Life, House, Home, Family, Thriftiness, and other stuff...

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Quilt for Mom

For a while, my mom had this shower curtain up that she'd made out of a fabric with different scenes of children playing. There were snow scenes and beach scenes, probably some of each season.
The colors were predominately blue and purple. 
It was VERY much HER! 

When she took the shower curtain down I took it and used the fabric to make her this quilt. 

It's huge. It fits her queen sized bed. 
I think I made it about 6 or 7 years ago.
(It was the same Christmas I made Uncle Steve's. I'll blog about that one soon.)

One thing I really remember about this quilt is that my sewing machine was giving me FITS!!!
I quilted it on my regular machine (as I do all my quilts) and 
for some reason the tension was wrong or something. 
I switched to my other machine and finally got the dang thing quilted.

Many curse words were thought, though not voiced, while quilting this.
(Non curse words and angry sounds may have been said shouted screamed however.)
The other fabrics were from my stash. I don't think I bought ANY for this quilt. I can see the butterflies from Ally's baby's quilt. Pikes!
There's the tan and white stripe that I've used in SOOO many quilts that used to be my curtains in the our first house (the blue house in Ramona). 
The other fabrics I've used over and over. 
She used this on her bed for a while I think. I'm sad to say that whenever I looked at it, I wished I'd made her a better quilt. This one had some problems. But she loved it. She LOVES all my quilts. Because she's my mom and that her JOB!

Mint Chocolate Quilt + Pink and Green Quilt

I made this quilt while we lived in Florida 
for a former Costco co-worker of Daniel's, Laura, who had a baby girl.  
So that would have been in 2008.
 The colors are a minty blue-green and a chocolate brown, so I always referred to it as my
 Mint Chocolate quilt. 



I love the Toile fabric (fabric with French country scenes from the 18th and 19th centuries).
It was so popular there for a while. 

Such an easy quilt to make and still cute.



I made this one at about the same time for another friend of mine who had a baby girl.
Same pattern, just different colors.



Here they are together.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Packing for the BIG MOVE

Just looking at this picture brings back all the memories (aka trauma) of having to pack. 
I don't even want to blog about it!

While Daniel lived and worked in Witchita, this is what I was up to at home. 
What a mess!
I would pack the boxes during the day, 
and Justin and Ian would move them out to the garage when they got home from school. 

The Big Truck arrived on Friday evening.


And Ian and Justin were on a camp out. Daniel was still in Wichita. 
So Saturday morning a bunch of Angels showed up to help me load!


And then this happened:

And so much more!!

After all the big Angels left, these little ones just kept going, 
wrapping furniture in plastic wrap for me, and carrying more stuff out!

Daniel got to do all this stuff when he got to Utah to help! Lucky guy! Really though! As much work as he had to do, he was sooooo grateful to all those friends and family members (aka: the Angels) who did soooo much to help!

Princess Emily kicking back and making sure the blankets and bean bags still work. haha She actually fell asleep out here for a bit! (She also helped a lot too.)

Packing up the truck, we had a couple of Tetris Champions (Todd and then later Scott) to do that, thankfully so. 
Justin's and Ian's friends all showed up Monday morning to help us finish. They all had a lot of fun. It made me sad to leave all those great boys!



Cute Tressa and Justin. 







 Tired!

Bye, house! We will miss you! And all the friends we have made in Layton. We cherish you!


These are the only two left with any energy. 



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Pink, Black and White Baby Girl Quilt

Looking back through my pictures for quilts I made way back when....
I found this one back in the summer of 2009.

I made this for a baby girl of a beautiful New Mommy from our old ward back in WJ, UT! 
The soon to be Grandma (Kellie) is a great friend of mine. She now has a bunch more grandkids. 

I like to stalk her FB photos and dream that my family will be like hers. All those happy families with spouses and kids. It looks like a very bright future! 

And making this quilt for Becky's first baby back in 2009...


made me feel OLD! haha



I mean, this girl was supposed to be still just one of the Young Women in the ward! 
(Don't worry. She wasn't. She was all grown up. I just wasn't ready for her to be!)

I love the look of quilts with patterns that are set on the bias. (Diagonal)
They are sort of a pain in the rear! But worth it! 


Pink is Becky's middle name, I think ;) haha 

....so I went with a pretty simple (obvious) color pallet for her baby girl. 


It's easy when it's the same color as her wedding colors. You can be sure she'll like it. 

And I'd always wanted to use ric-rac (that zig zaggy ribbon) in a quilt.
 It turned out super cute! 


Brielle was born in September (my month!) and she'll be 5 this year!
And Becky has 2 more adorable kiddos!

 Wow! Now I really feel OLD!


And of course Owen had to be in the pictures too! Look how little he is!


Friday, September 12, 2014

Halloween 2013- only a year late.

Is it bad to blog about Halloween a month before Halloween. And by that I mean blogging about LAST Halloween! haha

Yeah, I'm not one of those people who can blog about my kids costumes (or even Instagram) that night. 

So a year later...

On the day before Halloween we got to go to the church for a Trunk or Treat. So we got to dress up two times so Owen got to be both The Lone Ranger and Tonto! 

Here he is on Halloween night as Tonto.

 Pretty good facepaint, if I do say so myself!

Garrett was Harry Potter, of course. (His current interest.)
 sorry for the blurry picture...
He was stoked when I brought home this graduation gown from the the DI. 
Perfect Harry Potter robe. 


We got done pretty early so they took over answering the door and handing out the candy. Yay! That's my job usually and even though it's way easier than walking the cold, dark neighborhood, it's still getting up and down and well... THEY did a great job! 




Emily and her cheer team did a Thriller dance at school so she was a Zombie Football player.



 For the Trunk or Treat the night before, Owen was the Lone Ranger. 
Every year I have to re-explain to my kids why I don't allow masks. 

(They're a pain, They make it hard to see so they are dangerous, People don't know who you are... There are lots of reasons.)

But I don't think my kids suffer. I face paint them instead and it usually turns out pretty good. And they don't have to fiddle with a stupid, uncomfortable mask all night. (Because face paint is soooo comfortable! Ha!)



Apparently I can't paint faces without my mouth hanging open. 

Here I have the Lone Ranger "doll" for inspiration. 


 We took our friend Landon. He's the one WITH the mask. 

I sort of used to hate Halloween because we are always scrambling around last minute trying to get costumes together. (Exactly like I did as a kid, and my mom sort of didn't like that part either. Mostly all the stressing everyone goes through trying to decide what to be and to look awesome.) 

But I'm always so happy with the results that it has become a pretty fun holiday after all. 

CUTE KIDS! Don't grow up! 

Now ...we need to figure out what everyone is going to be THIS year. 
(It's the yucky part all over again. And yes, we are already having the Mask discussion, AGAIN!)

Yellow and Grey Baby Quilt

I made this totally easy quilt for my amazing, wonderful, dear friend, Camille and her little baby boy Porter. 

Camille is someone I always wish I could hang out with and be her best friend
. She's funny and super smart. 


Porter is Camille's third baby. She produces Clones really. Not babies. 
Well, except number 2 baby is a girl, which makes her technically not a clone, 
but she looked like one anyway.

And I guess if I have to really be technical, I suppose none of them are technically clones. 
But when it comes to looks, they might as well be! 

Super, ultra blond/bald.
Round
with Beautiful Blue eyes, Chubby Cheeks and pink lips. 
I want one.



I'm in love with the bird fabric. I used its blue version on the Chevron quilt
Oh, and I used the grey zebra print too. 

I made them near the same time so took a picture of the two together...


Such an easy quilt to make, but still super cute. 
(That's a plaid shirt type flannel on the back. Oh and I guess it's on the front too! Silly me. )