Angles With Ease Video

Hi Everyone –

(If you are here for the Angles with Ease video – skip to the end of the post)

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend and got to celebrate the holiday at least one of the days!   We had Joel’s family over on the fourth and my family on Sunday.   We enjoyed lots of good food and hanging out by the water.  My family has lots of little kids, so we set up the giant slip and slide.

We take advantage of our hill by covering it in black plastic.  We use a little olive oil and a slow running hose to slick up the plastic, then ride down on anything that will hold some air.

Rides down were rated for best wipe out or furthest distance.

Riding double helps with the distance.

We should have also rated them based on facial expressions . . .

I think Carter would have lost this one.  He had absolutely no expression at all.  I guess he prefered his ladybug floaty.

The giant slip and slide is probably one of my favorite things about the lake and it’s great to see the kids having so much fun.

 

One of my least favorite things about last week was shooting a video about my latest book and ruler.  We did demos on the technique at market and had so many shop owners ask for a video on the demo.  I put it off for over a month, until the last of the quilts were shipping out on trunk shows and I had to do it.  I think I would prefer giving birth again, as at least there is an epidural for that.  If we were able to edit the video, I think I wouldn’t have had such trouble with it.  I knew I had to get it all in one take – so when the phone rings in the video, about 7/8ths of the way through, I just kept going.  15 takes was enough for me and I decided it was good enough!

Okay – enough babbling.  If you want to watch the video, click here.

Here Fishy Fishy Quilt

Happy Monday Everyone!  I hope you had a good weekend.  Did you sneak some quilting in?  I did – though just a little bit.  I got the binding sewn on this quilt.

The pattern is on the cover of my “Little Quilts for Little Kids” book, though this one has extra fish and different letters.

I made this quilt using my “Here Fishy Fishy” fabric line.  The line is arriving in a US port right now and should be in stores in about two weeks.

The chevrons are constructed from strip units, so they are easy to piece.  There is enough of the strip unit leftover to make a simple runner, as shown below.  I just have to figure out what I am going to put in the center.

I used the panel print from the line for part of the backing.

I don’t normally use many panels, but this one has been fun to work with.  I love using it for backings and I have another quilt  on the quilting machine where I have used it in the quilt top.

If you are interested in pre ordering the kit, click here.  (The kit includes the extra fish and letters).  We will also have yardage available, if you want to have matching backing.  I will put the yardage in the online store when my bolts arrive.

Want to see my favorite shot from the mini photo shoot?

But, then I am a bit biased.

Just a tiny bit.

Okay – a whole lot!

A Little DIY

I have really been in the mood to lighten and brighten my house lately.  I have been slowly changing a few things and will be sharing a some pictures of the changes.  The room that is the closest to being finished is the bathroom.  You may recall me blogging about it a couple of years ago when I painted it brown and stenciled one of my fabric designs on the wall.

Though I hated to see the stencil go, I just couldn’t stand that dark brown any more.  It’s now grey and the wainscoting is a brighter white.

The color scheme is loosely based on the quilt that is laying over the tub –

I also wanted to include some colored frames with bath photos of Carter.  I saw something similar on Pinterest and thought they would brighten up the grey walls.

I used an easy technique to figure out how to hang them.  I laid the plaques out on a large sheet of newsprint and traced around them to mark their location.

Next, I taped the newsprint on the wall at the desired height, etc.  I had already marked the location of the hang hole and used that mark to locate the nails.  Easy Peasy!  No measuring and marking up the walls.   I usually can’t seem to get the location right or measure right – so I end up with lots of extra nail holes.  With this method, I had them right the first time.  It was great to have the visual of the paper hanging on the wall so I could see exactly where I wanted to hang them.

The bathroom is pretty small, so just a few little extra accessories and I was done.  I spray painted the little cupboard that I already had for an extra pop of color.

The next DIY project will be a new bed for our room.  Joel is going for the husband of the year award and has made us a storage bed.  He assembling it tonight and I can’t wait to see it in our room!