Archive for October, 2009
Jason Jr.’s Quilt
03 years ago
by Erin
Earlier this year, my husband’s cousin had a baby boy named Jason. I had been wanting to try my hand at quilting for a while, so I decided it was the perfect time to start, so I could make a gift for the baby. My husband bought me a sewing machine that previous January and I was dying to use it, this was the perfect excuse!
I went to JoAnn’s (my favorite craft store) and started in the books section. I ended up buying Quilts for Baby: Easy As ABC by Ursula Reikes. If you know a bit about sewing but nothing about quilting, like me, this is a great book to start with. It tells you everything you’ll need to quilt, and it has lots of simple starter quilts with very clear, easy to understand directions. Apparently the design I chose was one of the harder ones, but it didn’t feel like it with this book.
Fabrics I chose for the quilt.
Piecing together the squares was a bit challenging, as you can see. Not all of my blocks match up perfectly, but that’s something that comes with practice. Improved skill in cutting and sewing straight will correct those types of mistakes.
I thought my sewing machine wouldn’t be able to handle machine quilting the blanket, so I ended up quilting it by hand! You can see here in the picture that I mis-cut the backer for the quilt, so I used some scraps I had to supplement the width.
Finally the quilt is done!
The quilting lines are a bit crooked, but that can be solved by using a quilting frame that I ended up buying after this project was finished. I was pretty satisfied with the outcome, especially for my first quilt, and eager to start the next one. 
Wedding Scrapbooking!
03 years ago
by Erin
I finally finished scrapbooking all of the pre-wedding events, and now I’m on to the actual ceremony!
I figured that with a wedding scrapbook, I and whomever else was looking at it would get tired of traditional wedding themed pages pretty quick, so I tried to switch up the page themes whenever I could. We had some pictures of the hotel the wedding was at, so I included that on a beach themed page since our wedding was at the beach. I ripped some tan and blue paper to simulate sand and ocean, and decorated with some beach and ocean stickers.
Left Page: I saved some of the paper that I had left over from making my invitations, so I could incorporate it into the scrapbook I knew I would be making. The paper on the journaling is the same paper, arranged in the same way as it was on the invites.
Right Page: My mom helped cut the pictures so that the center one would be framed by the others. It took a bit of expertise, so it’s good that she was there to help.
I wasn’t a big fan of quote stickers before I made the Left page, but once I read that quote I figured it fit perfectly with the pictures I had planned for that page. It reads: “My best and chosen friend, companion, guide, to walk through life, linked hand in hand, two equal loving friends true husband and wife.” I loved how this layout matches even though the two pages are not mirror images of each other.
This layout is a LOT more ambitious than I ever would have attempted myself, but my mom wanted to try it out since I have a LOT of ribbon left over from the wedding, and this page could use it. The elegant feel fit in well with the pictures of the pastor praying and the Best Man reading our selected passages, and I used some religious stickers to highlight that.
Borders aren’t just for the left and right sides of the pages! They can be used to outline titles, which is what I did here. I love the balance of this page, and the colors are beautiful, too. I also tried to steer clear of my wedding’s color scheme as much as I could, a scrapbook full of pool colored pages would start to blur together after a while!
Happy scrapbooking! This album is not even close to being done yet, so keep checking back for more ideas. Be sure to leave any questions in the comments!
Miss Doxie is back!!
03 years ago
by Erin
So I know I have practically no readers, but I just need to rejoice and tell you all that Miss Doxie is back, after nearly a year’s absence!!
I was so excited to see a new post from her in my Google Reader this morning! If you haven’t heard of her or read her blog, go over there immediately, her stories are hilarious.
Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more posts in the near future
