the bucket list

well over a year ago, ariana brought up the idea of a bucket list. so i started throwing random things on there. things i wanted to happen, things i knew would probably someday happen, and hypothetically ridiculous things that i wasn't sure that would really happen. in the beginnings of my 365 project, i took this photo, which was well before i started to read the series. now i can say this:bucket list #15: read the harry potter series complete
yeah, i know i'm a couple years behind the game... but better late than never, right?
when looking through my "bucket list" book, i found that i have done other things without even realizing that i can cross off... things like:

#26: raft down a river (tube... raft... same diff)
#92: see the beach boys in concert
and well, with all the weddings that are coming up, this one is sure to be crossed off soon:
#83: make a bed sized quilt
there are a few more that i had forgotten about, and oddly enough are a plan in the works, so maybe one day i'll have more of them crossed off the list... but in the meantime, i challenge you readers to make a list... 5 things, 10 things, 100 things, whatever! things you might do, things you think you would NEVER do, random things! try it, see how many you bring yourself to do, and then cross them off when they happen!
and now, i need to figure out what to read next. please don't say twilight... i may break your thumbs

weekend wips

saturday was a HUGE project overhaul. like completed as much as i could before i send it away to have the next step done overhaul. i'm sure you catch my drift with where this is going... but three fabric store stops later, things are going goooood. not quite to the point of being able to see my desk again, but it will get there soon enough. i've left off things that have not been touched since last week, in order to keep boredom to a minimum.
wedding gift m: this would be the reason for three fabric store stops. monday, went to buy the fabric for the border. two of the three fabrics found, easy peasy, but the one i had originally planned to use was not working for me. and neither of the other two fabrics that were in the quilt already were in stock at my joanns. so i bought my fabric they had, plus batting, and was on with it. wednesday was another joann's stop, saturday was when i started sewing strips, and once i got to the middle fabric, i ran out. another joann's trip, and more marathon strip sewing, and the quilt top became COMPLETE! the backing was also purchased on friday night, so now it sits quietly, awaiting my grandma to come home from the eastern side of the country so she can quilt it for me :)
t-shirt quilt j: bought batting and backing... now i just have to put the darn thing together! sounds like a project to come this week.
halloween costume: fabric and paint purchased, as well as $5 shoes! a size too small, but they will make due for one or two (or three) nights... depending on how much wear i get out of this thing. lisa is set to make me a hairbow, and purchasing pieces for the top remains before i can get cracking on this one.

projects of yester-year: beanie baby clothes

now OBVIOUSLY by looking at this sewing job, you can tell my sewing skills were pretty elite at a young age. seriously, my bio should actually read that when i was born i was also given three gifts: the gift of photography, the gift of craftyness, and the gift of sarcasm. okay, maybe that last one may be the truest, but still... i take what i can get. while doing a mass room cleaning overhaul, i found a little bag in my room, unsure of the contents, i opened it up and found these... shall we say, "classy" items? i instantly stopped what i was doing, rushed to find the nearest beanie babies (which was harder to find than i though. i was a kid of the 90s... the era of beanie babies and i couldn't find ANY in my room) and took them out side for a nigel barker inspired photo shoot. i mean seriously, those tail holes? a must have for all beanie animals. and those un hemmed edges were so ahead of the times that turned in to the now "style" of ripped jeans. who woulda thunk?

i am hoping that this leads me to be able to find a few more projects of the past. i know i for sure have the first quilt i ever made somewhere... not entirely sure where exactly i put it, but i know it does resurface every now and again like a creature from the black lagoon. that and the half a dozen half finished cross-stitch projects, because that is totally how i roll with those things.

weekend wips

more crafting went on this week, as it should! marks of it were left on the picnic table, bench, bathtub, bathroom floor, my shorts... the list goes on and on. no lives were lost, although there were some tears shed, and not by me!
wedding gift e: stand still... just as i expected
wedding gift m: squares turned in to a layout, and that layout turned in to rows to have their seams sewn and ironed flat. by the time sunday night rolled around, everything went from individual squares, to an entire piece that just needs a border. this could lead to another fabric store excursion during coupon commotion week to get some fabric!
t-shirt quilt j: stand still... needs a backing
donation quilt: got it back from my grandma on tuesday from being quilted, and it looks great! the binding was sewn down and then pinned around to the back on saturday, awaiting the mildly dreaded blind hem to stitch it down to the back.
scrappy square quilt: in addition to getting the donation quilt back on tuesday, my grandma sent along a whole box of fabric and scraps from her previous quilts for me to go through. this means more project potential, which will lead to more squares for the scrappy quilt!
t-shirt quilt e: well... i tried to wear a shirt this past week that just turned out to be too short... so even though no cutting has happened, another shirt has been tossed to the wayside pile of t-shirt quilt-o-rama.

camera themed onsie trio

what started out as one onsie turned in to two... which then turned in to a whole set of three!

If you've been following my main blog, which if you aren't you SHOULD be ;), you'd know that i have been building my experience as a wedding photographer this summer by working along side Doug Miranda shooting in tahoe as an assistant. i wanted to give him something as a sort of "thanks for letting me work with you" gift, and since he and his wife recently had their first little one this year, i decided to go for a photo themed kiddo set. i didn't want all the onsies to be white, so i dyed two of them on two different occasions. apparently i should have intentionally gone for a tie dyed effect, because thats how they tended to turn out. i did this blue one first, and once i painted on the camera, i decided to just leave it as is and let the other two have words on them as well.

the idea for the second and third ones came from my pinterest account. this one is appliqued on with layers of fabric and wonder under, then stitched to the onsie to hold it down. i busted out my 4th grade embroidery skills and stitched on the letters in yellow and orange embroidery floss to match the camera.

this last one also came inspired by pinterest. lisa had pinned a shirt on her "emily" board - yeah, i'm cool enough to have a pin board named after me - that said "momma's gonna snap!" and so i took the idea and ran with it! though somewhere in the process i lost my letter N stamp, and had to ghetto rig this creation that seemed to work out quite well if i do say so myself :)

i gave doug the onsies yesterday after my final schedualed second shooting adventure, and he LOVED them! his little 7th month old is sure to be rocking them soon, and i'm sure he will look pretty snazzy as dad's little assistant photographer :)

pirate mouse rail fence

i thought since september is nearly halfway over now (what?! that is CRAZY TALK) it would be safe to post this little number that i was working on when i started up this fresh new blog. my aunt was in need of another baby boy shower gift (i presume for another someone that she works with) and so with the aide of my stash collection, i pulled out this fabric set that i have had for i don't know how long and made it in to a rail fence quilt!

i probably bought the fabric initially for just pure cuteness... if you know me, you know i used to buy fabric for the means of "this is cute, i might have a use for it someday" and nothing else... really, i'm working on that so i don't show up on hoarders someday for a vast amount of fabric taking over my house.

i even experimented in making my own binding. it is far from perfect, but for a beginner, i didn't think i did too shabby at it! and it was cuter than using bias tape like i always do. so hah.

the full quilt! it is all flannel and super cozy. and if our clothesline doesn't get used for much more than my quilt photo ops, i'm totally fine with that. so much easier than the aerial "i can't see through the camera so i'm going to hope for the best" shot.

weekend wips

another week gone by with some thing getting done, while others stood completely stand still since last posting. i got two projects completetly done (one being done to the point of the hand off to be quilted) and another project awaiting the next step. unfortunately, that means two were left at a stand still, but that is okay with me :)
wedding gift e: i managed to get the last fabric needed in order to get the last grouping of strips together, and if my calculations are correct, i have just barely enough to do the whole top. spend the greater part of sunday night ironing them flat and getting them ready to go in to assembly mode... which will probably end up being stand still mode since 11.11.11 happens before 06.08.12
wedding gift m: stand still... never got around to laying out the blocks when i had a clear living room.
t-shirt quilt j: stand still. out of being purely lazy and not getting something to go on the back. or a piece of batting. i suppose knowing the actual size would help as well.
onsie set: DONE! what started out as one or two onsies turned in to three that i'm really happy with. had some stamp letter issues (my letter N was and still is missing) but the other letters of the alphabet came through and were able to make up for it. i hope the recipient really likes them, and i'll find out on thursday!
donation quilt: i managed to bust out this quilt top in a matter of hours (thank you, friends marathon on nick at night) and after putting the back together on thursday night, sent it off to my grandma who is doing the quilting for me before she leaves on vacation. more about this music themed quilt will come when i get to blog about it when it's finished! it won't be too long from now, since it's not a super secret present project ;)
as well as all these projects, i finally got interfacting so i can bite the bullet and start to cut up my old shirts from high school. not going to lie, its kinda scary since i loved these shirts so much! also bought some supplies to do a cross stitch christmas project for my sister. unfortunately, you'll probably have to wait a few months to see that final project just incase her snooping eyes come across this ;)

weekend wips

not going to lie... i'm pretty amazed with the stuff i was able to get done this week. i thought one project would be on serious stand by with the lack of the right tools to move forward, but the labor day sale at joann's saved my bum! i made progress on THREE sewing projects this week, plus one painted project. so very exciting... all to be followed by a fourth sewing project that has yet to begin. today is the final day of the labor day sales, so i will be out cruising the stores for the perfect fabrics to begin for next week.
wedding gift e: i got all the fabric strips together, triangles sewn, and once i did the count, i was STILL short on the final number that i needed by 26! UGH. hit the store on friday night, and i was able to get three of the four fabrics. yep. treking out to another joann's will be happening today to find that fourth fabric so the show can get on the road and i can stop cutting out triangles! although saturday night, i was able to sit down and chop through all the pieces and get them ready to iron out flat. the next set should be a breeze once i get them done since it will be in the 20s instead of the couple 100s.
wedding gift m: i was afraid this one would be on stand still for awhile since nobody was sure when there would be another gathering at grandma's house so that i could borrow lisa's tools. to my luck, i found a template at joanns, and was able to use a 50% off and a 10% off on it! all my squares are actually squares now, and waiting for me to brave out the next step and lay them all out to be turned in to a quilt top! that will require a totally empty living room though, so hopefully this week i'll be moving forward again!
t-shirt quilt j: i hit the store, got the orange fabric needed, and prewashed it to be ready to go all in less than 24 hours. after some fabric ironing and strip cutting, i busted out the whole top of the quilt sunday evening. it ended up being a bit wider than i had anticipated, but at least there will be no wondering as to whether it will fit his bed or not!
onsie set: busted out the google search for a good camera outline (found a great one) and went to town printing it out, cutting it out, and laying it down on the onsie to make sure it fit. used the chalk liner to trace everything and i got the first layer of paint down and drying. it has turned out that i like how the first one turned out WAY too much to put the lettering over it, so there will be a slight alteration which has turned a set of two onsies in to three! :)
on a side note, i finally finished reading harry potter and the half blood prince, saw harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2, AND made chocolate chip cookies. successful week? my vote is yes :)

forrest friends baby quilt

now, this isn't the most recent quilt that i made for my aunt's work baby shower, but it needed to be shared! the couple was awaiting a new little one, but they didn't want to find out what the gender was until they made their debut! the specifications were to be gender neutral, and while cruising joann's, i found this adorable fabric in the baby section and just had to go with it! i love finding coordinated sets of fabric that go so perfectly together, and have that super aHA moment :)

i have used the pattern awhile back for a pink, white & black baby quilt, as well as a classic winnie the pooh quilt, but neither of them stood out to me as cute as this one. seriously could have stashed it away for myself for some future baby, that's for sure! the best part is that even with the front and all it's adorable-ness, i was able to find a flannel backing that was the same cutesy animal faces. love love love!