First Quilt - Baby Noah's Art Quilt

A while ago (longer than I care to admit), I bought a baby quilt kit in hopes that it would an easy way to make my first quilt. I got the kit from Walmart, which is Noah's Ark themed, I thought it made a good gender neutral quilt, plus I really liked the material it came with.  I forgot to take a picture of all the material, but it came with some different kinds of material, specifically normal cotton, flannel and this soft plush material.  The plush material feels so nice, however it is very difficult to work with.  It gets everywhere when you cut it and it's hard to pin to the other material to sew because it just slides all over the place. However, I got it to work, so that's the main thing!

Here is some of the cut plush material.

Here is the piece of fabric for the center panel of the quilt.  Most of the time while I was working on the quilt I was afraid that I would mess it up, I tried to be careful and measure things like 5 time, but I still was able to make mistakes!  You will see later on, but I did make a mistake in cutting the center panel, a one inch mistake, however I was able to fix it by sewing some of what I cut back on and cutting it to the correct size.

The rulers I have were not quite long enough to cut the long rectangle pieces, so I had to improvise.  Luckily a have a couple of rules which were able to help out!

After these rectangle pieces, there were a number of square pieces to cut out.  Luckily I have a square ruler set which had the exact size I needed for the squares which made the job a lot easier.  I was able to cut them up quickly and then sewed them together pretty quickly too, using a tip from my sister-in-law about guiding them all through at once, so that I save time and thread.  Here they are sewn together in strips:

Isn't the animal pattern cute?

After putting the squares together, I attached them to the center panel with the rectangle pieces around it.  This made for the front of my quilt.  I was pretty excited at this point because I could see it coming together.

Once I got this done, it took me quite a while to get the rest of the quilt finished.  Part of that is because I changed how the backing was supposed to be attached.  The pattern says to attached the backing on as if you were making a pillow, but after talking to my sister-in-law, we decided that would be a pretty light duty quilt.  Instead, I decided that I would put batting in the middle and then create a binding for it.  Once I bought the extra material, it took a while for me to get going on it again.  I think a large part was that I was afraid to mess it up, but finally I just decided that if I didn't do it, I would never complete the thing.  So after researching online and help from my sister-in-law, I finally got to completing the thing.

After attaching the front, back and batting, I quilted it together in just straight lines, trying my best to follow the lines with the squares.  The lines aren't the straightest, however I think that they are not too bad considering that I was doing them free hand.

Close up of my fix for the center and of the wiggly lines!

After this, I prepared the binding. I found a very helpful Youtube video which showed me how to make my own binding from scrap material (or in my case, new material just for the job!).  I cut, ironed and sewed the stripes for the binding together pretty quickly.  I found that preparing the binding was quite easier than I had suspected, which was nice.  Here are a couple pictures of the process.

I ironed the pieces in half, to make a double binding, which was
good because the material I had is pretty thin.

I sewed the strips together on an angle in order to get them to
lie flat together...

...then I cut the excess material off.

Voila!  A nice bind (it became flat once I
ironed it!)

Once the binding was ready, I attached and sewed it to the quilt.  I had a little trouble with that because I was trying to free hand a 1/4 inch seam, based on what the woman in the Youtube video told me, despite having a 1/4 inch seam foot which makes sewing a 1/4 inch seam a breeze.  About half way through I gave up and switched the foot and it because 10x easier to sew the binding on!

After the binding was attached on the front, I watched a couple more Youtube videos on how to hand stitch the binding to the back and began that process.  I found that it was a little tedious because it takes a lot longer and I had to be hunched over it, so it took me about a week to do as I could only do so much at a time.  I found that my stitches weren't as tight as the ones in the videos I watched, so I think I make have to fix it once it has been used for a bit, but we will see.  All in all, I think it came together pretty well for my first quilt.  Here is the finished product!

Kitchen 1.4

It's been over two months since I last blogged about the kitchen and that's because John wanted me to wait until the kitchen was complete, with both the cabinets AND the countertops installed...hence if you have spoken with either of us in the last two months, you will understand why it's taken so long for me to get to this blog....

My last blog was the middle of May, where we had just finished the kitchen floor, which looks great.  The long weekend in May, we had the contractor come in and install the cabinets, which turned out amazingly!  We were both a little worried though because we had been at the farm that weekend and the contractor called us to let us know that the countertops were cut wrong so at that point we were both fearing the worst, however we we got back we were both VERY pleased with the end result with the cabinets.  They looked great and gave us so much extra room.

The following week/weekend, John got the kitchen light and under cabinet lighting installed and I started cleaning the cabinets and moving things back into place - I loved this!  It is so much fun to get to reorganize, or at least I enjoy it!  John also got the new range hood installed once it arrived (I forget the exact date, but it also looked 100x better than our old one!).

Now for the countertops.  The contractor was able able to get the smaller countertop installed for us, however the measurements for the large L-shaped one were so off that we had to order a new one.  Besides having to order a new one and wait for it, what sucked was that it wasn't obvious whether it was the countertop place or the kitchen place's fault, therefore we had to shell out the money for another countertop...

The contractor came over the Monday of the long weekend, once we were back, and showed us what was wrong and gave us the proper measurements.  John then drew it out on the computer and very specifically gave all the dimensions for each side, including where we wanted and the shape of the backsplash.  He sent it to them that week and assumed that they had placed the order....

WRONG!  9 days later we receive a call...while John was out of the country...saying that they could not cut the countertop with the backsplash the way we wanted, which I immediately questioned since they had already done it...John ended up being able to call before he came back home and sorted it out, specifically stating that we already had an L-shaped countertop with a square backsplash, which, surprise surprise, they were able to do all of a sudden!  (Nevermind the fact that John had put that on the order he sent AND the countertop we already had installed had a square backsplash, but this is a moot point...).

Once the countertop was ordered, we waited another week before it was in and ready, then had to wait for the following week for John to pick it up - we are now at the second week of June, 3 weeks after the cabinets have been installed.

During the 2nd week of June, John took a day off of work and rented a Uhaul and headed to pick up the countertop.  When he got there though, he was informed that the backsplash had NOT been installed on the countertop, but if he could come back in an hour they would have it on.  This made the time tight for him to get the Uhaul back, but was still able to do it, provided that everything was in order when he came back the second time.  So he left and went back after an hour to pick it up.  However, when he got there the backsplash was put on so horribly that in the end he told them to forget it and that he wanted his money back (which he got).

At this point we are sitting with two countertops at home, one installed and the other cut wrong which we can no longer use because we need to find a new place to buy countertops.  In one sense this was okay, because neither of us were happy with the countertops when John picked the first set up (not the colour we remembered, not the best quality etc.), but really sucked because we have to spend more than we were anticipating on countertops - Ah home renos...

The Friday before Father's Day, we were able to stop into a new countertop place and ordered new counterops.  We were VERY impressed with the type of service and overall knowledge and quality of product that they had.  The woman even took us into the back to show us a full sheet of the countertop pattern we were looking at so that we could get a sense of what it looked like on a full sheet, rather than a cut little board.  We were able to pick a new one countertop really quickly and get it ordered and were told it would take a few weeks to get it ordered in.  More waiting, however we were feeling better about this place over the other one.

Finally, the second week of July we received that call that they were ready and John arranged for delivery that Friday.  Of course John was going to be away that following week, however it was nice to be able to get the countertops before he left.  That Saturday we were able to get the old countertops out and John installed the smaller countertop himself.  Unfortunately because he had already sealed the previous countertop, it was a pain to get out and we (John) now have some patch work and painting to do to fix the dry wall, however he was able to get the new countertop in with minimal issues.  The next morning, while I was dropping off John to the airport, the contractor was able to pop by and install the L-shaped countertop.  When I came home I was SO happy!  The countertops looked great, definitely much much better than the original ones we purchased.

The following weekend, July 19th, John spent almost the entire day, after getting in at 2am due to United delaying all his flights from Denver, installing the dishwasher and the sink with all the plumbing so that the kitchen was more or less completed!  And the whole thing looks amazing!  There are a few little touch-ups and finishing touches we need to do, as well we are debating putting in a ceramic backsplash, but for all intense purposes, it is completed!  Here are the pictures of the final product:

Microwave stand that John built.
I love having the microwave off the counter
and the extra storage that this provides!

Under cabinet lighting that John installed!  I LOVE it!!

Calendar Maternity Shirt

As many of you can tell, I've taken a break from blogging about the kitchen, mainly because it's not complete due to a countertop which was cut wrong and John doesn't want me to post any pictures until it is done, thus I am hoping that this blog will satisfy everyone's hunger to read a blog from me :)

A little while ago, I found this really cool idea for a calendar maternity shirt that I wanted to make.  I thought that it would be a cute idea to record my growing belly.  It's really simple to make, although a little bit time consuming, as you shall see.

Materials needed:

-a long stretchy t-shirt that will fit you until the end of your pregnancy

-a compute with a printer (or you could free-hand your numbers)

-freezer/wax paper (I could not find actual freezer paper, so I used waxed paper, which is pretty much the same thing)

-a couple of sharpies

-an exacto knife

-fabric paint

-a sponge brush

-an iron

The blog that I took this idea from said to make a stencil out of freezer paper, but I thought that was going to take too long.  Instead I thought that I could use that iron-on paper, which you just print off whatever you want and then iron it on your shirt.  Quick and easy.

Turns out that because you have to use like 2 and a half sheets, that the iron has to be on the paper for too long to make it work, therefore it actually burns the paper to the shirt, basically making it look dirty in between the numbers (as you can see below).  So unless you use a tan/brown/darker coloured shirt, I would suggest not to do it this way.

After my failed first attempt, I went back out and bought another $9 shirt from Walmart (very glad I went with a cheap t-shirt!) and started again, this time making a stencil.

I printed off all the numbers that I came up for the first attempt.  This was a little tricky to get, but you need to change the page orientation to be landscape and use a large, easy to read font.  John helped me get the numbers spaced correctly using a graph.  Once you have those figured out and printed, you need to move onto the waxed paper.

Next, lay your shirt out and place the wax paper over it to get an idea how long of a piece you will need (which can be dependent on the shape of the shirt you have).  Once you have the piece cut, you need to fold the paper in half 3 times as seen below...

I forgot to take some pictures after this, but once you have the paper folded three time, you need to fold the paper into 5's, which is roughly 2.4 inches if your stencil is 12 inches long.  I used a ruler to help me fold them correctly, as I am not very good with measurements.  After this unfold the paper and place a cross at each corner (I used a black sharpie) to be a guide of where each number is going to go.

Next start tracing the numbers.  Place the paper over the printed numbers and use the crosses to guide you in centering the numbers.

Next start cutting the numbers out!  I used a smaller exacto knife of John's, however I know that you can get little pencil type ones, which may be easier for the job, more for the precision of getting around some of the smaller edges.

I decided to cut out all the small bits for the 0's, 4's, 6's, 8's and 9's and placed them in the numbers before painting them so that they were just a big blob.  It's up to you how you want to do that.  This was a tedious job and again the pencil type exacto may be easier for the job.

Next, place the stencil on the shirt, center it where you want it to be.  Just an iron over the stencil to flatten it out and then start painting.  I just squirted a bit of paint and used the sponge brush to paint in the numbers.

Once you finish, wait a few minutes until the paint is mostly dry and start peeling the stencil away.  I'll be honest, some of the stencil stuck to the shirt, I'm not sure how to prevent that, maybe peeling it away before the paint is completely dry.  The tricky part is getting all the little cut out piece off the shirt.  I used toothpicks to help in that department, as you can see below.

Viola! A lovely calendar maternity shirt to count down the weeks to the big arrival!  

I choose to use a red sharpie to mark off my days.
However, you could use paint, as the original
blog suggested, if you prefer.

It's coming along!

(The original idea can be found here.)

Christmas Tobbagganing

This past Christmas we had an epic tobogganing experience at the farm before we came back to Ottawa.  I regret that it has taken me this log to post pictures and videos, but as per requests from my husband and sister-in-laws, here they are!