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Showing posts from January, 2019

January Review: What I'm reading, watching, playing

What I'm Reading This month I read books 4 and 5 from the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. I'm a longtime Sci-Fi and fantasy lover, and the Wheel of Time series is considered a classic epic. When Amazon announced that they would be adapting in into a Game of Thrones style high-quality live action show, and when John said he wanted to read it, I decided to take the plunge into the 14 book saga. I started a few months ago, and have been reading about 2 per month, though book 5 is dragging a little bit. Overall I'm liking the world and the characters, but the beginning of each book is always a slow start, and I am definitely getting tired of the men vs. women culture of the world that just never ends. It gets really tiresome when every action by a character is punctuated by "men just don't understand!" or "women are so confusing!" Of course, the men vs. women thing is built into the entire magic system and t

Coral Hexagon Baby Quilt

 Another baby quilt under my belt, this time for a friend of my mom's who just had a baby girl! Her nursery was "coral" color themed, so I ordered two jolly bars that were on sale from Fat Quarter Shop called "Sweet Marion" from Moda Fabrics by April Rosenthal. I didn't use all of the patterns in the pack, opting to leave out most of the really dark blue and really light pink ones, and I still had plenty for the quilt. The pattern is a familiar one, I again used Lori Holt's Half-Hexie large template. I was sorta crunched for time so I did a pattern I knew I could handle and do well quickly. I added a white border, backed it in teal minky, and bound it with satin blanket binding.  The quilting is simple--I stitched in the ditch around each hexagon and then measured an inch in from each line, marked them with a water soluble marker, and then quilted the smaller hexagons inside the big ones. Very geometric, but I like how it turned out! 

Kid's Breath of the Wild Link Tunic

James as Link! He said he wishes I had named him Link instead of James. Sorry dude! I named you after your grandfather instead.  It was a miracle that I managed to get this done at all considering how nauseous and exhausted I was in the midst of all my first trimester misery during October, but I did it!  With the belt that Uncle John made, which was promptly removed and lost the night of the Halloween party, never to be seen again.  It was hard to get pictures of my impatient, wiggling 4 year old just before trick-or-treating! The Hylian sword and shield-backpack I got off of thinkgeek.com. They were on super sale AND I had a thinkgeek gift card, so I paid nothing for them.  I patterned it from one of his larger t-shirts since I knew that this twill wouldn't have the stretch of jersey-knit t-shirt material. No mockup or anything, just went for it. I've made enough renfair style shirts to be pretty good at this by now! I struggled with how t

Little Mermaid Doll Costume

Back in October, my friend Susan mentioned that her little girl was begging for a Little Mermaid doll costume to match her Little Mermaid Halloween costume. And it just so happened that I had all the materials on hand, so how could I resist? It was really fast to make and it turned out adorable!  In fact, I had all the materials already because I had made a Little Mermaid costume for myself back in 2010, and when my parents cleaned out their house before they moved last year they dropped off a pile of my old costumes. So this was a chance to get rid of something I'm never going to wear again and make something for a sweet little girl.  Me, in 2010. Before babies! The hair is a wig!  The top is made from purple satin and has elastic along the bottom. It closes in the back with two small hook and eyes.  The tail part is made from stretchy sequined material and green organza, with velcro closure in the back. I'm still not great with sewing stretchy

2019 Goals

CHEESE!  This year I'm having my 4th baby, so with a newborn in the house I'm trying to keep my expectations real. Like, survive until August when my two older boys will both be in elementary school all day! But I can't help but want to do all the things, anyway. So here's what I'm looking at:   1. Post on this blog once per week  I did pretty good on this last year until that first trimester sickness really knocked me down and I'm proud of that! It's not that I didn't have things to post, I just couldn't get out of bed long enough to post them. This year I'll definitely need a hiatus around May 10, which is when #newbaby (Rosemary, at 19 months, is still "baby" yikes!) is scheduled to arrive, but maybe I can plan ahead and have John get some posts up around that time.  In addition to that, I want to post more blogging style blogs, like this one. I have a degree in writing and I write all the time privately ...but I fee

Butterfly Baby Quilt

This was a really fun one. I got this  beautiful layer cake from fatquartershop.com called "Grendale." These 10x10 precuts were perfect for the large half-hex templates from Lori Holt, but instead of using them as hexagons, I turned them outwards to make what I thought looked like butterflies!  First I stitched in the ditch around all the trapezoids, then I got really ambitious and cut out a "wings" template, traced it onto my quilt sandwich, and used my walking foot on my home sewing machine to quilt 27 beautiful butterflies! It was actually pretty quick and fun, even though it looks crazy complicated!  The back is teal minky fabric, and I bound it with pink satin blanket binding.  I was excited and happy to gift this to my dear friend for her baby Charlotte who was born just a week before Christmas!