Happy Birthday, Gidge!

My little sister is 17 today - happy Birthday!

I finished her quilt over the weekend. I'm not happy with everything about it, there are flaws and I wasn't wanting to tie it but rather machine quilt it...but oh well. It's still pretty good, I think, for being my first quilt ever.

I'm a Nerd

Just call me the quilt group nerd! I left our quilt group gathering at noon today with instructions and fabric to make a bookshelf block for Sara. Within 3 hours of leaving her home, I had my block done!

It's not that I didn't have anything else to do (laundry, dishes, treadmill time, etc)...I was just so excited to sew!

Oh, and I got most of my blocks back, they look fabulous and I'm so excited to get the rest and piece them all together!

Hunter's Party

Yesterday was Hunter's 4th Birthday (in case you didn't gather that from yesterday's post). We had Hunter's Birthday party last Saturday at the bowling alley - here are some pictures (it's hard to get good pictures of kids who move fast in a dim bowling alley):

I made the cake, and small bowling ball cookies! I've always had a desire to make fun cakes - this was my first one and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Can't wait to make more!

Wordless Wednesday - 4 Years!

The Quilt Group

My last post, a month ago exactly (sad), I mentioned a quilt group I was starting with some friends. Some of us met the weekend before last so I could distribute my fabric, go over the details of my quilt and we could pick our 'line up' for the other quilters.

The basic rundown of how things works is this:

1. The 'host quilter' (as I like to call it) hosts a get together for anyone who wants to come on the 3rd Saturday of the month. At this time they distribute their fabrics to each member of the group (there are 13 of us!) and they go over the particulars - what size of block they want, pattern, etc.

2. The quilters have 1 month to complete their square - a super easy task...it's very doable to make a square in one afternoon (or even as little as an hour, depending on experience and difficulty of the square).

3. At the next get together, the quilters will bring their completed squares for the previous host quilter or, if they're not yet finished, they can use the get together to get suggestions or even help to finish their square.

4. Once the host quilter gets all of their squares back, they can assemble the top and quilt as they choose, and on their own time frame.

It's relatively easy. We have some members of our group who have little sewing experience and I'm thinking (hoping) they are going to find this an enjoyable, stress free experience.

I am the host quilter for February, since I didn't mind having my quilt be the guinea pig and my instructions for the blocks were simple - create a 12.5" square using various sized squares and rectangles. Here are some pictures so far:

My fabric - bought to match the floral print which is a vintage sheet I found on ebay awhile back

My first block - I made this one to be sure I was providing enough fabric for each quilter

Izzy's block

My second block - I think I provided everyone with enough fabric to do 2 blocks, so I made another one the other day. Just seeing that extra fabric sitting there made me anxious to do another one!

I cannot wait to see what the other people make but most of all I cannot wait to work on blocks for the other people and see what everyone comes up with!