Posts Tagged ‘birthday’

I’ve been working on quilts for my boys, since they said they wanted some quilts after I made the quilt for their teacher’s baby. I found fabric with great white sharks on it, and just couldn’t resist for my little tough guys and their carnivorous-animal-loving ways. I bought some dolphins and orcas to go with it and drew out a relatively simple top – cutting it too small into complex blocks wouldn’t really display the fabrics. I measured their beds to see about what size to make it – not quite a twin, but larger than a toddler quilt, since they’re only 6. It should wind up being about 54″ x 69″.

So once I figured out the design and calculated the yardage I’d need, I took the boys to the fabric store to pick out the first of coordinating fabrics for sashing. They had told me they wanted their quilts to be identical, but couldn’t agree on a fabric. We wound up getting the same fabric in two shades of blue. C went with a true blue, D with turquoise. A bit of slashing with the rotary cutter and I laid out the blocks and snapped plan photos:

That one in the center of D's quilt is because I miscut a section of the turquoise and had to piece one of those blocks. Whoops

And then it was time to start sewing. It went pretty fast, since the blocks are so large – the large squares are 10″ – and the boys pronounced them “beautiful” and seem quite happy. There will be more sashing: first a 2″ narrow strip for which I already have the fabric, and then another 5″ strip which will have more of the four-patch blocks at each corner. My master plan is to end it there, but I’m not sure if I should have another narrow sashing, if that will make the binding work or look better. I still need to choose a fabric for that outside 5″ sashing anyway so still plenty of time to think about it.

Stitching away. The quilt top plan is printed out and taped to my shelves so I can refer to it during assembly. Makes it much easier not to mess up the layout!

So far so good. The quilts are larger than the baby quilt, so I’m still getting the hang of working with the larger amount of fabric. I’m not sure how I’m going to quilt these yet. Might be easier to hand-quilt them, or I might find out some pricing to have someone with a long-arm quilter do it. I want to have them done for the boys’ birthday, which gives me about 6 weeks to finish them. I’ll post some new pictures with further progress. Here’s a quick shot of the assembled tops:

I don’t get bothered by birthdays. I was pretty excited to turn 30 last year.

My son, Weapon X, didn’t want to wish me a happy birthday this morning, because there are no balloons and no people around. He said, “Maybe we can get in the car and drive somewhere. To a party with people.” I guess it doesn’t count until there’s a party. I tried to explain to him that Mama doesn’t do birthday parties, but he gave me the “you crazy broad” look and ran off to play with Legos.

Project Alpha gave me some hugs, but was more concerned with whether or not he had to go to school today (and the fact that he had to clean their room solo yesterday, while Weapon X was recovering from the head wound he’d received at his brother’s hands – apparently Alpha was still annoyed by that) than bothering to wish Mama a happy birthday.

Tonight we’re going out to dinner, Husband and the twins and me, to celebrate. Husband and I have been married long enough that he knows better than to make random restaurant workers sing to me (I freakin’ hate that). I haven’t decided where to go yet. Any suggestions on a good place?

I feel like I should have some deep insight into being a woman in my 30s or some crap like that, but really, another day older is another day older and I hardly even notice them. So no metaphysical birthday crap from me. Bottle o’Riesling?

My kids turn 5 today. It’s a strange thought. It doesn’t seem like they should be this old. They had pancakes for breakfast, I made a train-shaped cake and put their names on it in red frosting (the cake didn’t cook properly in the middle, stupid shaped pan), and they seem happy. It finally stopped raining so I want to take them somewhere, but unfortunately it’s Memorial Day so most places are closed.

C says he doesn’t want to be five, because it’s not his favorite number. He wants to be four. D is cool with being five.

I turn thirty this year. In about, oh, T-minus 5 weeks. My friend and belly dance partner, K, is turning 30 two weeks before me. We’ve been talking about our impending 30s quite a bit and what it must mean (primarily, that we probably shouldn’t run around dressing in tight and skin-baring clothing when we go to the club like we were still 21, and also that we probably shouldn’t go to the club at all, because it invariably makes us annoyed at the little 19 year olds and start saying things like “teenage skanks” and “these kids today” and then we feel even more old). Some of the things we talk about quite a bit are eye cream, the need for; and personal style, the evolving of.

In my quest to both become a grown-up and not look old, I have bought a good eye cream (not good like K buys, because she’s got a rich husband and can buy $200 eye cream), made by Noah’s Naturals, which is one of my favorite companies, because I don’t like parabens and other bad chemicals on my skin. Unless they come from Sephora. I’ve also been considering my own personal style. I’ve always been very eclectic, throwing hippy and Hawaiian and surf together, and apparently that is not as ok when one is 30 as when one is 20. So I plan to go through my wardrobe and get rid of things I no longer wear, am too old to wear, or don’t fit in with my own personal style, and evaluate what I want to look like as a woman in her 30s. This is a work in progress right now. I will update as this particular project progresses.