R&R's Quilt

The next quilt I made was for Rachel and Rollin.  I actually worked on this one at the same time as Jared and Yvonne's so I had to keep track of what I was doing on each quilt.  For R&R I picked out greens and blues.  I picked 5 greens and 5 blues and paired them in every combination possible to get 25 blocks.  I picked a white sashing because I envisioned bold whiteness in their quilt.  The border struck me the first day I was picking out fabrics and I love the kissing birds on it.  Like Jared and Yvonne's quilt I order a special quilt backing fabric so it was all one big piece.

The weekend I went to my parents' to quilt I was literally going crazy because I spent hours on the machine envisioning the pattern for both quilts.  I would close my eyes and picture myself quilting.  It was fun (and intense) to do 2 quilts in one evening and 2 very long days.  I don't know if I'll ever do that much at once again.  Anyway for their quilt I did a white thread on the top and a very light blue on the bottom.  Here are some pictures...

Full quilt.  You can see the blocks go from the darkest pairing on
the upper left to the lightest pairing on the bottom right.

Close up

Here's one you can see the back on

J&Y's Quilt

While I was making Patti's quilt I was inspired to make a quilt out of fabric I had chosen myself and to make those quilts as gifts for Matt's siblings and spouses this year for Christmas.  With ideas in hand at the end of August I went to the quilting store in town with my mom.  I always find it helpful to bring my mom or sister along when all I have are ideas because they help me narrow them down and chose fabrics.

I proceeded to pick out brown, red and tan fabrics for Jared and Yvonne's quilt.  I got 5 darker fabrics and 5 lighter fabrics so I could pair each dark with each light and have 25 blocks.  Then I picked out some sashing fabric (the fabric in between the blocks).  I later ordered the border and back.  The border was perfect because of the colors and because it is coffee beans and J&Y love their coffee.  The back was a double wide fabric so I didn't have to piece the back together and it looks more uniform.

For the quilting I used a red thread on top and a tan thread on the bottom.  I love the effect of the red on the top even though it is very subtle.

Here are some pictures of the quilt...

Whole quilt

Close up

Backing and label

Patti's Quilt

I've been waiting to post this for a long time but I needed to wait until after Christmas because I gave some similar gifts and didn't want to do anything to spoil the surprise.  To start from the beginning my friend Patti from church emailed me in May or June and asked if I would take some old fabric off of her hands.  I took her up on the offer and started sorting through the fabric.

A lot of it was pretty but it wasn't exactly my style so my mom suggested some ways to pair the fabrics and encouraged me to make a quilt for Patti out of her fabric.  This was a great idea because I had never made anything bigger than a baby quilt and if I royally messed up at least it wasn't with expensive fabric I had spent money on.

So, I plowed ahead and started making a basic 9 patch quilt.  It is technically a fairly easy project for quilting and a great place to start but it takes a lot of time and thought.  I love it!  Precise measuring, placing pieces and straight seams are right up my ally.

While I was sewing the quilt I wasn't as inspired by the fabrics but once I put them all together I really did love it.  Once the top was done I visited my parents and was able to use my mom's long arm quilting machine.  I am so fortunate to have access to this because it makes for a beautiful quilting job and was really fun to do.  I just made up an easy free hand design and quilted back and forth across the quilt.

Here's a picture I stole from the internet of a long arm quilting machine so you can get an idea of what the machine I used to quilt looks like...

Then after quilting I sewed on the binding and spent some time cuddling under the quilt that I was going to give away soon.  The last thing I did was take the quilt to Patti and I think she was super surprised.  She seemed to love it and I was so happy with my project.  It was such a fun way to use fabric.

Quilt top

Quilt back that I had to piece together since is was almost queen size

Cuddling under the quilt

Home Group Party

After spending the semester discussing sermons given by our pastor and studying the book of 1 Timothy our home group took it easy and went out for a wonderful kid free dinner.  We picked the restaurant Destihl (for those of you who know don't know what it is I promise you it's delicious!) and met up for an evening of fun.  I wanted to eat everything off of everyone's plates and enjoyed a delicious meal myself.  The best part of my meal was probably the out of this world banana creme pie.  I wouldn't normally order this for a dessert (I usually go more chocolate cakey) but the server recommended it and I'm glad I went with his suggestion.

Long table for 14

We also celebrated Chuck's birthday and said goodbye Chuck
and Abby since they're moving in a couple of weeks:(

Christmas Activities

This Christmas season we had a great time with a couple of friends doing some Christmas activities.  It was great because Grace actually got into them this year (and Caleb just ran around).

One thing that we did was go to a local park for a candy cane hunt.  Unfortunately, by the time we got there (10 minutes after the advertised start time) the candy canes were gone.  Apparently the people in charge just threw them on the ground in a big pile and told the kids to go get them.  So, of course they ran out quickly.  Fortunately, it was a nice night for December and the friend I went with and I just let the kids play in the dark (with glow sticks she brought) for a while.  Then on our way out we ran into some people we know and they gave us candy.  All in all a fun evening and the kids even got a candy cane.

The only picture I got of the candy cane hunt:)

The next day we actually got together with the same friends. Commercial break: These friends, mommy B, daughter A and son P have been such fun friends to have over the last few months.  A mutual friend who lives out of town set us up on a blind playdate and we all have really hit it off.  Her kids are the exact same age as Grace and Caleb and they all get along so well!

Anyway the next day we went over to the same friends' house and the girls made gingerbread (really graham cracker) houses while the boys played.  I'm pretty sure that the Mommies made most of the houses while the girls snacked on the fixings.  But they had fun.

The boys entertaining themselves while the girls construct

Masterpieces!

Read Grace's lips and you can see she is saying cheese

Lastly, a former co-worker brought her 3 year old daughter over last week and we had the girls do a Christmas craft together.  They had fun decorating foam gingerbread men and Christmas trees with glittler, glue, sparkles, markers and pom pom balls.

Getting ready to decorate

The finished trees

Grandma A. Visits

Two weeks ago we had the privilege of hosting Matt's parents and his Dad's Mom for the day.  Matt's Grandma lives out of state and several hours away so we haven't seen her in about a year and a half.  This was a particularly fun visit because we got to show her where we lived and where Matt worked and of course show off the kids.

I love visiting with his Grandma and was so happy to see her.  She has such a genuine and sweet demeanor about her that I love. It was nice too because it wasn't a huge family gathering so I felt like we actually got to talk to her and spend some time with her.  The kids had fun sitting on her lap, talking to her and playing with her too.  All in all a great day!

Packers vs. Bears

We had our friends the M family over this afternoon to watch the big Packers vs. Bears football game.  We got pizza for lunch and put the kids down for naps.  It was great because the game was on during naptime (ah adult time) so we got to really enjoy spending time with our friends.  We found it amusing that the boys were wearing their team shirts and looked so cute next to each other.  So of course we forced a photo shoot and got a couple of cute pictures.