any way you slice it: progress

Well, I ended up staying inside most of the weekend...partly because of rain and partly because we were without power all day today.

All of the blocks were assembled...

...and pressed

leftover scraps

quilt top laid out

and then assembled and basted

I'm planning on quilting the top with white thread and a stipple stitch instead of tying it with yarn. It should hold up better with the extra quilting and I might as well make it look just a little crazier with the contrasting white...it can't get any worse, right?

It feels good to get another project almost out of the way and to take a break from the neverending yardwork!

patchwork pillow

Here is a matching pillow for the quilt that I made for Andrea and Ryan. They had their precious son, Evan Reid, about two weeks ago and we finally had the chance to drop by and visit him last night. We had to delay the visit because I kept procrastinating on finishing the pillow : )

This was my first time using my sewing machines metal quilt spacing bar - don't really know what it's called - to help make parallel lines. I'll definitely have to use it again in another project.

new quilt

I bought the fabric for this quilt a few months ago and I've only now gotten around to starting a new quilt. I've had the templates enlarged and printed for quite a while, but they've just been sitting around waiting to be used. The pattern I'm following is the Any Way you Slice It quilt (you can see a beautiful quilt made from the pattern here)from Denyse Schmidt Quilts. I love the pattern because I've always wanted to make a crazy patchwork quilt and this gives me the crazy with a nice neat pattern (the perfectionist in me comes out!) I'm really hoping it rains all weekend so I don't have to feel guilty for staying inside and sewing. We'll see how that goes!

I was going for the brown/turquoise/green/pink/orange color scheme. I think it looks really summery, so I've got to finish it soon to be able to enjoy it this season. Tonight I got the first 14 blocks cut, laid out and sewn together.

And, I made a delicious greek pasta salad for dinner tonight. This one is definitely going to become a staple in our house. The dressing evenly coated everything and the recipe used a lot of ingredients that I don't normally think of putting in a pasta salad...mushrooms, green onions, and green peppers. Delish!

the virgen de guadalupe

I bought a few kits from Sublime Stitching earlier this year and I just got around to starting to stitch up the Day of the Dead kit.

My first project is this lovely Virgen de Guadalupe. Jon and I watched a few episodes of Freaks and Geeks this weekend, so it was the perfect time to multi-task! That show is hilarious and totally shouldn't have been taken off the air so soon.

I absolutely love this kit! Jon laughed when I asked him if it was weird that I was stitching up the Virgen de Guadalupe...apparently it's not a normal everyday occurrence. It was basically just my excuse to play with some loud and bright colors. I'm planning on stitching up a few more items from the kit on this linen and then turning it into a patchwork pillow that can be used seasonally each November. Hopefully I can finish it up before then!

the garden: part deux

We finally got our garden dug up and replanted on Monday. This time we added two yards of composted fall leaves from our city's department of public works and created 15" mounds of dirt. Hopefully this will eliminate our previous flooding problem.

If all goes well, we'll be eating fresh tomatoes, peppers, corn, sugar snap peas, bush beans, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, lettuce, butternut squash, celery and onions in a couple of months!

I am so excited to finally have everything planted...the trees, flowers, herbs, and vegetables are all in the ground! I love crossing things off of my many, many to-do lists.

the big transplant!

Well, we finished up replanting our front yard this afternoon...digging up sod, digging out ugly plants and chopping down overgrown plants. After quite a few hours of digging yesterday and a long haul from my parents' house to ours, we got ourselves a really big japanese maple tree for free! Jon has been dying for one of these trees ever since our trip to Japan and we were so lucky that this tree outgrew my parents' yard and had to be moved to ours.

the old resting place

loading the truck

wrapping the tree for transport. Unfortunately, most of this fell off during our one hour ride. Luckily the tree still looks in good shape today!

the new resting spot (with the soon to be removed yew)

And remember the before (with morning sun)?

Here's the after (with afternoon sun)...



It should be bright and colorful once everything blooms and fills in!

It feels great to cross some more tasks off our list...we're almost done with our May push.

jon's last day

Jon spent his last day at his now "old work" today. He is excited to start his new job in a smaller, non-corporate office on Monday. He's itching to get back into using all of those crazy after effects shortcuts he's got memorized. He's got keystrokes down like no one's business! Some day I'll have to tape him flexing his wrists and frantically typing away while he edits...very freaky!

Here are his last shots of his old office:

the new door to his department

goodbye avid workstation

a sad farewell from his coworkers...this totally cracks me up!