Quilting Fun

I spent the weekend sewing, looking out at the mountains and at the deer that came right up to the window. See him there behind my machine?

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So yeah, here is a post that should have been written, oh 2 months ago. I know they say better late than never, but YIKES! Anywho, back in April I had the awesome opportunity to hang out with the ladies in Casey's family and a few of their friends at a quilting retreat at his Aunt Sharon's beautiful home in Buena Vista, Colorado. Mountains + Family + New Friends + Sewing = FUN! I had never really quilted before so I wasn't sure what to bring to work on at this quilting retreat. (I did take a beginning quilters class this spring, but that turned out to be semi-disastrous.) So I decided that because I was going to be surrounded by people who are much more experienced than I myself I would take advantage of their knowledge and skills. I brought a kit for a colorful table runner that my grandma had given me for Christmas. It was a small enough project that I thought I could get completely finished in one weekend so that I could go through all the steps with help nearby if needed. And lo and behold my plan worked - I actually finished it. I even did free motion quilting! That part was sooooo fun. I actually made a quilt! It's a small quilt/large table runner. I'm still not sure what to do with it - it's currently sitting in the guest room/sewing room awaiting the perfect location. Besides all of the sewing we also took walks in the evenings and ate some TASTY food. One of the best parts of the trip was being up in the mountains. The change of scenery was very welcome after the last year and a half in Arizona. We even got snow! And of course, it goes without saying that it was wonderful to spend time with so many wonderful women. I especially enjoyed road-tripping with Aunt Kate. Good times, good times.

A bird's eye view of the creative chaos.

Kassi contemplating block placement.

All the ladies with their finished projects.

Aunt Kate showing us her torci (sp?).

We wore Carol out.

Kassi celebrating that she finally got those dang triangles right.

Dee showing off her baby quilt.

These are the fabulous, colorful, energizing fabrics for my project.

Work in progress.

I did it!

I'm leaving, on a jet plane...

...don't know when I'll be back again. Okay, I'll be back on Sunday, but I'm headed out of town tomorrow morning. I'm heading up to Colorado for some sewing and some good fun with Casey's family. Hopefully I'll have some fun projects to share with you when I get back. Have a great weekend everyone :-)

Like a moth to a flame

In order to finish my Easter eggs, I had to swing by Joann's last night to pick up some more batting. Well, I of course had to walk past rows and rows of beautiful fabric to get to the batting. I tried to be strong but it's tough to do after working for twelve hours. Ten minutes, one coupon, and a few bucks later I was on my way home with some fabulous spring fabric. I absolutely love the texture of the fabric on the left and the print of the one in the middle. I see a fresh, springy apron in my near future. I'll definitely share the results of my efforts with all of you, my faithful readers. (I love you both!)

Mission Accomplished

I'm sure you've all be checking our blog regularly - hanging on the edge of your seat to see how my Easter project turned out. Well, I've finially finished - wahoo for following through! It was fun to use up some scraps from various projects but I confess I did not execute this pattern very well. Some of my eggs looked more like beach balls and my slip stiching could definitely use some improving. Neither here nor there, I decided that these little guys will only sit out for a few weeks a year and once I put them in the Easter tree you wouldn't be able to see the imperfections anyway. It was fun to do and our house is now more festive. Yay!

Fun Little Easter Project...

I read a lot of sewing and crafting blogs. I always have high hopes of trying out all of the cool projects I see, but in reality only end up doing about a quarter of them or so. Today I am working on this project I saw a few weeks ago on Retro Mama blog and thought it would be a fun little Easter project. It's really quite simple and a great way to use up fabric scraps. I'll post a pic once mine are done. Here is a link to the tutorial. Give it a try!

I'm so excited...

...I'm about to head out the door to my first ever quilting class. This series of classes was my Christmas gift from Casey. What a guy! Here is my stack of fabric that will soon be a real quilt (hopefully). Wish me luck!

Life...

Life has been fairly uneventful around the Babendure household lately. Casey has been busy with homework and I'm still at the same hospital. The kitties have a new trick... They have for some unknown reason taken a liking to knocking over their water container which spills a half gallon of water all over the floor! Not fun to clean up. We've tried to reprimand them into behaving like civilized little kitties, but so far it's not working. Casey's latest method is to use the offending cat to mop up some of the water. Even if it doesn't stop them from continuing to knock over their water, it's at least kinda funny to watch! I haven't been doing much sewing lately, but I have been trying to spruce up the house a bit and make it feel a little more like home. I framed some wedding pictures and hung them up in the living room and arranged all of our dishes in the hutch so that they weren't all just helter skelter in there. (I know those seem like little things, but they made such a difference.)

Oh, I did sew some linings for these cute storage baskets we got at Ikea in the fall. I have a few more sewing projects on my to do list, though. I would tell you what they are, but some are gifts and if you are lucky enough to be a recipient I don't want to ruin the surprise! Casey's parents (and hopefully sister - HINT HINT KASS) are coming for a visit this weekend. We don't have anything too exciting planned, but it will be good to see them :D Alrighty, I think that's all for now... Oh, to any of our Hodia family that is reading this entry, have fun at Ski Camp this weekend!!!