Part 8: Along For The Project- My First King

Done and delivered!!

I had such a great time going to my bestie's Bridal Shower, it helped that it was held at her parents gorgeous house on the Chesapeake Bay. I only took one picture of the view, yea only one, I had to hold back....

One of the best parts was when her dad answered the door and didn't even recognize me. My first thought was, yup I gained about 40 pounds since high school (doesn't help that I was about 20 pounds under weight in high school). Hopefully it was just the sunglasses.

On to the quilt, to sum up the experience of making my first king-sized quilt is: I'm not sure when I really want to make another king-size, hahaha. It was a love/hate thing, and I totally love that it is in the hands of it's recipient now and no longer residing as my current elephant in the corner of my living room. Wonderful thing is that she loved it, and everyone else who was there to see. All of the ripping stitches and late night sewing was totally worth it in it's 10 foot by 10 foot existence, one of those labor of love things.

Note to self section:
-trim all corners/points that stick out past the block within the seam allowances, yea it shows
-when free-motion quilting lots of curvy-ness, up the tension on the top thread
-when in doubt just pin the stinkin' binding, it turns out right the first time
-don't go crazy with the thread color on large quilts, just blend
-do not use interfacing with applique, it sucks
-I really like closely stitched straight line quilting, and it's easier

Other than the gorgeous bride-to-be (right up there), the beautiful house and views, and the party with awesome food (as always Kim) it was so great to finally see my besties from high school again. We have all grown so much and yet are exactly the same 4 girls when we get together, unfortunately I am still the loud/random one (working on that, but it's hard when you're related to Derek...). Miss you ladies already!!

The rest of the posts about the progression of My First King can be found by clicking the link.

Friday Find: Crochet A Rainbow

This week's Friday Find is a charity-type thing, wow that was specific.

The author of the wonderful (self-titled) website Sarah London has been running this shin-dig for a bit. She is accepting donations of Granny Squares to sew them together and make blankets for flood victims of Australia.

She has even provided step-by-step visual instructions here.

I simply love it when someone organizes something like this, a charity where tons of people contribute what they have and the people organizing it puts the pieces all together to make something beautiful. When you think about it, every person who organizes a charity does this, but with crafting projects it is a much more visual experience. (I am a very visual person)

Here's what I've been working on in my 'waiting time' this week:

You should use your extra yarn and whip up a few, if you have any extra yarn that is...

In Our Neck of the Woods

Things have been busy around here lately, good busy, no wonderful busy!

Someone's first dance class.

Trip to Pop Pop and MeMa Reesa's.

There

And back

Adorable Valentine's.

And, of course, new projects.

50 Shirts that will become 5 quilts

It's actually navy, but for some reason photo'd really light

Hexies atop their traveling project box.

But, maybe the best of all is outside.

Picnics are the BEST!

Cabbage in the back, and Lettuce up front. Getting planted ToDay!!

Tons of Tutorials - Make Your Own Easter Basket

*edited to add another tutorial, at the end*

I have been considering making Easter Baskets for my kids for a while, since we all know how much room traditional ones take up. We have regular baskets for ours, the wicker-type kind, and they are huge.

I wanted to be lazy and just use a pattern to make them instead of actually thinking and making my own. It happens...

So, what's a girl to do?

Google 'Fabric Easter Basket Tutorial' of course!

Here's what I found:

There's so many to choose from!

Fabric Easter Basket Tutorial, Me and Madeline

Fabric Basket, Pink Penguin

Easter Basket, Distressed

Via Moda Bake Shop

How to Make a Fabric Basket, Dabbled.org

Easter Basket, jcarolinecreative

Woven Recycled Easter Basket, Resweater

Coiled-Rag Basket, DIYNetwork.com

Recycled Wool Easter Basket, Resweater

Split Twirl Skirt Tutorial Review

I made Char's awesome Split Twirl Skirt from Crap I've Made last May, and I love how they turned out!

Even though it has taken me forever to comment on the pattern, I did post about them here. I'm not going to do an all formal review of this because it is a tutorial, so here goes.

First, lets start off by saying that this is a skirt that my older daughter picks to wear constantly, and I'm sure my younger daughter would too if she wasn't 1 1/2. I'm sure she would if she was older. And, I'm also sure that many more versions of this one will be made. (Can you tell we love it?)

The one for my older daughter was made a little longer, which is another great thing about this tutorial: it's so easy to custom make this since you are taking your own measurements! It is pretty much an equation that you are building, a very very easy equation.

The next best thing about this skirt is that it's entirely assembled with rectangles! How wonderful if you want to crank out masses of these for your girls!!

So, I highly recommend this tutorial for Char's Split Twirl Skirt so much so that I think I may be making one this week with linen now that I'm thinking about how easy, fun, and pretty much instant gratification this skirt is, maybe even in my size...hahaha (evil laughs don't translate well to type, hmph).

Finished My First Plain Vest

I finished the plain vest in 4 days.

That felt good.

And I love it.

Quite often, I don't have the opportunity to finish a project that quickly.

Maybe my biggest hold up was picking buttons...

Could you imagine why? May jar is a gallon size, and is full.

I did make some modifications to the original, all on my Ravelry page.

Do you have any projects that just made you feel like you were king of the world, even if only for a moment?

Friday Find: One Day Without Shoes

Lets start by saying I think TOMS shoes are adorable, no?

Lets also say that I need a pair, seriously, but can't see myself spending that much on a pair of sneaks right now. I'm not on a 'buy something awesome for me kick' at the moment.

The best thing about TOMS shoes is that for each pair they sell, they give a pair to a person/child in need of shoes. They give away a BRAND NEW PAIR.

On April 5th, 2011 they are encouraging everyone everywhere to spend One Day Without Shoes to boost awareness of those around the world that go without every single day. 

I have pledged to blog without shoes on April 5th, 2011, and hopefully I can do something a bit more influential without shoes, like have a party, or maybe just a playgroup... hahaha... without shoes. I need to do something good though, cause honestly, I live without shoes most days (do slippers count???) as soon as the weather is nice, I am sans shoes.

Rounding Second

I knew yesterday was gonna be a good one, from the moment I woke up.

I didn't say perfect, I have 4 kids people, and a trip to the post office was in order for the day... enough said.

However, overall, yesterday was pretty amazing. Amazing like that feeling of rounding second base because you're third base coaching is yelling and you've just realized you hit a home-run/infield home-run. That moment that you achieved something amazing, but you're not quite done yet and the best part is yet to come.

Photo Thanks to The Baseball Zone

Side note: I love LOVE love baseball.

To start the day off, it was about 4am, and all was quiet on the home front. I tip-toed downstairs to a waiting sewing machine and a great project needing some love. There is nothing like waking up and being able to sew for 2 hours *hopefully* uninterrupted.

New stats on the quilting of the King:

Sashing: All
Blocks: 20 of 25
Block Border: 10 of 25

Man, I am almost done! It's kinda funny how I keep calling it the King though, sometimes I feel like I'm talking about Elvis....

Another great and wonderful thing about yesterday was that I started a new knitting project: Pickles Plain Vest. I have had this post in my bookmarks menu for what feels like forever (said with a Sandlot voice... hehe), and I absolutely love it! Reading all the reviews on Ravelry.com sealed the deal, everyone was so happy that it knit up so fast. In my experience, most things that are knit with 2 strands of yarn go quick. I really like how it's coming along. You can check out my project here: My First Plain Vest. It is a work in progress, and pictures will be coming soon.

Possibly one of the absolute best BEST things that happened yesterday was that my little guy finalized his potty training!!! Oh YEA! I can't even describe accurately how monumental this moment is. It is not that he's taken forever to do it, he's only 3 1/2, but now I only have one kid in diapers. He was almost done about a month ago, but of course he had to get a week long stomach flu, and everything was at a stand-still. I don't think I can ever have more than one child in diapers again, well at least I hope not. We went from having 3 kids in diapers to only 1 in one year. Score.

I think a trip to Target for some more big boy underwear is in order for today. Hopefully they have batman/joker ones, those are on request.