Goodies and LizzieB Crea8ive

I squeaked under the deadline! Today was the last day the guild was accepting quilt show submissions. I was ready to turn it in at the last meeting, but I didn't know I was supposed to include the Challenge description.

I also made the decision to put a $250 price tag on it. For whatever reason, I'm not emotionally attached to the quilt. I think because it didn't quite turn out like I envisioned in my head. I wanted it to look like a flower, yellow center, purple pedals, blue and green leaves. The other thing is the yellow-orange fabric dominates the quilt, when I was trying to make the blue-green dominate by making it the biggest diamond. Between the very heavy quilting and use of hand dyed fabrics, I put a larger price tag than I normally would.


The program meeting today was Beth Hawkins from the LizzieB Crea8ive team. She did a slideshow combined with showing the actual quilts she had on hand. When she came to the blue sunflower quilt... I knew I would want that pattern!

We've had several trunk shows over the years, but this is the first time I actually bought a pattern. I just adore those flowers and figured it's about time I had a quilt made with them. :)


Lastly, all is going well in my pregnancy! I'm definitely starting to look pregnant now. This is my official 5 months photo. There's been a lot of kicking of the late.

I'm hoping to hit garage sales in the next several weeks, I'm on the look out for a bed for the baby. Our first thought was to get a pack'n'play, but I'm open to other deals we might find. Cash can talk a nice bargain. ;)

Leah

Choo-choo!

I got the train quilt top done! This means I can move onto some other quilt projects that have been lurking in my head the past month. :)


There was 288 HSTs... just about wiped me out.

I timed myself, it took 50 minutes to just iron them open.


Then it took another 20 minutes to clip off the dog ears.

Good thing I didn't try king sized, it needs 972 HSTs.


24 blocks, and I managed to bust around 5.5 yards for this top.

I'm down to just inches on the blue, yellow and train fabric. That left either white or green for the binding... and any sane person would pick green!


I opted to put sashing on this quilt, even though the original directions didn't call for it. I just couldn't bear the idea of matching up all those HSTs seams. Yes, I'm a wimp. :)

I was hoping that the white in the quilt would give a railroad crossing look. Yellow yard, green shrubbery. Eh... pretty good for being all from stash except the train fabric. I really don't buy a lot of focus fabrics.


If we end up having a baby boy, I'll have a good quilt for him to grow into. It measures about 52x78. Not quite twin sized, but good for a child under 10. If I don't have a boy... we can always try again. ;)

Leah

A new mat

A couple posts ago, I mentioned that I wanted to get a bigger cutting mat. I finally did! JoAnn's was having a 40% sale on notions, 50% sale on Kona cotton fabric, and through my guild, I have a 10% discount card for all purchases made. It just means that I got $65 of quilting goods for $35. :)

Not only is there double the cutting width, but my rotary cutter slides SO much smoother! I felt like swearing I had put a new blade on, but I hadn't. I think the biggest thing with my old mat, it just had a million little grooves from 4+ years of use. I was always needing to clean off little bits of green rubber from my blade. Yet if I didn't press harder, it wouldn't cut the fabric. Now I'm just whizzing through the fabric on the new mat. I did switch from Olfa to Dritz, merely due to the cost.

Currently I'm working on a train themed quilt... and frankly my heart isn't very into it. Yet I know if I don't push through and finish it, it'll never get done! I want to at least get the top made before moving onto a new project. I think the 288 HSTs really kicked down my excitement for the quilt. And it's just a lap size one! :P

Leah

For the guild

At the last guild meeting, I snagged a baggie with 5" blocks and 6" border fabric, to make into this top.

What I had in mind, and what actually came out are two different things, but you can a semblance of a pattern going on for the most part. At the top, I had to get creative since I didn't have a perfect balance of brown and blue blocks.

Every year, the quilt guild asks that each member participates in at least one charity quilt. You can make your own or you can work with one of the kits they provide. Sometimes the kits are to put together a top, other times it can be a quilt to finish - just take what you're capable of doing.

I figured I should get started on 2010's charity quilt sooner than later, since my hands are going to be very full with the coming baby. :) And I bet the guild would forgive me if I couldn't find the time to get one in for 2011, but I hope that's not needed!

Leah

Half way there

Today marks 20 weeks exactly, half way done. :)

I was thrilled that I made it to 2010 in normal clothes (non-stretch jeans), but on January 3rd, I caved and switched to maternity bottoms. I'm so glad my mom bought me a few back in October, I'm having a hard time finding stuff that works!

I tried on a pair of jeans I found at the thrift store - they were long! Everything about them was good, except they were really snug in the knees. I never had that issue before. When I got home, I asked Chris "are my knees fat?" Poor guy, he didn't know what to think or say. ;)

The funny thing is that I've only gained half an inch. Before getting pregnant, my waist was 41", then as soon as morning sickness hit, I puffed to 43" and didn't budge for the longest time. Yesterday I measured 43.5". I think it's a combination of losing some back fat at the same time I'm putting it on the front. Problem is my normal clothes don't want to conform to the shape change! :P

How are things going? Pretty good. I've got a midwife appointment next week - I'm sure it'll be rather routine, but she wanted to see a bit of belly showing this time. I've only gained 2 pounds over the holidays, and still 13 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight. Hopefully breastfeeding will be kind to my body also. :)

The baby is kicking up a storm these days - thankfully during the DAY. I'm not woken up with little jabs in the middle of the night. Haven't had any luck in getting Chris to feel movements yet (apparently his hands have a calming effect), but we're sure it'll happen in a good time. And we've gotten nowhere on names. Well, he's really good at eliminating stuff. :D

No more baby stuff purchased since that box of wipes. I keep telling myself that I'll hit garage sales as the weather warms up. Maybe I'm just waiting for it all to rain down from the sky. ;)

Leah

A cleaner room for 2010

After Christmas, I figured the best thing I could do for my quilting was clean out 2009's messes.


I started off with my sewing machine. A bit of lint had built up from all the free-motioning.

I also put in a fresh needle. If you can't remember the last time you put a new needle in, it's time for a change!


Time to retire my free-motion starter. It's just two pieces of fabric with some leftover batting. This really has prevented moments of frustration over bad tension - it's on the scrap piece, and not the quilt. No need to get friendly with my seam ripper!

For whatever reason, certain Essential threads aren't holding their tension. I just blame the age (2+ years old) and the air (very moist in the summer, rather dry in the winter). Thankfully the bad free-motion threads still piece just fine, so it's not a total loss.


My cutting table certainly has seen better days. :P

I have a habit of slicing off the ends and then pushing them to the right. It's not so bad when it's fabric, but when I'm trimming completed quilts, it piles up real fast!


Nice and clean now. I can find my rulers, I only have 2 projects on the table; this is much more manageable.

Sometimes I ponder on buying a larger mat, mine is only 18x24. I think a 24x36 would be just lovely, but somehow I never remember about that when I go to JoAnn's. I guess it's not that important. ;)


I figured the year's end was also the perfect time to refold the pile of quilts. Don't want lifelong creases in them!

Refolding quilts will probably end up being one of the baby's chores down the road - they're perfect for it, since they would fold them lopsidedly. :)


All refolded, and a couple more quilts added. I was letting them pile up in the bedroom for no logical reason.

I might need to relocate some of the quilts, to shorten the pile. The cutting table is to the right of the stack, and since I'm left handed, I keep whacking my elbow into the quilts. Thankfully it doesn't hurt, but one of these days it'll take me by surprise and I'll drop an open rotary cutter on my other hand or something.


Don't think I'm perfect though, there's one part of the room I haven't even touched! The fabric and batting.

I kept digging through my fabric for "the piece I KNOW I have!" at Christmas. No time to refold it then. The batting pile is half back-less quilts, as I don't have ready backing pieces for them. At the bottom is the big ol' yellow bag with at least 30 yards of batting left. I definitely have everything I need for making quilts from start to finish. :)


Is your space all set for a new year of sewing? If not, what'cha waiting for? Santa Claus? ;)

Leah

Ann's NYE 2009 Mystery

Yesterday Ann had her New Year's Eve mystery. You got a teaser of the fabric back in November.

I'm pretty pleased with how mine turned out. The only thing I would have changed is the yellow for some light pink. No matter, a butterfly border should pull the quilt all together.

I've already started a twin size quilt with train fabric. I figured I better start making some more boy quilts, since my husband's family thinks that's what we're having. I think that since we're already going "against the grain" (midwife, no OB, no ultrasounds, etc) the baby might be everything they DON'T think it is. ;)

Leah

Christmas 2009

It was a very handmade Christmas on my part this year. Easy for me, since I already had the resources on hand. My wallet isn't complaining either! ;)

I made a card for my husband, using paper from our wedding invitations and acrylic paint that I had around.

You can't really see it, but the red and white paint shimmer - which also makes it hard to photograph! I used a pencil to outline what I wanted to paint (the words, circle and bow) and free-hand the ornament's center design.

For my father-in-law, I made a collage of his dog, Angel. I've been snapping photos of her all year long so I would have a nice variety.

Angel is now 10 years old, and since my dog died at 11, I'm very personally aware how little time she might have left. I really wished I had done something like this with my dog... but instead of living in regret over that, I opted to make sure others won't regret a chance to remember their pet! Of course, it helped that I see Angel almost every week. :)


For my mother-in-law, I made some potholders.

Pooh fabric on one side, Christmas on the other. I'll say I learned the hard way to keep the quilting simple! It distorts too much otherwise, due to the special heat-resistant batting.


For my husband's brother and wife, I gave them a quilt. It's one that I had around for several years, but never had a reason to finish it.

It's also one of the few boy-ish quilts I have - good thing, since they're expecting a son in February.

And here you can see them opening the quilt. Christmas is always a great time to use up Christmas fabric. How did I get so much of it?!

Kenya's about 7 months pregnant in this photo. All I can really remember is that she's 14 weeks ahead of me, and I'm 19 weeks today.

Kenya's daughter hugging her pillow and pillowcase that I made.

I wasn't aware of it, but apparently Starla LOVES to surround herself with pillows in her bed. Couldn't have given her a better gift I tried! :D

For Chris's expecting sister, I made a quilt to match their theme for the baby.

I made an uneven 9-patch, diced it into fourths and mixed it up. I really wanted to use the green for the sashing and blue for the cornerstones... but I didn't have enough green.

I had finished the quilt on the 22nd, and she found out the gender on the 23rd. I did tell Chris to pray hard that she's having a boy, I didn't have time to make a new quilt! :P Lucky me, no remakes needed.

Hopefully there'll be many happy hours of snuggling.


I've also discovered that I only like making handmade gifts if I can SEE you open it. I want to see people's reactions over something I've put many hours of work and care into. Hence why there was a lot of homemade gifts for my family last year, but I'm not planning the same this year. Can't see them!

Leah

Never tire of snow!

A week ago I awoke, put my contacts on and turned on the computer. There was some ladies talking about snow on a forum, and I was about to write a pouting reply (because I want snow!), and I took a peek out the window to see if it was still windy... and I saw snow!!!

Let me just say it's a very good thing the baby isn't born yet, my squealing would have woken it up for sure. :P

I tromped all around the apartment complex with my camera, snapping shots of whatever made my heart sing.

The snow is gone now, but lucky me, I can still look up to the mountains for some white.


Since Chris had an early doctor's appointment that morning, I decided it would be a nice treat for him if I cleared off his truck.

When he came out to leave, I rewarded him with two snowballs from the powder on the hood. :D Of course, I missed him by several feet! I don't have a lot of practice throwing snowballs...

Anybody care to send me some more snow? I've got plenty of quilts and cider to stay warm. :)

Leah

I'm not panicking!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm not panicking at all over Christmas this year. Ok, yeah, I totally missed the boat with my side of the family and I'm just going to have to deal with it in 2010. Hey, they got Christmas on time last year for them. ;)

We had another midwife visit last Wednesday, and it's all good. Baby's heartbeat was 153, my blood pressure was 113/78. No weight gain! That one made me happy. :) And I'm not really showing yet. Yes, I'm 17 weeks and 1 day in picture.

The baby is still hanging below my belly button right now. My upper tummy is a lot of mushy parts and flab, my lower is almost rock hard. I can't go very far when I poke down there. The baby won't listen to me though, I keep telling it to stay off of my bladder!


Lots of sewing going on... and I told myself I wouldn't put that kind of pressure on me this year! Well, I didn't know people were going to be having babies left and right in the family. :)

Pillowcase for my... step-niece? Does that term exist? I'll buy a pillow for it and it'll be a nice fluffy gift to wrap.


Then I made two more pillowcases for our bed, to give to Chris. I had two sets of fabric that would work for the pillowcases, so I asked Chris which he liked better... and he was like "well, this one is more Christmas like. Is that what you want the baby quilt to be?" I pretended to ponder on it for a moment while I got my face under control. :P Then I told him babies aside, which pair does he like better?

Oh yeah... you can see a bit of my tummy at the bottom of the picture. Guess I'm showing a little more that I realized? I haven't needed to put any of the maternity clothes I have to work. Yet. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Leah

Tis the season of secrets

I've been quilting! But I've been quilting on Christmas gifts. And since both my family and Chris's family know about my blog, nothing is safe now. ;)

So very spur-of-the-moment (less than 12 hours ago), Chris decided he wanted to do a Christmas tree. This Christmas will mark our 6th one together, and we've never decorated in any way before. The baby changes a lot of our ways of thinking!

Well, there's no Christmas trees to be had. Apparently there was a fire at the place that supplies real trees to this town, so there's a big shortage? My in-laws had to get their living tree from Tucson, a couple weeks later than normal. With that in mind, we decided to go for a fake tree. There's hardly any fake trees left either! We finally found one at Walmart that could work, we'll find out when we set it up tomorrow. :)

The other thing we're sad about is that we could absolutely not find any color Christmas lights for the tree. Well, we found red and purple, but want the multi-set. I'm hoping I can borrow some from my mother-in-law. If not, we'll just have to get out sooner next year and snag some.


The baby is doing well, I've been feeling it move since last week. :) Just 3 or 4 times a day, but I can tell they're getting stronger. I have a midwife appointment on Wednesday, I always look forward to those because I learn a lot and feel much more peaceful about having a baby. Oh yeah... I can't seem to keep my hands off of pomegranates!

I snagged some really big ones from Costco for $1.25 each. I'll remove the seeds (30-45 minutes) and then spend the next hour nibbling them away. Don't be surprised if the baby is born scarlet red. ;)

Mmm... I'm off to have another pomegranate!

Leah

First Baby Purchase!

I've made my first official baby item purchase this weekend. I'm not counting the pregnancy tests I used, or the $500 check for the midwife. ;)

Yeah, baby wipes! I can't have too many of those, can I? Hopefully it'll last a couple of months at least. But I'm planning to buy a box every time I go to Costco. Clean bottoms are important 'round here. ;)


Another thing that I forked over some cash for was this lotion.

I'm trying to lotion up after every shower. I'm hoping to avoid stretch marks on my tummy with faithful moisturizing. I also make Chris do my back, it gets so itchy otherwise. Oh yeah, I like backrubs. :D This is the only lotion that hasn't made Chris rush off to the bathroom to wash his hands as soon as he's done rubbing me.

My sister-in-law that's due one week before me is WAY ahead of me in baby stuff. She's got a whole room dedicated to the baby, matching furniture set, and now says all she needs is a rug and the baby! I feel very behind compare to her. But Chris pointed out so long as the baby has clean clothes and diapers, plenty of boob time, a comfy spot to sleep, and plenty of lovin', it'll do just fine. My wallet thanks him. ;)


In other news, my baby sister went sky diving!! No, the picture is not upside down, her boyfriend is. :P

Sarah figured she better do this stuff before she starts having any kids! Good thinking.

In other family news, Pops is doing better! He's in rehab right now, and eagerly waiting to get home, I'm sure. Dad and Sarah cleaned up a couple rooms for him this weekend. I may or may not have had a moment of relief that people don't expect me to do heavy duty stuff now. ;) No filling up trash bags, no carrying full ice chests up the stairs, and no more carrying the laundry baskets. My tummy doesn't like the pressure of the basket. I've resorted to two Ikea bags for the clothes.

I'm at 15.5 weeks... and still in normal clothes! I did find a pair of maternity jeans at the thrift store for $10 and snatched them up. They fit well everywhere except on the tummy - too big. :)

Leah

Christmas on my mind

After watching the Missouri Star Quilt Co tube tutorial, I had an itch to try my hand at making a few blocks. Thankfully, I had the sense to start off with one strip's worth, instead of an entire quilt! The bias edge is very strong on the white fabric.

Not directly Christmas fabrics, but definitely Christmas colors. I like how much work it looks to get all those slanted angles, but it was easy cuts with no trimming.

I think I'll go ahead and make an entire quilt! For no reason other than to avoid the real Christmas gifts I should be working on. ;)

Leah

Update On Me

I had a midwife visit last Wednesday, and it went very well. I really appreciate that they take all the time they need (1.5 hours this time) and are very friendly and patient with my deafness. I got to meet another midwife-in-training, and I hope she's able to come for the birth.

They gave us some paperwork. Foods that have protein, emergency list - if I should call the midwife NOW or within 24 hours. A consent paper and then a financial agreement. Everything is in order and we made the first payment of $500. I do need to work harder on adding dark leafy greens, but they're pretty happy with my water intake and protein consumption.

My blood pressure was 111/74, a number I'm happy with. The assistant actually took my blood pressure twice because I was laughing about something else during the first take, and that can raise the numbers a bit. I can't imagine that happening at a doctor's office - a retake or laughing. :P

We also got to hear the heartbeat. They weren't sure how they could make me "hear" it. I could hear the sounds of the doppler machine... but how could I tell what was what? Well, the assistant brilliantly thought of tapping my arm when the machine was actually catching the beats. It worked great! It's just a little under 150 beats per minute.

They also felt for my uterus bump. The assistant started below my belly button and was working her way down without finding it. So the midwife took over and found the baby nestled very low, as you can see in the above picture. Most of my belly is NOT baby! :P

I'm officially at 17 pounds lost, but it didn't raise any flags with the midwife. I'm doing my best to eat all she wants me to, there's been no puking, blood pressure is good, heartbeat is good. The baby diet... how come nobody ever told me about it? ;)

And as you can see from my arm, I had to go in for a blood draw. I think I'd rather go through labor than do that again! After talking with some friends, I realized my issues stem from when I was 5 years old. I had to get a blood draw and I only remember them pinning down my arm and inflicting pain on me. Now that I have a more adult perspective, I'm willing to bet my parents had the blood draw done because I had suddenly lost the hearing in my right ear, when before I was only deaf in the left ear. I basically woke up one morning and complained to my mom that everybody sounded like they were speaking Spanish. So you have a little girl who can talk, but no longer understand what everybody else is saying... how do you make her understand what's going on with the blood draw? Plus my mom was trying to juggle a 3 year old, 1 year old and was pregnant with my brother. Realizing the big picture helped, but I was really emotionally drained for the rest of the day.


In other news, Pops is in the hospital with pneumonia. They're going to try to take him off the ventilator tomorrow. And thankfully it doesn't look like his heart is complicating things.

But I realized that even if he does die... I have no regrets. I have the sentimentally dear things, the quilts made by my great-great-grandma and my great-grandma's sewing machine. He's got a quilt from me, he's gotten to meet and know my husband. He knows about the baby too - I'm glad I didn't wait to share the news.

He better pull through... he's got a great-grandchild to meet next year! :)

Leah

Celebrating

There's quite a few things to celebrate this week. Like, this is my 400th post! I didn't get my act together to have a giveaway though. Who cares, I can always celebrate my 461st post. ;)


I just had my 27th birthday. I was looking forward to it because the 12th of November also marked 12 weeks of being pregnant. Alas, the gas and food fickleness hasn't disappeared. I should wait until 13 weeks, when I'm actually out of my first trimester, eh?

I also celebrated my birthday by starting a new quilt. :D


I got lucky enough to snag a spot as one of Ann's mystery testers for the New Year's Eve Mystery. It's a really easy one! There's lots of HSTs, but thankfully it's a pre-sewing clue, not something you need to do on the actual mystery day.

The requirements are a focus fabric and 4 coordinating pieces. Since there's babies abound in my husband's family right now, I figured I better whip up a couple more crib sized quilts. :)


I also received a piece of rush mail from my parents - my birthday card with a generous check included. It's all going towards the midwife!! And then there was this picture of a totaled car enclosed.

I was thinking my dad had taken a picture of some car on his way to a job site or something... but no, it turns out the car was my brother Ben's. You'd think he would learn from his New Year's Day experience... but if you look at the last sentence of that post, I think we're going to have to go with "perhaps not." :P

I don't have the full story, but what I gather, he bought the car less than 24 hours before (I'm gonna guess he sold the Mustang), was going down some hill with a friend and obviously lost control. I wonder how that phone call to my parents went... "Everybody's ok. I kinda scraped up my new car."

I'm not worried - Ben text me on my birthday saying "happy bday!". That he got the right day tells me that he's ok. :) And if he applies himself, he can earn all the money he needs for a new car in a couple of months. And whatever the new car is, it'll be #6 for him. He goes through cars faster than I go through sewing machines! :)

Leah