Dabbling in Watercolor - Micah Edition

After painting the picture of Bella I wanted to find one of Micah to paint. I figured I would look back through the archives and find on at the ocean but ended up not having to when I snapped this picture while we were in Tahoe for my cousins wedding. 

This time I remembered to include the original photo so you can see where I started (The post with Bella's watercolor has been updated to include the original photo as well)

Water is hard. I love the way it turned out and am completely happy with it. But I think it's pretty obvious I could use some professional instruction! 

Olivia's Quilt

When Jessica and I started brainstorming about my niece's quilt, we went back and forth on several ideas. At some point we realized we'd both pinned this quilt and then it was decided. Apologies for the less than quality photos. I need to not wait until it's too late and then just having to make do...

We loved the way our inspiration quilt made the secondary pattern of X's. Jess was in charge of making sure everything was in the right place. I was in charge of sewing and trying not to mess that up. This did cause one issue, in that, to get the desired amount of x's without having to make even smaller HSTs, we had to go bigger. As in the biggest baby blanket ever. Good news, it's so big it will take her straight through her toddler years and then some.

My sis-in-law picked out this duvet from Pottery Barn Kids for the little Miss's room. We stepped up the colors just a notch.... It was so fun gathering this variety of fabrics, picking stuff up here and there and pulling from our stash.

The duvet was used for the backing with plenty left over for room accents. We did simple straight line quilting on point. The binding is a deep purple.

The solid fabrics are all Kona Cotton. Aurifil thread was used for both pricing and quilting. The batting is Pellon's Nature Touch that we purchased from Joann.
We had such fun making this and of course it is full of love and good wishes for this little one as she starts her life.

Olivia's Shower

My Aunt and Uncle welcomed their first baby this last November. So of course shower invites and presents had to be made. She chose the Eliza Duvet from Pottery Barn Kids as the main fabric for her nursery so I used that design  to create her invites. 

Favor tags and Thank you cards were also created. 

This was the first time I created an invite completely on one page- normally with the watercolor I have made all of the pieces seperately and then I rearrange them in photoshop to create the invite. So in this case I was able to give Cindy the original watercolor which I put a bible verse on. So she can keep it (or not...haha) 

Going away gift... Part 2

So I forgot to get completed pictures of these gifts... But I will show you what I have! 

This watercolor was for Hannah. After a lengthy discussion with her husband we landed on these lyrics from Augustana's Sweet and Low. It looks better matted and framed. 

Hannah is Micah & Bella's other Mom. Seriously. People think they're hers when we are out together... mainly because they look like her. She might as well be my younger sister. She was always game for any adventure (or just hanging out) It's very boring without her and her husband around! 

She is coming out this week for a visit and I am beyond excited to see her! I may or may not let her leave.

Going away gifts... Part 1

We moved recently... Matt took a job transfer back to California. So we left my parents and a lot of very, very close friends back in Jacksonville. Lots of ugly tears were cried. We are beyond excited to move back to the west coast and for opportunities we have here, but we are equally or more sad to leave this bunch of people that we love so much. 

One of our friends demanded a going away gift. No gift=no leaving. LOL. She took the news especially hard..... So, since she is a die hard Hello Kitty lover, and she and her husband are both Gators, I thought it appropriate to mix the two and appliqué this graphic that I found online onto a quilt. 

The back is a super soft double sided minky (not that that matters since it sandwiched) but it does make it super fluffy. Its almost a twin size. 

It took me a bit to find a photo of Thaoly that she or her husband wouldn't kill me for posting. She is well known for posting/taking possibly embarrassing, but aways awesomely funny photos. She also taught Bella how to pout and eat Oreos at inappropriate times; scheduled girls shopping trips when she hates to actually shop for clothing, and filled Bella's vocabulary with things like 'California sucks'.  lol. They were one of the first people we had to our house after we moved to Jacksonville 9 years ago and are super amazing people. 

We miss them so much! Hopefully we will get them to come out and visit soon...

I have a couple more going away gifts I will try to get them up soon- do you all make things for people when you leave? 

Improv Quilt

If you follow Mom and me on Instagram you will see all the projects we are currently working on. This quilt was started before we moved and I can not believe this but I finished it up the last two days and actually photographed it to show you immediately -- WHAT!!! Craziness people. 

I have a Pinterest board where collect all sorts of awesome quilts I find. And I found myself pinning a lot of these improv quilts. So with a healthy stash of Rowan fabrics Shot Cottons (purchased from Purl Soho) I decided to give it a try. 

Improving is WORK. Now I know part of my problem was working from uncut pieces of fabric - scraps would make this process much, much faster. I basically had to turn all this gorgeous fabric into scraps and then try and then create a random quilt without feeling like I was forcing a design. 

It's a super bright and happy quilt. And because creating the top didn't take long enough I decided to do quilting every 1/3 inch with Dove Aurifil thread. I continue to not know why I do these things to myself. But I think it's because I really, really love it even though I really, really dislike how long it takes to finish it! 

The back and binding are chambray from Imaginegnats shop. Seriously don't follow the link unless you plan to purchase fabric... gorgeous stuff. 

This puppy will be in heavy rotation- the kids were doing summersaults on it before I could attach the binding. 

Double Wedding Ring Pillow

I've always wanted to make a quilt with this pattern... I decided to try it out with the last bit of scraps left from Bellas quilt and this quilt and also this quilt.  So when I say scraps I mean SCRAPS -not the best way to try out a new pattern. As in not sure I will ever do this again. 

I attached it to gorgeous dark grey linen with a blanket stitch and then I sandwiched it with batting and a piece of cotton on the back and went to town with small kantha-esque stitching. All with yummy varegaited purl cotton thread.  Then it was turned into a pillow for my living room. I LOVE this pillow. 

Corries Tahoe Wedding

My cousin was married this last summer- which was the main reason for our California vacation in September. 

She is an elementary school teacher so she wanted the chalkboard look to her invites-well I think that is why she wanted the chalkboard look... honestly I don't know that I asked. 

She was married at the absolutely breath taking location the Valhalla estates on Lake Tahoe... so I pushed for a color map of the location...  It's a historic property run by the US Forest service (at least in part) and is worth a visit if you're in the area. 

was a so fun to be able to put these together for her. 

Quilt- Swiss Army Style

I have slowly, so slowly, but surely tried to make quilts for everyone in my family. I have been knocking around ideas for this guy's quilt for quite awhile now. He's my big boy and he travels a lot, to far away places. I hate to saddle people with "things" if it is not convenient to their lives but I finally just had to do it and I'm glad I did. Cause, look at that face. Yes, I know that he is all grown up, but yikes, it seriously seems like yesterday that this man was only seven.

 This is my take on the old Swiss Army Blankets. I love those things and thought why not interpret it into a quilt? Since my son is 6'2" I made it long. Maybe ridiculously long, but I wanted him to be warm. I think it ended up over 8 feet. Silly me, I didn't measure but you can see when he holds it up it still drags the ground. When they originally produced the wool army blankets, the maker embroidered their initials and the year made on the blanket in the lower left corner. My twist on that was to embroider his initials and the year in the same corner. Of course I forgot to get a picture of that, because I waited until the day before he left to take the pictures and I may or may not have been close to boo hooing.

 I used Kona Cotton in white, coal and cardinal to piece the quilt and quilted the many, many mostly straight lines in Aurifil 50 weight Dove Grey. I kept the back simple with the same fabrics.

I love that he wrote me a few days after he left to let me know that the length of the quilt was the best part, and it was in fact keeping him warm. That's the whole point, isn't it?

Dabbling in watercolor

I started playing with water colors this last summer. Here's my first one of Bella at the pool. Both the kids recognize who it is so....at least I did something right! Haha

**Edited** to add the original photograph... sometime I am slow to think of these things!