Merry Christmas!

Share the Gift!

2014 Ornaments

Every year we get an ornament for each of the kids that is representative of the past year, and we always try to get an ornament when we go on vacation.

Little Man:  He chose this ornament over the summer during his intense aquatic phase, and he still absolutely loves it.  Orcas are still his favorite animal in the ocean.  I tried to remind him that Killer Whales are mammals (since he's always complaining mammals are so boring), but he was unimpressed by my technicalities. 

Little Lady: She was most adamant that she have a Princess Sofia ornament.  This fits her and her princess obsession perfectly.  Her ornament came in a set, so she decided she wanted to give some of her cousins ornaments as well.  (She said baby's don't need ornaments and that boys don't get to have Princess Sofia, so sorry, Ethan and Kiersten - I promise she still loves you). 

BB: I really wanted a Hungry Caterpillar ornament in keeping with his 1st birthday theme, but I could only find outlandishly priced commemorative ones.  I love my son and all, but I was not going to pay that much for an ornament he will probably break anyway, so I settled on a Hungry Hippo instead.  He is in the 90th percentile for height and 97th percentile for head circumference and weight, so he is most definitely a rather large, but well proportioned child.  He would eat all day long if you let him, so the Hungry aspect applies very well to him.

My brother's wedding in Texas: We chose an ornament from the Alamo.  San Antonio was our favorite city we visited and it also has special meaning since it is Grandma Thompson's childhood home.









Stuetz Family Reunion in Outer Banks, North Carolina:  This ornament was absolutely perfect, because the kiddo's favorite part of the entire trip was fishing for blue shelled crab. 

Looking at the ornaments each year always makes me so nostalgic of all the wonderful memories we've had as a family.  This year in particular was a lot of fun as we put up the Christmas tree ornaments.  The kid's were so excited to see which ornaments belonged to them and what the story was behind each one.  I love that all of the ornaments have some meaning and/or are connected to a memory.  It is a tradition that I cherish.

Pillows Galore

Ok, maybe "Galore" is a slight exaggeration since I only made 2 more, but it feels like I have a lot more to go.  At least the ones I need done for this week are completed.

Mel:  Requested hot pink and flowers

 Bri: "Requested" (by mom) purple and flowers

Something interesting I learned when searching for fabric is that it's actually pretty hard to find a decent floral fabric particularly when dealing with purple.  They either look like they're straight out of my Grandma's old decor or it has characters and other weird things on it.  It was actually a lot easier to find the boy fabrics.

Covering Pillows

Some Christmases I really like to make things for everyone and then others I can barely handle purchasing things.  For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to make something for all my nieces and nephews this year, but as usual time has flown by and Thanksgiving is already next week.  Since I will be seeing my family next week I wanted to bring their Christmas presents to them then, but I forgot that means I now have less than a week to get everything ready to go.  

Luckily, my projects this year aren't time intensive.  I decided to make a personalized pillowcase for the ones who actually use a pillow.  (Sorry Baby Kiersten, you've got another year before this would be remotely useful to you). 

The first pillowcase is for my nephew.  He loves dark blue and outerspace:

I have his 2 sister's pillowcases to do this weekend, and then some shopping to do for my mom, and then I actually think we're almost ready to wrap presents before we see family. 

FieldCrossing Blocks

This month for do.Good Stitches we were asked to make two FieldCrossing blocks.  This is the first time I had seen this quilt pattern and I like it a lot.  We were asked to use a white background with pink (fuchsia and pastel), mustard, peach, and/or rust.  This is what I came up with from my scrap stash:

Rainbow Belle Wave

I finally finished the June do.Good Stitches quilt yesterday.  I thought I had to have it done by the 15th, and it turns out I had until the 1st of December, but that's alright, because I needed a little extra push and I'm so glad I finished it.

It felt a bit surreal to be taking pictures of my June quilt while snow flakes were beginning to fall.  I didn't mentally prepare myself for winter very well this year.  It kind of snuck up on me while life was busily passing by.

I went for a fun rainbow batik backing, because I wanted something just as bright and happy on the back as on the front, but with a slight twist.

I typically like to stick with free motion quilting, but this time I decided to get out my walking foot and echo along each of the waves.  You can see it on the back if you look closely. 

Our Wish Circle typically donates every quilt to Project Linus which gives them to very ill children.  My husband works with these kids on a daily basis as a Pediatric Oncologist, so I thought it would make a little more sense for him to just directly give it to one of his patients this time around.  I'm excited to bring a little sunshine to one of his kiddos at the hospital.

Linkin' up to TGIFF and BOMs Away.

Lion King

I've wanted to see Lion King the Musical for a long time.  I realize I technically already know the story, but I had heard so many great things about the production itself, particularly the costumes that I really wanted to experience it on stage.

It came to Columbus and Joel and I finally got to go.  We were celebrating Joel's birthday a month late.  (Technically I got the tickets for him on his birthday, but it took this long to find an evening both of us were available).  We had nose bleed seats, but I didn't even care, because I was just excited to be there. 

The smiles are genuine even if we look a bit tired.  :)

 Waiting for it to start...

Source

The costumes did not disappoint!  The opening scene of Circle of Life is breathtaking.  The costumes are incredible and so innovative.  It's pretty clear that no other musical had any chance of winning a Tony for Best Costume the year Lion King debuted on Broadway - Holy Cow, they're amazing!

Source

The actors of Mufasa, Rafiki, and Scar all performed these roles on Broadway and were definitely the strongest of the cast.  Rafiki blew me away.  She was hands down the best part of the musical.  Even her comedic timing was fabulous.  Nala and Simba were probably the weakest links.  Nala didn't have much stage presence and had a hard time in her lower register.  Joel looked at me after the show and said, "We paid a lot of money for those seats, can I be nit picky?  Simba swallowed all the ends of his words when he was singing."  I just laughed because I had been thinking the same exact thing.  We're a bit on the nerdy side of music and theater and like to critique everything.  I have to say the ensemble was incredible though.  All of my favorite songs in the musical were the African tribal music that's added.  None of it is from Elton John and the movie.  The harmonies brought tears to my eyes a couple of times because they were so gorgeous.  I love exceptional music that is performed well!

On the whole it was an enjoyable night with my husband and I got to cross Lion King the Musical off my bucket list, so it was a win-win!

Repurpose Finish

I finished the bride's maid dress-turned-baby quilt yesterday.  It's done just in time to mail to my sister for the baby shower next weekend. 

 The quilting is loopy lines with some free-hand flowers. 

 The back is a cuddly polka dot flannel.

Re-purposed Dress

My sister's best friend from high school is having a baby girl and she wanted a quilt for her.  Angie had the ingenious idea of taking her bride's maid dress from her friend's wedding and using it in the baby quilt.  I mean - even if you like your bride's maid dress, when are you going to wear it again?  It makes the quilt more personal and puts the dress to good use (It's the teal fabric).  I put some stabilizer behind it and it worked great.

I needed a design that wouldn't make me cut the dress into a million pieces.  I found Elizabeth Hartman's Charm Squares and thought it was perfect.  The wedding colors were pastel pink, white, and the teal, so I tried to incorporate the color palette into the quilt as well.

 

Seeing Double

A friend of mine is adopting twins.  I was her Visiting Teacher at Church for a long time, so I would get monthly updates on her struggles with fertility.  They had been trying for so long and then hope seemed to dwindle after a failed IVF.  I was absolutely thrilled when I found out they had matched for an adoption, and not only matched, but adopting identical twin girls!  They are expected to be born in December, and I couldn't be more excited!

I've been waiting to make her a baby quilt for years now, so imagine how fun it is to do two coordinating quilts.  She's the type of person who I knew would have a specific color palette and have the nursery completely planned and decorated, so I asked for her colors from another friend.  The friend sent me a picture of the pillow that the nursery is based on:

The sheets are in the hot pink and the comforters are in the peacock blue, so I decided to make the quilts in the other colors of the feather.  My only point of disappointment is that my blue in the quilts ended up a bit darker than I was going for, but it still looks alright.  "These things do happen."

I used the Steps to Glory block as the base of both quilts: (It's 16.5" unfinished, so it's a big block)

Quilt #1:

 

Rotate the blocks in the opposite direction and you get Quilt #2:

The backs were just fun fabrics I had that reminded me of the Mom-To-Be.  And let's be honest, who doesn't want a bit of argyle and chevron love in their life? 

Her twins may be identical, but I thought I'd be nice and not make the quilts exactly alike.  She's going to have a hard enough time keeping things straight as it is. 

Linking up to Blogger's Quilt Festival.

October Penny Patch

This month's do.Good Stitches block is the 4-Penny Patch (tutorial here by Rachel).  It's a small and simple block, so we're making four of them.  This quilt is being made for Kirsten's close friend who recently had a stroke, so the colors we used were with her friend's likes in mind. 

It's Windy Out There

The wind finally cooperated for 5 seconds.  I'll take it!

Playing with Options

I'm officially half way done with my Glory blocks, but instead of being productive and continuing on with piecing #5 of 8, I paused to have some fun arranging the blocks around in different layouts.

By itself it doesn't have a ton of impact.  It's pretty, but nothing pops out as a dominate design.

Putting the blocks in a cluster of 4 going the same direction doesn't necessarily create much of a pattern either:

BUT- if you play with the direction of the blocks, you can come up with a couple of really cool patterns:

1-

2-

 3-

Now I just have to decide which 2 designs I want.  I suppose I should finish piecing the other 4 blocks, so I actually get these quilts done on time.  The clock is ticking...

Meet the Mormons

Joel and I rarely go to the movie theater.  There are few movies I feel like paying full price for.  I'd rather spend that money on just about anything else.  I suppose it makes me odd, but I have no problem waiting for a movie to come to Redbox or Netflix.  However, once in a while there's something I really want to see on the big screen to get the full effect or something that I'm really excited to see.  This weekend "Meet the Mormons" came to theaters and I was really curious to see what all the hype was about.  I have to say that I loved it!  It's probably the best depiction I've seen of your "average" Mormon ever in the media.  If you've ever wanted to see what Mormons are like without having to worry about missionaries showing up at your door, this movie is for you! 

Here's the trailor:

For more info or to find a screening near you go here. 

Steps to Glory Block

I'm on to my next project.  This one is time sensitive and it's actually a double project.  My friend is adopting identical twin girls.  They are expected to be delivered in December, and her baby shower is next Saturday.  I don't honestly know if I can possibly get 2 quilts done by next weekend, but I'm going to try.  The base of both of these quilts is the Steps to Glory block. 

It's a 16" block, so the base of each quilt will be 4 blocks.  I'm going to play with the orientation of the blocks to change the look of the quilt, but still coordinate.  One block down - 7 more to go!

A Little Help

My friend's neighbor has a friend who passed away at age 33, leaving behind 3 children. They are doing a benefit to raise money for the family, and my friend asked if anyone might be willing to donate anything for the raffle.  I don't have a lot of free time, but I wanted to do something even if it wasn't much, so I quickly made a receiving blanket. 

It's a bit smaller than I normally make them, because I was having a bad math day and cut the fabric smaller than I had planned.  It's still cute though.   I love flannel blankets, because they're so cuddly.

It's not much, but hopefully it will help a little.  I can't imagine what it must be like for these 3 children without their mom. 

Fishie Finish

I finished up this quilt over the weekend, and it still makes me smile looking at the pictures.  It has a new home now.  A friend is having a boy after 2 girls, and her husband is an avid outdoors-man, so it felt like an appropriate quilt for the occasion. 

I used an open spiral for the quilting.  It is a loose interpretation of waves, and works well on this quilt.

Here's a view from the back:
TGIFF!

Rainbow Belle Wave

I finally got around to putting all of the Wish circle's Belle Wave blocks into a quilt top.  It only took one naptime to piece it together, so I don't know why I kept putting it off. 

 It'll be a little bit before I quilt it, because I have 3 baby quilts that are time sensitive.  :)