Logan's Turtles

My littlest nephew, Logan, turned one recently.  What does a one year old need, really?  Well, Uncle Jason and Aunt Jess decided he needed a turtle family. 

I came across this tutorial on Make It and Love It a while back and thought these little guys would be perfect for a little guy.  I made the littlest one using the pattern and decided to make 2 bigger ones by enlarging the pieces 150%. 



Are they stinkin' cute or what?



Lily got in on the photographic action.  She thought these were for her to play with and started attacking the little dudes.  Here she is sitting on one of the big guys.  Silly girl, doesn't she know turtles are for Logans?

I've been keeping a secret.

Have you noticed I haven't been around a lot lately?  I'm sorry I haven't been here to entertain you like I have been in the past, but I think I have a pretty good excuse.

And that excuse is?  In December, I'll be giving birth to a baby!  That's right, I'm currently 18 weeks pregnant.  I've been dealing with nausea and morning sickness since early May.  That fun stuff kicked in right before Quilt Market.

Here's something fun... this photo of me at Quilt Market is one of the first photos I took after we knew we were expecting. 



At last week's doctor's appointment, we were able to see our little peanut for the first time.  Everything is looking healthy and we now know we're having a little boy.  I felt pretty strongly in the beginning we were having a little girl, but the last few weeks my strong feelings about that weakened a bit. 

Jason and I are very excited to be adding to our little family.  Lily, our cat, doesn't seem all that excited to be sharing our little house with a newborn, but I'm sure she'll get over it.  My mom might take the cake on the excitement, though.  She's been sewing up all sorts of baby projects and perfecting her "gramma dance".

And now for some of the fun photos...

We are growing things...

We planted our first garden this summer and it is doing beautifully.  These photos are from a few weeks ago. 



Since this photo was taken, the corn has gotten so big we needed to cut a hole in the top of the netting to let it continue to shoot upward.  We have picked about half a dozen green bell peppers, the anaheims and habaneros are coming in.  Our squash and zucchini have exploded outside of the confines of the box.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll get anything off of them.  The blossoms keep falling off.  The tomatoes are starting to go crazy. 

Are you wondering what the netting is about?  Well, about a month or so ago, we had some visitors throughout the night.  Our friendly neighborhood deer ate a pepper plant or two and couldn't resist our best tomato plant.  So, we rigged up this cage-like system to spare the rest of our plants from the deer snacktime.



Isn't that a good looking pepper?

Sixty Stars

Jason and I are headed to Wisconsin today to celebrate with much of my family.  What are we celebrating?  It's my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary! 

My mom and I decided months ago to collaborate on a quilt to give to my grandparents for their anniversary.  My mom had some star blocks from a bee she participated in that we thought made a good starting point for this one.  We used Kona Snow (I think) for the background and civil war prints for all the stars. 



It turned out that my mom made pretty much the whole top of the quilt.  The only thing I can claim is cutting a few of the pieces and ironing about 18 of them while she sewed them together the day my parents came to my house so my dad could go check out a vintage bike rally.



Why do I get to claim to be part of this quilt making team?  Well... I quilted it.  I visited Jackie at A Quilting Place Omaha and spent about 5 hours quilting this one.  I chose a variegated tan to light brown thread  that blended nicely with the top.  Can you see the quilting in either the above or below photo? 


I chose to do a pantograph called Come Dance With Me.  I thought this pattern was the right density for this quilt and the shape of the design complimented the fabric choices we made.  It was elegant without being over the top frilly. 

Hopefully Gramma and Papa will like this quilt.  We named it "Sixty Stars".  The 60 stars are meant to represent the 60 years of their marriage.

How was your weekend?

Did you have a good holiday weekend? I spent part of the weekend up in Omaha with my family and the other part back here in Kansas City with my hubby. 



That quilt up there is what I did with some of my time in Omaha.  My grandparents are celebrating their 60th anniversary towards the end of the month, so my mom and I collaborated on this quilt to give them.  I cut the pieces for about 18 of the 60 stars.  Some of them came from a bee my mom participated in a while back.  The rest of the quilt top was put together by my mom.  So, what was my contribution?

I took the quilt over to A Quilting Place Omaha and rented a few hours on the long arm.  I chose a variegated tan/gold thread and a pattern called Come Dance With Me.  I think it turned out beautifully. 

I've finished burying all the threads and will be spending some time binding this quilt. 

I'll  be sure to share a better picture of this one when it's all finished up.