creating a quilt.

One of my big self improvement goals for last year was to make a quilt. Both my mother and my mother-in-law are quilters so I figured one of them would be able to help me whip one up during one of their visits out to the midwest and I'd be able to check "make a quilt" off my list. Hah. Right. Little did I know that there are actually four thousand seven hundred and eighty-three more steps involved in making a quilt. I now realize that "whipping one up" was not in my realm of capabilities. So... making a quilt had to come about some other way. Fortunately for me, my mother-in-law is a genius. A generous genius. For Christmas last year she gave me a gift card to the cute little quilt shop, "Bee Happy Quilts," on Main Street here in Mount Horeb so I could have quilting lessons from one of the owners. Isn't that like the best gift ever?? I was pretty excited. (:

Before I got going though I needed to decide what to do with this quilt once it was actually made. As I mentioned before... both of Peter's grandmas are quilters so we have plenty of adorable quilts at our house. As much as I would have loved to keep my first quilt, we just had no need for it. Plus we're moving and the less bulk we have the better. And I just like making stuff for people! That leads me to the next step... crossing my fingers that it would turn out so I wouldn't burden someone with a crummy "first quilt" haha. Anyway, at the time one of my best friends from high school was pregnant with her first little baby girl. Way exciting, huh! And she's a very forgiving and understanding person so she'd understand if she received a ridiculously poorly done first quilt. Once she found out she was having a girl I bugged her for some nursery colors and tried really hard not to give away the surprise. Eventually I pried the colors from her creative and elegant brain... coral and turquoise and maybe dark grey. Perfect! The colors that I had been eyeing before we knew Peter was a boy. (:

The pattern that I decided on came from Project 12 and for the most part I followed the instructions. However... if you use it I would say buy extra fabric and don't by fabric quarters. The half triangles that you "get from the edges" are too small so I had to cut more 7 1/2 inch ones for that... and we ended up short a row. So yeah... a little extra fabric is a good thing.

Here are the fabrics that Pat (my teacher) helped me pick out....

This piece was more or less the inspiration for the rest of the quilt. Rachel had just bought a floral-y diaper bag so I assumed she'd like this pretty fabric. It's a little hard to tell but the background of this piece is a light turquoise-ish. The yellow almost threw things off but it worked out in the end. From there we stuck with a floral-y theme and picked out the rest of the fabric.

These two remind me of a damask that has exploded... nice and floral-y, ya?

More pinks and turquoises... lots of cute and high quality fabric at this place. You should definitely check it out. (:

And the yellow... I was nervous to throw more of it in there but it fit in really well! And little bumble bees totally go with a bunch of flowers! (I kid you not, I just made that connection right now... not once during the entire time that I was sewing did I even think about it.)

Once I got the pieces all cut and laid out it was time to sew them into rows. At this point I was thinking this crib quilt would be pretty big. Those quarter inches sure add up though and the whole thing shrinks quite a lot! See... already much smaller...

And this... was the scariest part of thee entire process. Sewing the rows together. What if the tips of the triangles didn't match up?? I'd have to like pick out the entire row... and I just... I just didn't want to do that. I mean who does, ya know?

Fortunately it worked out pretty well and it was only a little off in a few spots! Woohoo!

I got help with the last of the steps from my friend Ann Cue. She is incredibly talented in lots of realms and is very willing to share her talents with everyone. After she helped me pin my top, batting, and back together we got to work with the quilting. I wanted the quilting to be frilly and feminine (aka not a bunch of sharp angles) but attempting free motion quilting on my first quilt would be a bit brave. However, Ann said that if I could draw the pattern that I wanted then I could pull off quilting it. So I found a design from the sample pages of this book online and tried it out on paper. And it worked! (The whole time I was wishing I was you, Whitney, with all of your amazing doodling skillzz.) From there it was quite an adventure and honestly I absolutely winged it but I think it ended up looking nice and it's pretty much what I was going for! Beginner's luck was in the cards! 

Ann and I met up again the next week and did the front of the binding... trickier than I expected but like I said, Ann is very talented. (: At this point I felt like I was racing Rachel to see what would get finished first, the quilt or the baby.

The finishing touches... hand sewing the binding to the back. I was told multiple times hat this would be the best part... the part where you really add a personal hand sewn touch as you complete the quilt.

Ta-da! All done and ready for some baby cuddle time!

Here's Pat Poarch, my quilting teacher over at Bee Happy Quilts. She knows what she is talking about, guys! If you need any sewing help she's got your back. 

All ready to go in the mail! I hope you like it little Bella Rey!

Thank you Pat and Ann for sharing your quilting knowledge with me so I could complete this goal! And thank you Lisa and Todd for the extra push to get this one going. (: I seriously learned so much and I'm really looking forward to making another one! (and another one... and another one...)

p.s. Rachel... in like 18 years when you're going through Bella's belongings with her... ya know getting her all ready for college and stuff... and you get to this blanket and she says, "nah, toss it" you should send it to me... because I would love to see it. (:

Personalizing our home: the bedroom.

Well hey whaduyaknow, it's been like a month since I last blogged! Haha woops. Something about going to Idaho for almost two weeks or something. Maybe that was it. Maybe. Any who... time to move along with the next chapter of our "Personalizing our home" saga.

My poor husband... I have neglected personalizing our bedroom in a bad way and have done a poor to almost good job with the rest of the rooms. To save the bedroom for last was either torture or a relief... or he didn't even mind haha. Anyway, I wish I would have taken some before pictures but I didn't, probably because this room has been a work in progress for the entire two years that we've lived here. Had I known we'd be leaving so soon I might have picked up the pace. Oh well, I'm liking the way things are looking now so we'll just move this look around the country for the next few years before we finally settle down in who knows where.

We'll start with the most cluttered part... the desk. How in the world do you make a desk not look cluttered?? Everything on there is stuff we I use for all sorts of things. Crafts, primary, gifts, finances, journaling, etc. It's just so everywhere. Organized... but everywhere. Notice that AWESOME pot on the top right?? Yeah, that's the white elephant gift that I was raving about earlier. And you can see why, right? ;) Now all it needs is an aloe plant! Huh, Maren?? (:

Here's the view you get while standing at the door... a freshly painted dresser and shelf, a made bed (if you're lucky), and a cute kid with a sippy cup.

The top of the dresser also used to be quite cluttered. Not as bad as the desk, but cluttered. I still want to move the jewelry into the closet eventually but for now this set up is working nicely. Mostly because it's right next to the mirror so it makes getting ready in the morning faster by like 3 seconds. Time is precious, people. The black wooden thing and tan tile on the left were gifts from my aunt. 

"Prayer changes things." and "When life gets too hard to stand... kneel." 

I'm also using my 1st Place (aka champions!) 6th grade softball trophy to hold my bracelets that I never wear. I haven't decided if I'm just being creative or vain by having the trophy out haha hey, we were really good!

Our "engagement pictures" shelf used to be in my parents basement. And it used to be like 90's forest green. Todd has a vision for it that includes a jig-saw... we'll see if that ever happens. We may just resort to getting a new one and using this one for firewood before it meets up with the jig-saw. As a side note... Peter loves to jump on the bed and point at all of the daddy's on the shelf since it's pretty full of photos of Todd and I being all in love and stuff. I think you can see 7 daddy's from a certain angle.

Our bed is dressed in the lovely quilt that Lisa (my mother-in-law) made for our wedding. Can you see why I had a hard time choosing which colors to go with throughout the room? So many pretty options! One of the throw pillows is also extra special. My grandma Barfuss made 13 beautiful hand stitched pillow covers but never finished them (I'm assuming). My mom found them when they were going through her things before a move and sure enough there are 13 granddaughters! So my mom finished them up and we each got one. Mine matches so nicely with the rest of the bed and the other pillow which my obviously talented mother made. Thanks grandma (and mom)!

The framed family thing above our bed also came from my aunt, isn't she so kind and creative? It says, "Family, a journey to forever."

On my side of the bed I hung a list of my goals for the year as well as this quote from Pres. Boyd K. Packer. Huh... I'm just now noticing how much stuff I have about prayer. All good reminders, right? (:

Todd's side features his missionary plaque (my idea, he hasn't admitted to me yet if he thinks it's tacky haha) and an old mission shirt of his with his español name tag.

The accent colors that I pulled from the quilt were pale turquoise and gold/cream. You have to look close to find the gold throughout the room but it's there...

And there's the bedroom! It has been a fun project to finish up and I don't even want to think about having pack it all up to move in a few months because I'm just not ready to leave yet. Too many Wisconsin warm weather things to do first. (:

As for the bathroom... I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with how it looks. It has a few good features so who knows... that post may be delayed for a few months... years even. Stay tuned I guess. (: