Twin Purple

My parents have a room that we've always called the Purple Flower Room.  It was my 2 sisters' room for many years and the comforters finally gave way, so my mom asked me to make new ones.  It was one of my projects to finish before Nathan came along last year, but I never did take pictures of them.  I made matching twin bed quilts for the room.  Here's one of them (my mom made pillows and curtains to match).  It was my first big project I ever quilted.  I had only done baby quilts before these, so I was pretty estatic about it.
You can see up close the cute white eyelet material we found for it.  I put a backing on it, so it wouldn't be see through and I really like it.

My Week Challenge

Last week was a challenge in more ways than one, but I managed to reach my goal of getting the top of my quilt completely sewn.  It's for a friend of mine that is just fun and full of life, so I wanted vibrant colors.  I usually don't use such bright colors on my quilts, but I really enjoyed putting this together.  The pattern itself isn't extremely complicated, but it seemed to take forever since I could only work on it in bits and pieces during nap times.  I added a fun multi-colored border as well, so I was happy with the way it turned out.  I'll have to wait to finish it when I get back in town, but I was happy to have pieced the entire front together before I left.

Color Quandary

One of my projects in August is to paint my kitchen and decorate it.  Every wall in our new home is white and I think the first white to go needs to be the kitchen.  It needs some personality.  My first inspiration for the room was based on my plate from Spain.  I love this plate.  I got it in this cool, little hand craft shop in Salamanca when I was living there.  Anyway, I was thinking of painting the kitchen a pale yellow and making the curtains blue since I didn't want blue walls in the kitchen and I'm not into pink kitchens either.  I don't know- it's hard to make these colors look classy.

My other problem is that I have this wall in the eating area that needs a large, beautiful painting.  I've found a bunch of paintings I love, but none of them that have this color scheme.  In fact, almost all of them are Tuscany landscapes that have earthy tones.  It's more tan, mustard yellow, and dark orange and red.  I'm toying with the idea of painting the walls gray to match the flecks in the flooring or a dark, dark red, but I don't think that goes with my light oak cabinets.   I definitely don't want burnt orange walls reminding me of the 70s or Halloween gone bad.  Oh, the quandary.  The color wheel is not my friend right now.  What do you think?

 

Day #1

One fun thing about going back to Utah is that you always get to see old friends.  I visited with my trainer from the mission and it was so much fun to see her and her kids!  I hadn't seen her in years, so it was a lot of fun to catch up and reminisce about the Spain Madrid Mission. :)

That afternoon Adam got into town- Nathan was able to meet his Uncle for the first time- We love Uncle A!  We went up to his apartment in Park city for a barbeque.  Look at the view from his porch!  It's beautiful right now.  He has a bunch of little gofers just outside that Nathan loved to watch.

He's in the process of renovating his apartment to have more of a cabin feel and so far it looks great.  I can't wait to see it when it's all finished.

It's so much fun having Aunt 'Stina around....

And of course it wouldn't be a true bachelor pad without the candle sticks on the piano for a little serenading of the ladies. 
We finished out the day with some outlet shopping since it's only a block from Adam's apartment.  Nice.

Shari's Quilt

I finished the quilt just in time to mail it before I head out to Utah.  I tried a couple of things for the first time with this quilt that I ended up really liking.  It's the first time I've "Stitched in the Ditch" for the top stitching.  It's technically easier than the swirls I like to do, but takes longer, more precision and much more patience.  I also tried a new finishing stitch called the "Blind Stitch" for the border and I also really liked it as well.  I hope Shari likes it.  To the post office I go! (and then to pack.......I probably should have been doing that instead of finishing the quilt, but I couldn't help myself).

Weeds No More!

Finally!  I finished weeding out the backyard tonight, which officially makes me done with the big pruning and weeding job of our house.  My back aches (is 30 really that old?) and the yard waste people think I'm insane, but everything's been cleared out!

Before........

After.....

Now I just have to figure out what I want to plant there.....I may wait until next Spring.  We'll see.

Reading Challenge

Today in church we were given a challenge to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.  When he gave the challenge he jokingly said we had more time to read it than it took Joseph Smith to translate it and then sat down.  I thought he made his point rather well. :)  This new ward (congregation) is rather large with a lot of young student families.  It's a lot like Hershey, but I think it may be bigger.  The nursery is actually larger (if you can believe it).
We were officially welcomed into the ward today and already given the assignment to be on the Activities Committee.  I think it will be fun for Joel and I to work together again.  I'm all about this calling, because I'm not actually in charge.  I was already asked to play piano for Primary today, so the cat is out of the bag that I do music.  I was hoping to make it a little while without people finding out, but no such luck.  Oh well.

International Influences

I first noticed something was a bit off when we went to the post office and Joel and I were the only people speaking English.  There were tons of people there from Africa and Latino America, but I wasn't sure which countries.  It turns out that Columbus, Ohio has a huge Somali population.  In fact, it's the second largest population (Minneapolis being the first) of Somalians in the United States.  It seems kind of random to me, but there is also a Mexican Market in Galloway and 5 Hispanic restaurants within 5 minutes of our house.  You don't normally see real Mexican food on the East coast unless you're in a major city.  When I think of great international food my first thought would definitely not have been Ohio, but it makes for some very interesting meals and conversations. It's kind of fun.
Tonight Joel and I went to a local Somali restaurant.  We were the only non-Somali's at the joint, so I was pretty sure it was authentic.  They even had the Aljazeera channel on in the background.  I tried goat.  It really was just spicy chicken.  The spices tasted very similar to kuri.  I liked the rice and Joel had some Somali flat bread with his meal that I thought was tasty.  I'll chalk it up to one of those random cool experiences that I really never had thought I would have.