Oh Bed! Oh Bed! Delicious Bed!

You know those people in the world that you can't help but love?  Well, my sister-in-law Renee and her daughter Rhiannon are two of those kinds of people. We love them!

This week Rhiannon turned FIVE, and today was her birthday. Because we love her so much, and because she deserves to be spoiled more than most five-year-olds, and because I don't have a little girl to make girly things for, Rhiannon got the spoils of my crafty labours this month.

Working late into the night last night to get it finished, this is what we brought to her party (and when I say "we" I actually mean "I", due to the pox and all):

Could you please all fall over right now with awe?!?!  Seriously, I MADE that!!!  I don't believe it myself, I promise.  But, I have proof:

Okay, that's not proof at all, it's just a picture of me holding wood while Jared's dad is doing stuff and then a finished product, but let me assure you that I did, in fact, with a little help from my father-in-law, make this bed from scratch.  And it only cost me $17 (and two finger tips, which I sanded off on the belt sander.)

All right, that also proves nothing except that I'm really good at putting bandaids on, but I didn't want to gross anyone out with my lack of finger nails. Just trust me on this one people, it was gross.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that Rhiannon is amazing and I hope that her fifth birthday was awesome, and that her next trip around the sun is even more incredible than the last.  And the other moral is that I made that bed.  I did.

The plans for the bed came from Ana White and were awesome.  I'm never going to buy another piece of furniture again, I'm just going to make it all.

I've Got a Quilting Problem

I love to piece quilts.  Love it.  I love gazing at fabric, putting together the perfect combination.  I love perusing through patterns, picking the best ones to suit my fabric choices.  I love measuring and cutting, rolling my rotary cutter along the fabric in perfect lines (I've only once needed stitches because of this). I love sewing the straight lines, putting all those little pieces together to make a beautiful quilt.  Oddly, one of my favourite parts of quilting is laying out all the squares and staring at them until my eyes hurt trying to figure out the best layout where no two pieces of the same fabric touch or are even close.

And that's really where my love affair with quilting ends.  The whole 'quilting' part: not so much my favourite.  So, amongst my boxes of storage I've got a plethora of pinatas... I mean quilt tops... waiting to be quilted, with absolutely no motivation to do so. Seriously, I probably have ten tops finished. 

I come by it honestly, though.  My mom has over 20 in the same state as mine.  My problem is, I want to hand stitch some, but that's a big undertaking, and I want to machine quilt the rest, but not just stitch-in-the-ditch, but the really fancy swirly, loopy kind of machine quilting.  My old Brother sewing machine is really just not up to the task.  I NEED this:

I could hire myself out at $150 a quilt for, oh, 20 or so quilts, to make it worth it.  I also will need to buy a new house to fit the thing in, and commit to doing nothing but quilting the rest of my life... but I'm okay with that.  With something this incredible to work with, why would I want to do anything but?

But, until then, I guess I need to get motivated and get working.  These are the quilts I want to finish before I start any more.

My picnic quilt, which at the rate autumn is approaching here in Calgary, will probably not be used until next season.

The sweetest baby quilt, which is offered as a prize to the sister who has the next girl (unless I have a girl first, and then they get nothing because all my creative juices will be put to creating things for my own darling.)

The third of these rag quilts I've made, for the next boy that is born that I love enough to give a quilt to.

A car mat for my boys, probably for Christmas, by the look of my to-do list here.

I'm heading to Shuswap today, and I plan on getting at least a few of these done while I'm there.  I'm hoping my mother-in-law will help me with the hand sewing of the girl baby quilt and the car mat. The picnic quilt I am sticking to the ditch, and the rag quilt I don't have to quilt at all: yeah!

Time for a Picnic

I love to picnic.  On one of our most memorable dates Jared took me on a picnic to a park near where he grew up.  My memories of picnicing as a kid are wonderful (except that one time when a mean old bee stung me right on the tip of my finger, and I walked around with grapes on my finger all day long - not sure why - but it seemed right at the time.)

Anyway, I love to picnic, but we haven't done it nearly as often as I would like.  In need of a little inspiration, I decided to make our family a picnic blanket that would be devoted to Wiebe Family picnics.  I want to find a picnic basket and some dishes and have it all together and ready so we can picnic away whenever we feel the urge.  While I was in Sandpoint with Renee I pieced the quilt.

Silas helped a lot!

Laying it out. 

All pieced.  I just have to put the back on, quilt it, and bind it and I'm ready for any picnicking adventure life can throw at me!