabric I already had, so that makes me happy.  I love the backing -- it's from the Reunion line by Sweetwater.

I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday and to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.

The BOM Quilt

I attend a Block of the Month (BOM) class at a local quilt shop.  It just occurred to me that although I usually call it by the acronym "B" "O" "M" -- I should be calling it "BOM!"  Would that make me so cool to my boys?  "Hey, I'm going to my Bomb class."

Anyway, this year the theme was "Barn Quilts" so we did all quilt blocks that are found on barns somewhere.  Each month we get 2 new block patterns, a beginner pattern and an intermediate pattern.  I do the beginner version.  The intermediate was fun -- all were barns with little 3" blocks on them.  The part I love most about this class is that they don't give us a pattern for the final quilt -- just the individual blocks.  They do complete a few quilts for ideas, but for the most part people come up with their own.  So next month I will get to see a huge variety of how people put them together.  The first time I attended 3 years ago I seriously couldn't even figure out how they could have all been in the same class!

We could choose from 3 colorways -- Civil War, 30's, and Solids.  Never having made an all solids quilt, I decided on this.  I like the simple, Amish style.

Having just finished the Summer Sampler quilt, I decided to go with the same setting using only 9 blocks.  I'm excited because I'm using corduroy for the corner triangles.  I love corduroy.

I have been trying to figure out how to quilt it -- right now I'm leaning toward a checkerboard pattern, going at a diagonal.  (Does that make sense?)  I am a little unsure what color thread.  All solids, with such contrast.....what would look best?  Would a mid-tone gray work best?  If anyone knows, please tell me!  Oh, and then I will have to decide on a binding.  Black?  Gray?  Pull a color from the center?

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts and to Needle and Thread Thursday on My Quilt Infatuation.

Fun in the Rain!

It doesn't rain a lot here.  So the fact that it's rained, and rained good, twice in the last week has been so fun!  I have good memories of taking walks in the rain as a kid....I find it very calming.  So when the rain starts I send my kids out to enjoy the storm.

You see that Tanner is often in costume.  Brian and I were watching the kids the other day and commenting on how it'll be sad when this phase comes to an end.  We've had some fun years watching those boys in costume.  Here are just a few pictures I took in the last week.  My favorite is the one where Brian is teaching Andrew how to mow the lawn....Tanner, who doesn't like the loud noise, followed behind in his Batman PJ's.  

Then there is the one with him in PJs that he grew out of last year, with a giant Transformer thing on his hand and his Spiderman mask.  He thought he was super tough!  

And lastly, not in costume, but playing with Brian's firetruck that really squirts water when you hook it up to the hose.  The facial expression cracks me up -- looks much like one of Eric's faces.  

 And a final "costume" -- Eric on his bed with his Lego head blanket on his face.  :)

Summer Sampler

Last year I made several blocks from a Summer Sampler Series by Fresh Lemons Quilts and Freshly Pieced.  I had fun picking out my fabrics from my stash.  I actually completed 12 blocks but didn't like a few of them because of my fabric chocies.  So I included 9 in the quilt.  The layout was inspired by a quilt in the book "Vintage Quilt Revival", a book written by the same ladies who put together the Summer Sampler Series.

What I learned:

1.  Paper Piecing!  Following this series was a great way to learn paper piecing.  I had never done it before and simply following the tutorials provided.  It was fun to learn something new.

2.  Another QAYG method.  This Quilt as You Go method was one I learned from some online videos by Candy -- her method is done in columns, with the backing, no sashing required.  (I tried another method recently without the backing.)  So once again, I couldn't just follow the exact tutorial because I wasn't doing a quilt with columns and no sashing. But I managed to break down the process by doing each row in the center, then added each triangle background.  I would like to try this method again with a quilt that is laid out in simple columns and rows.

3.  More HMQ practice.  My Home Machine Quilting is getting better, but still needs practice.  I definitely prefer practicing this without the bulk of the entire quilt...thank you QAYG method.  I did try a new triple zigzag stitch on the gray portion.  It was pretty easy -- just like straight line quilting but with a little more going on.  I've seen something similar on other blogs.

I love the blocks on point.  I am putting together another sampler quilts from my BOM (Block of the Month) class at a local store.  I am going to do the same setting. So hopefully you'll see that in the next few weeks.

I am linking up to My Quilt Infatuation's Needle and Thread Thursday 

and Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

My favorite so far

I am excited to share this quilt this week!  I started it months ago and have loved it from the very beginning.  The original pattern is in the book Vintage Quilt Revival.  I did make the blocks larger so it is throw size -- the original is a wall hanging called Sorbet Mini Quilt.  

Since I was going to the cabin, I decided to try and be extra cool and take a picture by the lake.  This is the first time I have had my husband take a picture of a quilt while I was holding it (usually I just hang it on our back fence.)  Although the lake is beautiful, my legs poking out the bottom of the quilt were not.  Thanks to photo cropping, you don't have to see that.  Phew.

Here's what I learned making this quilt:

1.  Go with your gut.  A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I didn't feel like I really knew "my style" of quilting.  But with this quilt, I knew I loved it from the beginning.  This is my style.  Yay!

2.  Pay attention to the backing.  When I sent this off to the quilter, there were 3 flying geese coming in from the edge of the quilt.  Now there are 2 1/2.  When you send a quilt off to be done they always ask for extra backing yardage....I knew this.  But I kind of forgot that when you get it back you trim all that extra backing off.  So there went my flying goose.  To fix this, I just need to put another solid piece there along the edge.

  

3.  I love text print -- maybe it goes back to my love of reading.  I love that you can look a little closer at the quilt and have a reason to stare at it a little longer.  

Quilting was done with a simple stitch in the ditch around the colored pieces, and a loopy zig-zag on the low-volume (black and white) prints.  And here's the classic photo on the fence.  The colors here actually look a little more true to life.  Something about the lake makes pictures look extra brilliant.

I am linking up to Go Go Kim's SEWjo Saturday and to Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday and to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday.

The Cabin at Henry's Lake

Today we got back from a long weekend in Island Park.  The weather was so perfect!  Leaving Utah in the high 90's and going up there to the low 70's was like heaven to me.  My mom felt bad that it wasn't warmer, allowing more swimming time in the lake.  But it warmed up there on our last day and the kids go to play in the water plenty.  And even if they're not playing in the water, it's just so nice to be so close!  Here are the boys throwing rocks.

Grandma, Brian, Tanner, and I went for a walk one morning.  Grandma brought along some scissors to gather some wildflowers.  Tanner was happy to cut the flowers with Grandma, but was insistent they were NOT pretty.  Because nothing can be pretty for this little boy.  

Several four-wheeler rides were enjoyed.  Tanner was hesitant the first day and kept saying he would do it "the next day."  After he finally got on with Brian and Eric, he came back feeling very brave.  

We went to Warm Springs to feed the fish -- unfortunately, the fish were not hungry and we didn't see a single one.  I've been a few times before and remember seeing lots of fish eating the good people throw int he water.  I don't know if it was just the wrong time of year or what.  

Then we took what I thought would be a little hike, but ended up just being a short walk on a paved trail.  :)  At the top of the trail is the original cabin of a mountain man that settled there in the early 1900's, I think.  I would give you more accurate information if the cabin had not been closed.  I was disappointed because I'd been there before with the boys when they were younger -- they don't remember -- and I really think they would have enjoyed learning about Johnny Sack and his wild wilderness life.  Maybe next time.

After the slightly disappointing trip to warm springs, we went into West Yellowstone and walked around while the boys begged to just go back to the cabin.  :)  We bought them some ice cream....and back to the cabin we went.  

I asked Eric what his favorite part of the trip was.  He said "the food."  :)   His favorite meal was our last night there -- Teriyaki chicken, roasted broccoli, and watermelon.  Of course we had the typical summer food too -- several Creamies (or "Ice Cream Popsicles" as Tanner calls them) and some yummy grilled hamburgers.  Here is Grandpa manning the BBQ with Tanner keeping him company.  I eaves dropped on their cute conversation -- Tanner asking about why the waves got bigger when the boat passed, why there are so many spider webs, etc. It was so cute.

On Saturday the temperature rose to the 80's and the kids swam in the lake a bit.  

I was inside for a while and when I came outside Eric excitedly told me they jumped off the deck twice!  I had to smile when I saw him "jumping" off the deck.  (See below.) Honestly, though, being the infrequent swimmers that we are, this was a great accomplishment -- even if he had to hang on to the deck as long as possible before falling into the water!

It was a great weekend.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!