A whole mess of random...

There are SO many things I've been wanting to blog about so I guess I'll use my iPhone photo stream as a guide and go stream of consciousness style...

First: A reminder to myself that I need to do a tutorial on these cool, colorful pieces to adorn classroom walls.  I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture before my students took down all my sentimental drawings and notes that were pinned to these.  One kid liked them so much that he jokingly tried to sneak two out under his shirt :)

 Second: the quilt for Krystal was going strong through Friday when it ground to a screeching halt.  But I did make all the squares and tear off all the freezer paper...

 Then I laid them out various ways and got stuck...should I go with the way the book does them:

 Or this:

 Or maybe this: (update...this is what we chose)

 Or perhaps this...

 All the quilting stopped and prep for the bridal shower began Saturday.  By far the coolest, most unique gift was this from Aunt Cate.  It's so that we never forget starting our lives in DC...

We had a great time at the shower!  The two alloted hours flew by and then most guests stayed late.  So fun!  And Mom's lobster dip and melon bowl were huge hits!  Oh, and she made perfect peanut butter fudge on her first try.  She's amazing.

Some color inspiration arrived in the garden...then Roxy had to investigate.

 Then, after the shower and having free time to work out (lots of cycling with Dad...I'm SO sore!), I could no longer fight the urge to plan how to decorate our new living room in the apartment.  After many trials of suggested palettes, I chose this:

 The green will be the accent wall and I'll use the coffee color and white for this:

It's a four part wall hanging that will sit over our couch in the living room that currently looks like this:

I was inspired by a picture on pinterest that I'm sorry to say is not linked to anyone's blog.  The best trace I can find is here.

I think that about sums up the random...until tomorrow that is...

Saturday and Random...

So many things have happened since I've last written:

1.) Spring break arrived, and Mom, Steph, and I went out with my wedding photographer for my bridal portraits.  It was a 10-4 sort of affair on Good Friday--I took an hour long nap as soon as I got home.

2.) Packed up all most of my worldly belongings.  Then, the following weekend, Dad and I drove them to Virginia in the U-Haul.  Here's a shot of me driving:

And our new kitchen:

3.) The next weekend was a garage sale with Katie!  We had a blast chatting with her neighbors and selling some old stuff.  It was the perfect day for a sale--great weather, their garden was taking off and the neighbors wanted to see, and best of all, an auction in the neighborhood brought in fantastic amounts of traffic!

4.) The next week was our extreme fundraising event for March for Babies--I'll save you the details, but basically it couldn't have been done without two hours of crazy each day (collecting and receipting money).  I could have NEVER pulled it off without my excellent volunteer(s) (THANKS MOM!) and support from my Key Club students.  We raised over $2000 in a week...excellent!

5.) And that brings me to last weekend, which is really the reason I've been wanting to blog.  I gave Mom an early Mother's Day gift of a free motion quilting class.  Unfortunately, she did have some sewing machine issues, but she had the entire staff at Viking Says...Sew and Quilt helping her out.  My Janome and I were going to town.  Here's some of what I came up with:

 

I've come to a few conclusions:
A.) I love Aurifil thread and prefer to quilt with thin thread.
B.) I still need a lot of practice before I have consistent stitch lengths.
C.) Leaves are extremely fun to quilt.
D.) Bubbles are not hard or terrifying--but they are a lot of fun and they take focus.  They are also now one of my favorite patterns.
E.) I need more quilt tops prepared so that I can quilt something other than a practice swatch!

Here's my latest plan:

Quilting plan for the borders:

and the fabric to match:

And finally, I still need to block and bind (or create a pillow), but here is my finished wholecloth quilt from Leah Day's Quilt Along.