Adventures in Quilting - Part 1

After finishing my last sewing project, the Tramp Heart Bear, I knew I needed to start thinking about what my next project was going to be. Now that I have my own sewing machine... the sky's the limit!

I've always wanted to make a quilt... however I know nothing about making quilts and the thought of sewing an adult sized quilt is a little daunting. I ordered a couple of books with patterns for easy quilts... easy being the operative word there. After flipping through the books and putting much thought into whether I really wanted to go down this road or not, I decided to make an Edison-sized quilt first. I thought it would be a good chance to see if I even like quilting... and to see if I can do it without it turning into a total disaster. So... off I went to plan out my new little project...

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Step One: Chose pattern...
I narrowed it down to a couple of quilt patterns that I liked and then showed them to Jonathan who made it very clear that he liked the Dinosaur Quilt....  so Dinosaur Quilt it is!



Step Two: Go to the fabric store and spend a ridiculous amount of money on fabric.
Honestly, with the price of fabric these days, no wonder nobody makes anything... it's way cheaper to just go out and buy whatever you are trying to make. But as my bank account was draining... I tried to reassure myself that this is a hobby that will keep my occupied for many hours, and will (hopefully) be something that Edison really loves in the end.

My very patient mother and I spent a couple of hours in the fabric store, where I probably drove everybody crazy because I pulled down about a billion different bolts of fabric. After exhausting my options in the blue and brown department (the original colour scheme of the quilt) I decided that there wasn't enough different blue patterns that I liked... so I ended up with greens and brown instead.

Step Three: Cut all the fabric into the desired sizes (after pre-washing it all). This was a very tedious task and probably my least favourite part so far. Everything has to be cut to the exact measurements... or it won't look like a quilt in the end. This project also involves a lot of pressing... ironing has never been one of my favourite activities... but once I got to the sewing stage it became much more enjoyable.

Step Four: Sew! Once I got to this stage it really started to come together in a hurry. Before long I could see what the whole thing was going to look like and was quite happy with my fabric choices.

I finally bought real pins... no more safety pins for me! 

Just keep sewing, just keep sewing 

The middle of the quilt 

All of the patches sewed on. Four more brown strips went around the whole thing. 

Step Five: The dinosaur appliqué.
The pattern that came with the book has the outline for the dinosaur, but it wasn't the right size... it had to be blown up 200%! Cue my trip to Staples, my encounter with an incredibly frustrating Staples employee, and having to buy a very large piece of paper... that cost me 15 bucks!

Once I had the dinosaur cut out, I used fusible web to attach the dinosaur to the quilt. Fusible web is an iron-on adhesive that basically turned my dino friend into a large sticker. Once stuck to the quilt I will sew around the edges to make the quilt his permanent home.

Isn't he cute? 

Peel it back and stick him on 

Ta Da! 

My next step is to sew around the edges of the appliqué and then to add the green border of the quilt.

To be continued...

On The Home Stretch

Spring is always crazy at work! Last year, being on maternity leave, I wasn't even thinking about work. This year, I was quickly reminded how insane it can be.

Usually in April I take 180-200 kids to music camp for 3 days. This year, due to the teachers job action, I wasn't able to do that. Thank goodness! I did however, put on the musical Grease with a couple other teachers at school. Doing a musical is a crazy amount of work. Every time I do one, I vow to never do it again... until I see how great the end result is and how much the students love it.

During the week that we performed the musical, I only came home for an hour and a half each day before I had to turn around and go back to the school for the evening performances. The drive home was worth it though, because that was the only time in the day that I got to see Edison. Thank goodness Marilyn came home from her travels early, we wouldn't have been able to get through that week without her.

As soon as the musical ended, my report cards were due! Because of all the teacher vs. government drama, it ended up that I had to do retroactive report cards right back to the beginning of the year. Between all of my Explorations classes, 2 concert bands, and a choir.... I had to input over 800 marks into the computer. It was time consuming to say the least!

To top it all off, Jonathan was still playing piano for a couple of ballet schools until the end of April, so his schedule was crazy and there really wasn't very much time spent as a whole family.

Last week my schedule returned to normal, Jonathan finished ballet... and we all got to relax a little and spend some much-needed time together.

I only have two more months of work before summer vacation hits and it always goes by fast. I only have one more performance on my plate, the Music Department Year-End Concert... and once that's over Mrs. Reichert has checked out! I basically count the days until the end! I am so excited for the summer.

Usually Jonathan works every summer, but this will be the first summer since we've been married that he is not going to work. We're looking forward to a week in Tofino, Edison's 2nd birthday, a visit from Auntie Sara, lots of camping (hopefully), and lots of time spent at the farm.

We've been in the process of getting our backyard summer-ready. In the fall we fixed up the path that goes  through the backyard to the back gate. The path used to be stepping stones... but because the dog is always running around back there, it was very muddy around the stones. My dad helped us turn the path into a solid path... but we had to dig quite a bit of dirt out to be able to do that. Because we were doing it in early fall.... the dirt that got shovelled onto the grass never found a new home before winter hit. So, we've had a big dirt pile on our grass all winter. Jonathan has finally relocated the dirt so that our grass can start growing again and our backyard should look nice for the summer.

Edison, being the helper that he is, wanted to help his daddy shovel. My apologies for the no-pants look that Edison is sporting...

Daddy helping him load up his shovel 

Concentrating very hard

Almost there... 

Putting the dirt in behind the garage 

Hurring back for more 

He made many, many trips 

Showing me his shovel

Now that work has calmed down, I am going to try my hardest to keep things updated. Stay tuned for pictures of my latest sewing project!

Christ is Risen!

It's Friday... But Sunday's Coming

What To Do When All We Have is Rain, Rain, Rain

On Saturday we got up and decided we wanted to do something fun... but there was only one problem... it was raining... what a big surprise. I know I can speak for my family at least when I say, we're sick of the rain!

Anyways, I digress. Okay, so what to do on a rainy day? We decided to do something Jonathan and I have always talked about doing, but have never actually gotten around to doing... we drove out to the Vancouver Airport and watched airplanes take off.

There is one street at the airport... appropriately named Airport Road, where you can park right at the end of the runway. When the planes take off they fly right over your car! It's super cool!

After driving around exploring the little island that the airport is on, we found the road we were looking for, parked the car and brought Edison up to the front with us so that he could look out the front window and watch them. He loved it!! He yelled and screamed and pointed every time he saw a plane, it was so cute!

Jonathan, being the airplane nerd that he is, has an app on his phone where you can listen to the control tower... so we could hear all the planes as they were being cleared for take off... less than a minute later, there they were, flying right above us... and then into the clouds.

Some of the planes were bigger than others... if we could tell it was going to be a big one, we'd get out of the car and brave the rain for a few seconds to watch them fly right over our car.

I took one video... please excuse my terrible video camera skills...

Edison loved seeing the airplanes, even if they were just parked 

While we were exploring, we found the Coast Guard 

He could see the parked airplanes 

Very excited! 

 He had to try on my sunglasses of course! 

We stopped by the BCIT Aerospace Technology Campus and peeked in the windows on the way out... lots of big airplanes and airplane parts in there! 

It was a very fun outing and well worth the drive out there. We hope to go back on a nice warm day because there is a really nice grassy area with park benches that you can sit at to watch the planes take off. As fun as it is to be stuck in the car... we thought the grassy area would be nice to have a picnic on when the weather gets nice. Until then... I'll continue to daydream about the sun...

Tramp Heart Bear Completed!

The Tramp Heart Bear is complete! If you want to see previous posts on the progress of my little project check my Getting My Craft On and Adventures in Sewing posts.

I'm proud of myself for a few reasons:
1. I re-learned how to use a sewing machine.
2. I've sewn something that actually looks like its supposed to.
3. I've actually completed a project... I have a bad track record of starting projects and not finishing them.

After I had sewn the arms and legs, I knew I had the hardest part ahead of me. I had to stuff the arms and legs and then pin them onto the body and sew the body together. I was a little worried about sewing stuffed limbs on with a sewing machine... but it actually wasn't so bad.

Once the ears were sewn onto the head and the limbs were sewn onto the body, all I had to do was stuff the head and body and then attach the two. The book says to attach the head and body with a straight stitch using floss... however, I'm already starting to doubt whether this was a good way to do it. Edison has already started picking at the floss and I'm a little worried that if the floss breaks at any point, his whole head will fall off. I might remove his head and find a firmer way of attaching the two pieces so I don't have to worry about decapitation.

Ears, arms, and legs 

A glimpse of the finished product once sewed and stuffed 

I had to use safety pins as I still don't have any regular pins. Note to self... it's much harder to use safety pins with a sewing machine as they are much bulkier.  

All pinned together and ready to go 

Poly-Fil... I hardly made a dent on this bag... I'm going to have to find something else to stuff... 

Fluff for brains 

Sewing the arms and legs on 

Attaching the head to body with floss 

Ta Da! Done like dinner

Edison really took a liking to the little bear right away. As soon as I gave it to him he hugged him and gave him a kiss... it was really cute! I wish I had the video camera out. Edison played with him for quite a while and took him everywhere he went.

At bedtime last night, Edison wanted to cuddle with his new friend and actually fell asleep holding onto him. That was when I really started to worry about his head falling off... because when Edison wakes up in the morning he usually doesn't cry... he sits up and plays in his crib. I was a little worried that he'd pick at the floss and off would go the head.... and then he'd probably pull all the stuffing out while he was at it. But I called home today and Jonathan assured me that the bear was still in one piece. Whew!

Well, my first little sewing project is complete and I'd say it was a success. Onto the next project... I just have to figure out what it is first...