Since I was sick this week, I had plenty of time to catch up on my new favorite TV show, Downton Abbey! The second season is showing now on PBS as part of Masterpiece Classic, but the first season is on Netflix’s instant queue right now. I absolutely love British period dramas and this one is no exception. It’s very well acted and the writing is riveting, everytime an episode ends I can’t wait to see the next!

Are you watching Downton Abbey? What TV shows are you hooked on?

Have a great weekend!

Little baby clothes!

Well, I’m on to my next project! A friend of mine sent me her son’s baby clothes and asked me to make them into a baby quilt, and to use his old receiving blanket as the backer. I started laying out the onesies with central graphics out last night and ripping the seams on the others to see what I have to work with.

Have you made a quilt out of baby clothes? I’d love to see them

Zig Zaq Quilt

It’s finally done! It measures about 49.5″x39.5″. I quilted it using a diamond pattern and used Quilters 80/20 Cotton. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but look what happened in the wash!

Ack!

Looks like there was some running dye, which I don’t understand because I ALWAYS pre-wash my fabrics! Oh well. Maybe I’ll go back and try to attack it with stain fighter or something.

Ignore my feet and curlers sticking out at the bottom.

And here’s the back of the quilt. I had some of this cloud flannel lying around, so I thought I’d use it here. I just love this print and it was hard to part with it, but I think the clouds and rainbow concept works really well. And I did end up doing a scrappy binding on the quilt, I think it looks really cute.

Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy your weekend!

Will the binding ever end?

I think I’ve decided that binding a quilt is my least favorite step! You’re so tantalizingly close to finishing your quilt, there’s just this one teeny tiny thing to do first and it takes FOREVER. By the time I’m done binding I could SWEAR that I have a five, six, seven or EIGHT sided quilt and not one with four sides. It seems to go on and on.

That’s why this time I decided to try machine binding the whole thing. It was SO much faster and I’m pretty pleased with the results. It wasn’t so straight in some areas but I thought it looked good overall.

The zig zag quilt is finally finished, it’s in the washer right now getting good and crinkly for pictures, I will probably post them on Friday.

The Balboa Inn

On January 17, 2009, after months of planning and nearly SIX years of dating, my husband and I arrived at the Balboa Inn in Newport Beach, CA to get married.

Table Numbers.

I made the table numbers, Mike’s aunt Georgia made the centerpieces and arranged the flowers for us.

Centerpieces.

Funny story: my hair and makeup artist bailed on me the day of my wedding, so we had to go to a nearby salon. They were so nice to us, I’ll never forget how wonderful they were.

Getting ready.

My mother in law hated my shoes, but I loved my “something(s) blue!”

My blue flats. I'm ready to party!

My mom putting on my veil.

I LOVED my birdcage veil.

Mike and I decided to take pictures before the ceremony, so here he is “seeing me for the first time.”

I believe he said, 'Oh, wow.'

We went and took pictures on the beach…

That bald head just catches all the sunlight.

And then walked back to get married.

One of my favorite pictures of the day.

My bridesmaids from left to right: good friends Amber and Vanessa and my sister and matron of honor, Teresa.

My father and I.

Getting ready to walk down the aisle.

Mike standing up with his groomsmen, from left to right: Best Man and brother Greg, good friends Jason and Nick.

Taking our vows… we laughed a lot during our ceremony, we were just SO HAPPY! Also, Mike’s grandfather married us.

Clearly we aren't taking this seriously enough.

Our first kiss as a married couple.

You may kiss the bride!

We’re married!

Woo!!

And we lived happily ever after.

There are a LOT more pictures, but I thought I would end it here (we did have a reception!) You can view all of them on my Flickr, or here’s a set of some of my favorites.

Termites? Wood rot? Both? Not a good sign of things to come...

Either way, I have a feeling this is going to be a long process! Wish us luck.

My Singer Confidence Quilter

When I first started quilting, I was using a basic machine my husband had gotten me as a wedding present. It was a small Singer (Inspiration model, to be exact) and it worked just fine. For Christmas 2010, my in laws gifted me my current sewing machine, a Singer Confidence quilter. It has about one hundred different stitches and a mess of other neat features, including a longer arm that I can stick on there for easier quilting.

These small Singers do great for sewing the quilt tops, but I have to admit… when it comes to quilting anything larger than a baby quilt, they’re a pain in the rear! I can’t wait until I can get one of these bad boys, but I guess I need someplace to PUT it first!

What kind of sewing machine do you use for your quilting? I’ve noticed that a lot of quilty bloggers use Berninas or Brothers. How about you? Do you send your quilts out to be quilted and just make the quilt tops?

These pictures are from last week when I mentioned I needed to babysit my nephew so my Mom could be with Granny during her last hours.

He LOVES playing in this activity chair!

Then he got the hiccups and talked to me for a while…

Enjoy your weekend!

Today’s post is another along those same lines. In 2010, I joined Weight Watchers and lost 25 lbs, just by restricting my caloric intake (no exercising). Once I hit the 25lb mark, I stalled. Even though I stuck to my points allowance and didn’t cheat, I could not drop another pound. I knew I needed to start exercising to lose even more, but I hate exercising. So I didn’t and I gave up on restricting calories… and my weight slowing crept back up. I’ve gained back 15 of those pounds.

Yummy Greek salad!

This is week one, I will try to keep posting on my progress! Hopefully by this time next year I will be down to my goal weight!

Are you trying to lose weight this year? How are you going about doing it?

This is how it looked before Jetty decided to do spins on it.

So far I’ve sewed the bottom six rows together, only eight more to go!

I’ve been thinking about adding a white border to the quilt, but I’m not sure. I think I’ll wait and see how even the edges of the fabric are and decide then. I also need to decide on a binding… I’ve thought about doing a black binding like the inspiration quilt, but I think I’m leaning more towards a multicolored scrappy binding… of course I’d be thinking of making this more work!

As for the backing, I know I want to use flannel, but I haven’t decided between using some flannel scraps I have or some of a cloud print flannel I have. I guess it will depend if I have enough flannel scraps!

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