Quilt #2 is Complete!

I don't know what my issue is but for some reason, I can't seem to finish a goal in the amount of time I give myself. When I decided to make my first quilt, I gave myself two years. It took me three. I then decided I would attempt another one and only give myself one year. It took two. I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on myself for taking so long to finish them because at least I finished them!

Since I have this week off work, I decided that I was going to designate one full day to finishing my quilt. Today was that day. I went to my mom's at 10:30am and together the two of us spent about 5 hours sewing, unpicking and sewing some more. It was back breaking work (almost literally as my back was killing by time we finished) but it feels so amazing to finally be done with the quilt top. All I need now is to find someone who can quilt it for me!

Here is the completed quilt top:



I am very happy with the way it turned out! My mom loved it so much that she didn't even want me to leave the house with it. :) It was a lot of work and was extremely frustrating at times, but overall it was very enjoyable. There is always a great sense of accomplishment after completing something like this. That is the feeling that makes the frustrating parts worth it.

Just Call Me...

You'll have to read the post below this for my full birthday experience, but I also needed to mention a random conversation I had with my five year old nephew last night after we finished celebrating birthdays.

Nephew: "Camille, why don't you ever come sew at my house anymore?"

Me: "Well, I have been busy and I don't know if I have enough time to take off work for the rest of the year."

Nephew: "Why?"

Me: "Well, I took a couple vacations this year and they used up a lot of my time off."

Nephew: "Well, you could come Saturday."

Me: "This Saturday?"

Nephew: "Yes"

Me: "I might be busy this Saturday. I'll have to check and see."

{that's me, totally blowing off a 5 year old.}

Nephew: "Okay. If you can come, just call me."

Me: "Call you?" {trying to suppress my laughter}

Nephew: "Yes."

Me: Should I call you or should I call your mom?"

Nephew: "Oh. You can call my mom...or me."

This kid makes me laugh. What five year old tries to make plans with his Aunt? And what Aunt (other than myself) actually blows him off? This is the second time in three weeks he has tried to get me to visit (they live an hour away so it takes a bit of planning). I think I'm going to have to find the time to make that phone call. And in the process, maybe I really could finish sewing that quilt I started two years ago. :)

Nearing Completion...

Two sewers, one presser, one baby and an extra sister thrown in just for fun + 5 hours = half of my quilt top done!!


My sister (and her baby) drove up to my parent's house this past weekend to help me with my quilt. My mom wasn't able to help sew due to having just had foot surgery, but she still helped with the pressing. When we finished sewing a row, she took the iron to it.

Making an unannounced visit was my younger sister who just stopped in to borrow some cookie sheets. She stayed and entertained the baby for us so the rest of us could work.

Here's to another day just like this so I can get the rest of my quilt top done! Well, I can actually get it done without another day like this, but why? It's more fun with other people!

* Sewer - as in a person who sews, not a conduit below ground that carries sewage.

My Quilt...

I finally finished all the blocks on the second quilt I'm doing. Obviously I still have a ways to go, but what do you think so far? I was worried about the colors all working together...but I kind of like it!

Quilt Progress...

I took the last two days off work and spent them working on my quilt. Monday I went to my sister's house and she helped me sew for six hours. We managed to complete 12 blocks between the two of us. We probably could have done more if we didn't spend so much time talking (neither of us are good at multi-tasking) or dealing with her five children. But we still got quite a bit done. Then yesterday I worked on a couple hours more and got four more blocks done. I now have 24 blocks completed!!

My goal at the beginning of the year was to complete this quilt by the end of the year. I was getting a little discouraged seeing as it's now July and I only had eight blocks done. Now I'm beginning to think that maybe I can get this thing done before the year is over!

Here is a picture of a sample of the blocks. Hopefully it won't look ridiculous when it's done!

Christmas Break Recap...

I have returned! I am so excited to finally post my first blog of 2009. I started my blog January of 2008 and in reading my blog posts from the past year, 2008 was one amazing (and often times hilarious) journey. I hope that 2009 is just as great.

I had an amazing 12 days away from work and I realized more than ever that I LOVE not having to work. Life was fun and relaxing. There was no stress in having to wake up at 5:30am to go to work, no scraping my windshield because I was up before the sun, no sitting at work bored out of my mind because there was nothing to do, and no coming home completed exhausted and feeling like a little more of my brain wasted away by staring aimlessly at a computer screen all day. Instead, I was able to:

1 - shovel close to a foot of snow off my parent's driveway on Christmas day (and if you think I looked hot before the shoveling, you should have seen me an hour later!):

2 - Spend three full days (and nights) with my parents and two of my sisters over Christmas.

3 - play with nieces and nephews:



4 - make fun of my brother as he tried the Skip-it (an old toy of mine that the grandkids play with now):



5 - go fabric shopping with my mom for material to make a new quilt.

6 - spend a day in Payson with my sister and her kids as she helped me cut all the fabric for my quilt (while listening to my 5 year old niece say to me, "You really are no good at this, are you?").

7 - do more shopping with my mom to buy more quilting supplies.

8 - crochet a scarf:


9 - complete my first block for my new quilt:


10 - do more shopping (for fun stuff unrelated to quilting).

11 - go see "Marley and Me" with my roommate (no movie review is forthcoming):


12 - go to dinner with friends visiting from New York:


13 - visit Temple Square to see the lights - even though it was snowing and well...there were no lights (I stole this picture from my sister):


14 - help my roommate paint our house.

15 - watch lots of movies and just relax.

My Quilt....

Well, as previously mentioned I took two days off last week. And on Thursday I went to my sister's house and had her help me with my quilt. She got me started on the binding and told me what I need to do to finish it and then on Saturday and Sunday I sat down and got it done!

Here is the end result of a project that only took three years to finish!




I don't want to sound like I am bragging, but I am so happy with the way it turned out. The process was often times frustrating and many times I just didn't even want to look at it (partly why it took so long to finish). But I am so grateful for my sister and my mom and my mom's neighbor (who quilted it) for all the time they took out of their busy schedules to help me with this.

It was a huge accomplishment for me and it has to be the best birthday present ever!

Finishing a Goal...

When I hit age 24, I decided that I wanted to set some goals for myself. One of those goals was to sew a quilt. I had never pieced a quilt before and I didn't have the slightest idea where to even begin. So, the goal sat untouched for four more years. The year I turned 28 I finally decided it was time for me to piece a quilt. I called my sister (who is very good at this type of thing) and asked if she could help me. We went to the fabric store in October of 2005 and picked out all the fabric I wanted to use. Then we sat down at her house with two quilting magazines and tried to figure out what kind of quilt I wanted to make. Then she helped me cut the fabric. I went home feeling very excited about this challenge. I knew it wouldn't be easy for me considering I had never done anything like it before, so I gave myself a deadline I thought I could work in: two years. Seems like an awfully long time, I know, but with having a busy single life, I knew I couldn't set an unrealistic deadline of say, six months. It just would never get done that fast and I didn't want to discourage myself right away. So, two years it was.

I actually got quite a bit done in the first six months. I had nearly 15 of the 30 blocks done. But then things slowed down dramatically. I slowly worked on it for the next year and got all the blocks done. Then this past December I called my sister again and she helped me sew the rows together. With only the border left to finish, I went to her house again this past Monday and we worked on it.

The quilt is not without it's flaws. I wasn't very exact in my sewing and some of my seams were wider than 1/4". Because of this, the rows of blocks were hard to sew together and the sashing had to be perfectly measured to each individual block. It took longer than it should have. It doesn't completely line up, but when looking at the quilt as a whole, it is hard to notice those flaws.

I am so glad to finally be done! Well, I still have to quilt and bind it, but that wasn't included in my original two year plan. So now I just have to figure out how to do that and hopefully it won't take another two years!