Progress on Aiden's Quilt

I'm making progress! Slowly but surely I'm actually beginning to believe Aiden will have a quilt made by me some day. I got all the 'split squares' sewed together (square made from two triangles) and ironed flat. Now is the tough part...laying out all the fabric in order so I can start sewing it together. It has to look random, but sometimes random is harder than having a strict pattern to go by.

For lack of floor space to use, I bought a piece of felt and tacked it to the wall. Fabric will stick to the felt, so I can arrange all my fabric pieces and keep it off the floor so it won't get ruined by the dog or little boys running around :) The best place I have to tack the felt is above our spare bed, so I was jumping up and down off the bed. That got old real fast. So...now I have my card table on top my bed with all my fabric in reach! My spare room is a mess...but at least I'm making progress on this project :)



Here's my design wall with my work station near by. When my eyes get crossed I just lay down and take a nap. This set up is pretty convenient!!

Happy Birthday Kylie!!

I had so much fun making this cake. I LOVED LOVED LOVED the color of pink I got after lots of kneading and coloring of fondant. Cute flowers, butterflies and lovely colors...what else is there to say? Normally there's something I don't like about my cakes...but this one I was really pleased with. And it was yummy...top tier was chocolate cake with raspberry filling and the bottom tier was white cake with chocolate chip cream cheese filling. Yummo!!! With a house full of boys (including our dog)...it's nice to do something girly once and a while!

Happy Birthday Kylie!! I hope you enjoyed your cake!

Beach Bums

We arrived on Saturday afternoon, unpacked and headed to the beach. We didn't want to waste a minute and with four kids yelling "to the beach!!!" we did have much choice either! As you can see, Max means all business and he was determined to get to the big sandbox at the end of the walkway! Ahhhh...vacation is here and we're loving it!

We have two sand babies....

and two water babies :)

But regardless of whether they are in the water or sand, all the kids are having a blast and have gone non-stop since we got here. We also have two nappers and two non-nappers...and I bet you can figure out the two groups. Seems as though our oldest are growing up on us and must not need the naps anymore (sigh...) or so they say...

One last pic from today's beach outing. Mommy started reading a magazine while Max was playing in the sand. That didn't last long because he wanted me to spread out his towel...he went to get another magazine and laid down beside me to "read" his magazine! Too cute! oh...and he enjoyed his crackers filled with sand...didn't stop him from eating. Not much does!!

Take care!! We're headed back to the beach after naps and soak up some more sun :) Then having a shrimp dinner...YUMMY!! And of course make peanut butter fudge that Aiden has been requesting all week :)

FINALLY!!!

Where to start...I'm partially embarrassed about my procrastination...but on the other hand I'm not. We all have unfinished projects around the house, but this one has really bothered me because it's a project for my adorable little Aiden. I have made 3 quilts to date...all for my sister's little ones. The last quilt I finished was for my nephew, Kyle, and he is now 3 years old.

So....around 3 or so years ago I picked out Aiden's quilt pattern, bought all the fabric, washed the fabric and started to cut the fabric for Aiden's quilt. I planned to make him a throw that he could use all throughout his life...not just as a little boy. After I quickly got bored with cutting (cutting isn't much fun)...the fabric and pattern went back into the bag. And there it sat...and sat....and sat. NO...that's not all it did...it DID stare at me from time to time when I would move it here or there out of my way. It was taunting me! Don't get me wrong...I haven't just been sitting on my tooshie the last 3 years. I did have cute little Max in the mean time and we've been busy with the boys and everything else...but still it's a project I have been putting off for one reason or another. And it's probably one of the more important projects that I have on my list. I've really wanted to work on it...it's just the CUTTING that was standing in my way. As you can see...there are a lot of pieces to the quilt I picked out...what was I thinking??

So this year when I was asked to join a Block of the Month club (we complete one quilt square a month), I jumped at the chance. I thought this would be my motivation to learn how to sew on the sewing machine (versus by hand) to make it go faster...and now I can use the sewing machine. After that, I thought this would be my motivation to get started on Aiden's quilt. Well...the class has inspired me. It has inspired me to buy various quilt and project patterns...buy tools and fabric and also pick out a pattern and buy all the fabric for Max's quilt. Yep...the class has added projects to my list...but not taken any off!!

So...last week I realized it was almost August and I hadn't made any progress on Aiden's quilt. I took the fabric out of the closet, out of the bag and swore it wasn't going away until all the pieces were cut. Tonight I finished!!! Yeah!! I now have 1108 pieces of fabric to sew back together! Seems kind of crazy to cut fabric in pieces JUST to sew it back together...but I love it. Here's a picture of all my fabrics together (before I was done cutting of course)....
And here is the finished product. All my pieces labeled and in their bags...waiting for me to sew them together. I'm sure a lot of you can't appreciate my excitement...but I thought I would share it anyways. It's not that I didn't want to work on this quilt....more of me just not wanting to cut all these pieces out. Now that I did the tidious work...I can ACTUALLY start making Aiden a quilt of his very own that he can bundle up in for years to come.

I will definitely share pics as I make progress and if you don't see them...make sure you give me a hard time about it. I really don't want all these pieces finding their way bag into the closet again :)