I-Spy Quilts!

I'm finally posting pictures of the I-Spy quilts that I made for James and Makenna for Christmas! I read about these quilts a while ago and was itching on getting my hands on a bunch of different fabrics. I posted a while ago about how I was able to get all of the different fabrics using a fabric swap from Obsessively Stitching. Andy helped me a ton with doing all of the measurements. These were the first quilts that I made without using a very specific tutorial.

There are almost 200 different fabrics!

They were not the most exciting thing on Christmas morning but once the hype of all the toys settled down they enjoyed playing with them.

The backing one each of them:

Each individual square was straight line quilted around.

I know they are not perfect but I feel so much pride and joy when I look at them after putting hours and hours of hard work into making them. I hope that James and Makenna enjoy them for years!

2010 Year in Review

I can't believe that it is over already but we had a wonderful year with some big changes! Here are a few of the things the we did and accomplished in 2010!

I completed my first quilt! I have now become addicted and spent all day today working on quilt #5.

We spent a few different weekends on the Oregon coast. Went on a few day trips, a few shopping trips, and a few family getaways!

Biggest news of the year: WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!! It was all God's planning and a huge blessing. It was also a big huge pain almost every step of the process. We have been living here now since May 3rd and are enjoying (almost) every moment of home ownership!

Along with the house came our first garden. It came and went quickly! The only thing that survived were these tomatoes.

We spent a wonderful week at the coast with most of the Wallace family celebrating my Grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. As my Dad says, "we had a family reunion and only one person got shot!" That should tell you how the week went :)

Andy started a new hobby of brewing beer. He takes over the kitchen for a couple of weeks at a time and is really enjoying the process. He even tried a pumpkin beer for the holidays!

I completed my first year of teaching! It was a wonderful year that I was both happy and sad to see end. These two women were a huge part of what made it a success. This picture was taken on a field trip to the Salem Public Library where the three of us and 20 pre-schoolers rode on 2 city buses to get there and 2 to get home with bus transfers in the middle. It was a miracle that we all made it back!

We celebrated our one year wedding anniversary! We took a trip to Seattle to celebrate. We enjoyed a Mariners baseball game, walking through Pikes place, and riding up to the top of the space needle.

We also took a second trip to Seattle with friends in September.

James and Makenna spent a whole week with us in the middle of summer! We jam packed the week with fun Salem activities ending with a trip with mom to the Portland Zoo. It was successful enough that I think it might happen again this summer.

Andy started a new job at Frito Lay. He has been there for 4 or 5 months now. He has really early mornings that took a while for us to get use to but he really enjoys the work.

We repainted and gave our back room a face lift! My favorite part of being a home owner is decorating!

The Oregon Ducks were number one in the BCS for the first time ever! They are headed to the national championship on January 10th. Andy is ecstatic and counting down the days!

That was our 2010! There were lots of changes but all for the good and we are looking forward to all that will come in 2011! We hope everyone has a safe and fun New Years Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!! At 6 o'clock tonight I finally finished making my last Christmas present! I can't wait to show off how they all look after they are given tomorrow. I thought I would show what our tree and some of our decorations looked like this year. In our tiny apartment last year we had enough decorations to fill everything, this year we barley had enough for one room. I'm excited to see if I can find any good deals after Christmas!

We got to do Christmas lights outside for the first time

2010 Christmas Tree

This beautiful wreath was sold through the Women's Bible study that I attend to support missions in Costa Rica.

A few of the small decorations from inside the house:

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Reply

Could we at least put up a picture of what it looked like when I was done. Or at least a picture of what I looked like when I was done. And I disagree, home ownership is more fun in the winter because it isn't a spectator sport.

Winter :(

Owning a house in the winter is not as much fun as owning a house in the summer! This is what our back patio looks like right now:

Andy has been on the roof blowing all of the leaves out of the gutters with a leaf blower for the last hour! He knows that he has to blow all of these leaves off the patio before he is done and then my patio should at least look decent again.

Quilt updates: 1 down, 1 to go before Christmas and still 2 after

Our Christmas tree and lights update is coming soon!

I Love Fabric!

I am obsessed with fabric! Gorgeous, vibrant, good quality fabric, which usually means expensive fabric. Eeek! I said in my last post that I am in the middle of four different quilts and I am in love with all the fabrics that I have found for these quilts.

The first two are i-spy quilts for James and Makenna as Christmas presents. I first learned about i-spy quilts on a blog called Obsessively Stitching. I started collecting fabrics that I found on sale and got a bunch from my mother-in-law and one of her sisters. When I finally got to the point where I had enough I started cutting them. This was my stack 72 different squares for each quilt.

Right after I finished cutting and sewing half of the ones for the first quilt, I logged on to the Obsessively Stitching blog and found out that she was hosting an i-spy swap! You send her 20 cuts of 10 different fabrics and she sends you back 200 different fabrics!! Even though I was already started with the sewing, I couldn't pass up on the chance to have over 200 different fabrics for James and Kennas quilts. These are the 10 fabrics that I choose to send to her. I know James will love the bugs and Kenna will love the cats and animals! Most of them were fat quarters on sale at Craft Warehouse.

In less than two weeks I had this wonderful stack of fabrics at my doorstep!!

Here are some of my favorites! There is no way that I could have collected all these different types of fabrics before Christmas. I can't wait to show you the finished product!

The third quilt that I am working on is the first one that I am making just for me! For my birthday the Lynch family gave me a gift card to the Craft Warehouse. I am so glad I had a gift card because there is no way I could have justified spending as much on this fabric as I did. It's kind of hard to see the colors here but I love the soft brown and the pinks.

Yesterday I got all of the squares cut and am ready to start sewing this one. Cutting is my least favorite part so I tried to get it out of the way on all the quilts first. Here are a few of my favorites:

The fourth quilt was a huge surprise for me. I enter lots and lots of giveaways on blogs that I see but never expect to win anything. A while ago I got a surprise e-mail from a blog saying that I had won a layer cake of this beautiful Christmas fabric! A layer cake is 42 squares of fabric that usually give you one square from each of the fabrics in the line. I'm not sure what pattern I am going to use yet but I am excited that the fabric is already cut into good size squares!

I can't wait to show off the finished products! I will make sure to keep you updated on them as I go and hopefully they will be done before Christmas :) We are making homemade pizza right now and rented a redbox movie for the night. I just told Andy that I am thinking of cutting some more fabrics while I sit here and watch the movie. I told him that I am to the point where I am incapable of just sitting here without doing something. He said "you are your parent's child!"

Wowzer

Let me start by saying that my last blog was right before school started! No my life has not slown down since then! I am eagerly awaiting January when I anticipate a little more normalcy.

Before I show you a quick little project that I loved making, I wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to two amazing women. Kaitlin has been the one trying to get me back into my blog :) Her birthday is today! Ashley was the person who first introduced me to blogging! Her birthday is tomorrow! Happy birthday ladies!!

I use my ironing board often (not to iron clothes, that would be a silly thought). I iron lots and lots of fabric before I get started on any project. Our ironing board was ten dollars at target right after we got married and the cover never stays on it! I found a super simple pattern online and some cute fabric and after about an hour had a wonderful new cover.

Before:

After:

Doesn't it make ironing look a lot more fun? I'm using it to work on FOUR quilts before the end of the year! I pinkie promise that my next post will be this weekend!!