9.25.2012

Baby Girl Quilt


I got asked to make a baby girl quilt in a similar style to the Bella Quilt that I made a while back but with all girly prints. After going through pretty much all the fabric I had on hand, these are the fabrics that she picked out for me to use


Once the fabrics were picked I spent quite a bit of time rearranging them (probably about 200 times) until I finally settled on this. There are so many combinations that could be done it was hard to decide!


I used organic sherpa on the back (yes I am obsessed with this material!) and then I quilted around all the squares to make it a bit more polished looking.




I hope that the gift recipient loves it too! Hope everyone is having a good week so far :)


9.19.2012

Our New House

So excited to share with everyone that we bought a house! Yeah! It only took 7 months of waiting but we got it!


Since everyone seems to be super interested here are some facts about the house:
- it has 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, a family room, living room, kitchen, eat-in kitchen dining room, laundry room, wet bar and lots of storage over 3 stories (there is a "basement", main floor, upstairs)
- it is almost 2300 SF
- it is a townhouse. no it is not a condo and yes there is a difference. while we wanted a single family home, we were not willing able to pay $1M for one to get the space that we need in an area that we wanted to live. solution: townhouse in an area we like, with exceptional schools, and the space that we need but yes it is attached. but totally worth it! but from here on out I (we) will continue to call it a house. sorry if this annoys people.
- it has a HOA, which comes with a beautiful pool, tennis courts, clubhouse and a huge park like area for The Bubb to run around in. Plus we don't have to worry about the exterior so it is like a house in training :) And yes I totally want to be on the board.

One of the things that made us willing to wait around for this place is the space and the fact that it has not been redone recently. We LOVE that. I am sorta particular about my decorating and I didn't want to buy a home that had been recently flipped or redone as I would feel awful tearing out perfectly good upgrades just because they weren't in my style. This place has not been done all that recently but is still totally liveable while we start all the remodeling! Hooray!! I don't think that Evan quite knows what he got himself into...

Here are a few lovely pictures, but I also made a video...

{main floor}







{ basement }







{upstairs}




If the pictures just aren't enough for you, click HERE for a video tour.

And just for fun, some facts about Short Sales:
1 they are not short (short refers to the part that the sellers are coming up 'short' on their payments). there is nothing short about them
2 if the sellers have multiple lenders it takes even longer
3 if the sellers have lenders that are super small banks or who have sold the loans to individual investors it will take even longer
4 the sellers will wait until the last possible moment to do anything so as to prolong the amount of time they can stay in their home without being foreclosed on. For instance, we closed on Friday, the house was set for auction the following tuesday - talk about cutting it close!
5 everyone will be completely stressed out by the end
6 everyone says you are getting a good deal. while this is sorta true, it isn't. they are "as-is" and will sell for the appraisal price, meaning what it would sell for in the market. so no, not really all that good of a deal. but luckily in the bay area, most homes go for more than their appraised price so we got a sorta good deal.

Anyway we are SO excited! And the remodeling has already begun...so most of my posts from this point on will probably be of the remodeling, but I will try to get some sewing in too - I have a few things that I've made photographed but just need to make posts for them. Happy Wednesday!

9.10.2012

Elephant Mod Basics Quilt


I have been wanting to get my hands on the Birch Fabric Mod Basics collection since it was released! So it worked out perfectly when a customer selected fabrics from this collection for her son's blanket! She is adopting a little boy from Thailand and is super excited about getting his room all together, and every boy (I think) definitely needs an elephant blanket.



The quilt consists of rows of the elephants (ellie fam), abacus and solids; all from the same color groups and then just repeated in strips. I thought it would be good to have a sort of color gradient and am super excited about how it turned out! All the rows were cut in varying widths, so that it is less formal and gives it a little more interest instead of all the rows being exactly the same.

It was made by first cutting strips and then piecing the strips together of the same colors (I had it prelaid out of how I wanted it to go). I do strip piecing in sections as less tension is put on the quilt top instead of just doing row after row. I think it makes it straighter and definitely easier without having all that fabric in your lap. Then I trim the edges.


Then I put the sections together, so that I end up with two halves or roughly the same size and then I put both halves together to get the finished quilt top.



I quilted along all the seams of each row and along the entire out edge. Silver Minky was used on the back and just looks wonderful with it!



Here it is!



 The Bubb hiding with Evan while I was taking pictures:


Such the little helper :)

9.03.2012

Toddler Beach Birthday Party


The Bubb loves the beach so we decided what better place to have his second birthday than at the beach!


As much as I love evite, I really like making the invitations for his parties. I didn't want to it to seem too kiddo beach (surfboards and the like) so I went with something simple and came up with this:



and then put the details and directions on the backside. Found some envelopes and was ready to go!



We decided to have the party over lunch time, as he normally naps from 1-3, so we did it from 10-2 so that he would stay up a bit longer and then sleep on the way home (as well as the other kiddos). We made cardboard box lunches, some for big people and some for little people, and then just put the basics inside: sandwiches, fruit, chips and had drinks on the side. Pretty simple but perfect for the beach.


For his "cake" we did vanilla cupcakes. I went and got a special piping tip and pastry bag to do them all fancy with yellow and blue frosting, but as luck would have it, it was super sunny at the beach (forecast was for cloudy in the mid 60s) so the frosting melted by the time that we sang Happy Birthday but there were a few that sorta made it :) Oh well, these things happen! (below is the 'before' picture)



The Bubb was actually pretty timid about the cupcake (although he helped me chow down on the samples the day before) But his friend Jeremy had no problem just digging in!



The kids had a blast: sand + water = fun, fun, fun.






There were some good sticks


sand crabs


boats


and frisbee playing



What more can you ask for?  The Bubb had a wonderful time and we are so thankful that our family and friends were able to make it out for it! Happy Birthday Emmett!



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