Blogger's Quilt Festival

 The quilt I chose to share for the festival is the first quilt I ever attempted to put together (it's not even top-stitched), but has the most sentimental value.  I made it for my mom - each patch is heat transferred pictures of our family (They all bring back memories of some pretty funny vacations and/or stories of our family while growing up).  There are also a couple pictures from my parent's wedding and of them when they were younger.

The top row consists of a square dedicated to each of the five children in my family with an "S" in the corner for "Stuetz" (my maiden name).  The colors match the colors of my parent's room (the back of the quilt is a forest green).  The quilt is completely different than anything else I've ever done, but it makes me smile every time I see it because of the memories it evokes.

What to do?

 For Amy's Challenge this week I was going to come up with some type of Halloween decoration idea with the fabric that I've had for years sitting at the bottom of my fabric bin.  I decided to put together a quilted wall hanging, but now that I've quilted it together I'm having quilters doubt.  I can't decide if I like it- I was thinking it was too wide and big for my taste, but then it didn't seem quite as huge when I put it on the floor to take a picture.  Bleh- what do you think? Should I bind it and hang it up?

Customer Complaints

There are just certain places I don't want to see animals or insects and recently I've seen them in a couple of establishments that seen a bit out of place.
The first was during Nathan's well-baby check up.  There was an ant scurrying across the room.  I admit it entertained Nathan while we waited for the doctor to come in, but there's just something wrong with seeing an insect in a place where you'd like to think of it as a sterile environment.  The room where they do all of the child measurements also smelt like a month's worth of nasty body odor, so the cleanliness factor was already in question.  After a couple of other concerns and issues, this particular doctor's office is a one and done experience.  We're looking for a new pediatrician.
Secondly, I was thinking about that particular incidence when a bird flew over my head.  This may not seem like an abnormal experience except for the fact that I was in the grocery store at the time.  Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like I'm in danger of getting the Bird Flu or anything, but something about live birds and food just don't mix well.  Birds poop- as evidenced on my car and home, and quite frankly I don't want to find bird poop on myself or anything else in the store.  I was already slightly put out about this when I noticed they were already taking down the Halloween items.  Does anyone else remember when they actually used to wait until AFTER the holiday to take everything down and put it on clearance?  I know they skip over Thanksgiving because there's not much marketing value (one of the reasons I love it so much), but could they at least wait until Halloween is over to display all of the Christmas stuff?  Please?  Next year they may decide to skip Halloween altogether and put up Christmas items after the 4th of July.
Third- this has nothing to do with animals and insects, but I went to the Dollar Store to pick up a bunch of Halloween themed party favors for Nathan's playgroup, but much to my chagrin the majority of the stuff in the store was not $1.  Really?  Joel says I need to take into account inflation, but if that's the case then they need to change their name because it's not really a dollar store.  To which Joel replied, "Two Dollar Store just doesn't have the same ring to it."  He may have a point there.

Quilting Update

I finished piecing Nathan's toddler bed quilt a while ago, but ran into a couple snags when trying to top stitch it.  I confess top stitching is the part I enjoy the least, so after a couple machine mishaps I'm taking a break from this quilt until I get the inspiration to finish it up.  Luckily, there's no rush.  We're more than happy with Nathan in the crib.

In the meantime, I remembered that I had Halloween material at the very bottom of my pile.  I bought it on clearance a couple of years ago and never did anything with it.  In an effort to lower the material stash that is slowly taking over my closet, I thought I would make some type of wall hanging with it.  I think that will be this week's project since Halloween is only a couple of weeks away.

Next Project on the Horizon

I've had this fabric since before Nathan was born.  I originally was going to make a quilt for the crib, but quickly realized that's pointless for a newborn in the middle of the summer, so I decided to use it as a quilt for his toddler bed.  Luckily for me animals are just about Nathan's favorite thing on this planet, so I chose well without even knowing it at the time- not only that, but it matches his room perfectly.  I was looking for another project to do and even though he's NO where ready for a toddler bed (I'm hanging onto the crib as long as its humanly possible to keep him confined in there), I thought I would be proactive for once and start a project before I actually needed it - what a novel concept.  The other reason I chose to do this quilt is because Joel was complaining that every time I make a quilt I give it away.  In fact, there's actually only one quilt in this house that I've made and that's Nathan's baby quilt.  I've given away all of my other creations (with the exception of the pillow I just made).  For some reason I think it's more fun that way, but I'm appeasing my husband and making something that I will eventually need anyway.  It's a win win situation. 

Believe it or not - I'm not much of a patterns girl.  I actually would say the majority of my quilting ideas have come from this blocks book my mom gave me a while back.  I did one or two with a pattern when I was first learning and since then most of my quilts are put together by looking through this block book for a little inspiration. 

I think Nathan's quilt is going to use this one as its main block - maybe with a border.  It's nothing too fancy, but different than most of my other ones, so we'll see how I like it.  Let the fun begin.

Preparedness

With my pillow done in one evening I was looking for another project this week, so I'm putting together our 72-hour kit.  About a month ago I stumbled upon the coolest Blog of two sisters that break down preparedness into baby steps so that it's manageable and practical for your family.  You can sign up for their checklists and every other week for a year you'll get an email with the "next step."    
I'm in the middle of the 1st step- they send you an Excel spreadsheet to organize your Emergency Plans/Contacts  & guidelines for putting together 72-hour kits in case of a natural disaster/emergency.  I wanted to get this done before the inevitable ice storm in the winter.  Since our family has grown since I last put one together 2 years ago, it looks like it's going to be 2 tubs this time.  I need to add the diapers & wipes. :)
They also have products, food storage recipes and the works on the blog, so it's a really useful resource.  Seriously, check it out..... Food Storage Made Easy

Pillow Project

Amy's Creative Side had another "One Thing" Challenge this week.  I decided I wanted to make a pillow for the playroom (Cat in the Hat colors) using the tutorial in the Quilt Book I had been reading.  I got a little over zealous with Nathan asleep and Joel on-call.  I made the entire pillow last night.  Not bad for an evening's work.  Now I've got to figure out what project I'm going to do for the rest of the week. :)
PS- I'm starting to really like the red, white and black combo.

Random Inspirations

The last 2 weeks have been extremely busy around here.  I've been painting and putting together different rooms throughout the house- among other things.  Today I put some of the final touches on 3 of the rooms.  First is the downstairs bathroom-  Have you ever seen Rate My Space on HGTV?  I love that show where you find 3 inspirations and then they recreate a room for you using those ideas.  Well, oddly enough, my inspiration for the bathroom came from a gift bag I saw in Target.  It gave me the idea to paint the walls gray and use the color purple with some floral theme.  My second inspiration was my friend Britt's guest bathroom.  It had the cutest accessories, including little hand towels on a flat basket.  It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the flowers, lotions and hand towels are all varying shades of purple.  Here's the before (trying to decide what gray- who knew there were so many?)........

And the after......

  The next room is Nathan's room.  My inspiration for this came from some bed sheets at Ikea that had really fun and bright animals all over them.  Roberto designed a bunch of decals for me.  You have to check out his website Graphical Interiors. The decals are ALL over my house and I LOVE them!
Before I put up the decals, I painted the room a light khaki color to replace the yucky utility paint (the khaki color is one of the stripes from the curtains  in the room).  I was going to make curtains, but then I found some that matched for $14 at Wal Mart and thought, "Why in the world would I go to all of that trouble if these work just fine?"  So, Wal Mart won out.

I also have pictures of the kitchen that we painted an olive-ish gray-green.  The inspiration for this was Autumn/Tuscany colors because of the wreathe that I have from our wedding reception.  The final step for this room is to find or make some curtains.  The current plan is to make them, but I haven't found the materials I want yet, so we'll see. 
Here are the before pics (you can tell I was really debating what color to paint the kitchen.  I made a last minute change and am really happy with the results):

  And the after......

 

One last decal to show you just for fun...I feel like a personal saleswoman for Roberto's company. :)

 

It pretty much sums up the motto of our home.