http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45QyOlJXT4M

Nearly a year later (August 2010). C reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuiL7Ea8fo4

Nearly a year later again (July 2011). C and D swimming in the pool. C is the one who says “it’s cold underwater”, so you can really measure the speech difference in him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9_0Rycm930

And in August 2011, C again reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTeBhewkYGQ

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 said, “No you’re not, go to sleep C.”

This morning when they got up, I realized they had switched shirts last night as part of their attempted deception. They cackled happily when I said “Did you guys switch shirts?” and were rather impressed that I hadn’t been fooled. “How did you know I was C?” he asked. I told him Mommy can always tell them apart. “You can’t fool me. But don’t do that to your teachers.”

There are bunches of mermaid purses, and quite a few pieces of horseshoe crabs (C is using one as a shovel). Winter beaches are always interesting. The surfers are out, though the waves are nothing to brag about as usual. A few people on horseback, which you don’t see much of in Va Beach. C is a little nervous of the horses. I don’t blame him, my feelings about horses are well known. Apparently there’s a place at 27th Street now where you can rent a horse by the hour or half hour. Insert your own dirty joke here.

They’ve already got the Christmas light sculptures up, too. They’re mildly interesting at best, but driving down the boardwalk (normally not allowed) to see them at night is kind of fun.

Stopped at Dairy Queen at 17th on the boardwalk so the boys could have “banilla ice cream on the cone”. They proclaimed it m’num and are eating up. It’s a good day for adventure. And banilla ice cream.