Sorry about the Picture Tease

For some reason my new phone won't send pics to blogger. So they just came up as a bunch of boxes (for me at least).

Here is what I meant to show you....

My 11lb nephew, Aliyasun Charles!


And one of Keagan, on the quilt I made him.

Vicious Enthusiasm

This weekend we got quite a few things accomplished.

I slept for about 10 hours on Friday night. And another 10 hours on Saturday night. :) And no regrets! Too often I have heard that I won't get much sleep after the baby is here. So, I had no problem taking advantage of my weekend with no plans.

And we still got stuff done!

We started making some Necromunda scenery. We now own a jigsaw, which has been very helpful in cutting pegboard. The things that look like marshmallows are PVC pipe sections. It works pretty good. We need more washers though, they only had 24 at Lowes, those ran out quickly.

We installed our car seat. That took like 5 minutes. We have the LATCH system in the Mazda and so we used that. It really was as simple as this lady makes it look. Okay, so that's done.

I finally finished the quilt! I am pretty lousy in the picture taking part of life. But hey, it's better than the none I often have. I have had everything done but the inside squares for about 2 weeks. Shannon and then decided on what to do. Nice and nerdy of us, we decided to do the Pythagorean Theorem. I found 6 different picture proofs and used those inside the squares. :) You can't tell very well from the first photo, but the second shows them a little bit better.


So that is done!

And I embroidered the first (and second) statosaurus! This is what I worked on the other day. I've actually drawn 5 statistical dinosaurs. This is only one of them. Its a stegonormalus (stegosaurus made out of a normal distribution). I think he's super cute and it embroidered really well on the fleece! It's 2.5" tall and about 3" wide. I didn't know what to do with this one, so I made it into a little pillow and I'm giving it for free to the person who purchased a large normal fleece pillow from my Etsy shop this weekend.


But I did embroider it onto one of the changing pad covers I made. I still want to embroider a second one on their, but I don't have it ready to go for the embroidery machine yet. So, just keep your eye out for more statosaurs!

I finished the curtains last week. They look pretty good. The room has a lot more purple to it now. It's nice.

And I called Crib City where Mom got our crib in February. They had to order the crib from NY, he ordered 2, but they only shipped one. So, he called us and explained the situation. We didn't need it right way, so instead of taking the one in mid-March, we said we'd wait till the end of April, early May, and let the other people have the one that was in. Well, I called Sunday, early May, and guess what? He's had our crib the whole time!! The other people decided to take a different crib, so the one from the order in March, ours, has been sitting there for over 6 weeks! No phone call, not nothing. I am pretty upset, not because we needed it, we still don't yet, but because we could have gotten it when Mom was here with her car, or Rhonda with her minivan. It won't fit in our Mazda5, the box is too big (51" by 58" by 9"). So now we have to wait, again, because he NEVER CALLED! And it's paid for! In full!

I don't know if it's just Oklahoma, or a big city, or the places we choose, or just dealing with life, but I'm pretty tired of this lack of good communication I've been dealing with recently. I don't like it.

Anyways, when someone with a car big enough is here, we can get our crib too. Then the nursery is almost done, save for some art we plan to put up in there.

The Biggest Gainer

The title will be funny to about 6 people. Only 1 of which reads my blog. I would explain, but that just makes the joke less special. Trust me, it was funny.

This weekend (counting Friday) was a pretty good one. Friday at work, my manager and manager+ threw me a baby shower! It seemed to be quite a success. We had funfetti cake (sweet!) and punch.


My manager picked up 3 packs of onesies and some fabric markers. Then people decorated them! That was fun to watch/listen to and now to have!


There are some pretty good ones in there. 2 to mention... the 2nd down on the left-most column. It says "My parents are as normal as anyone" but instead of the word "normal" it has the equation for the normal distribution. Another good one is the top-most on the 2nd column from the left. It's a free-hand drawing of our company logo. Done quite well.


We got a lot more gifts than I expected! I work with some very generous people! Jennifer (a friend of Shannon's from grad school, she's basically the reason we applied here) got us a sweet K-State diaper bag, we got oodles of wipes and baby wash and baby lotion. And management got together to get us our travel crib! That was awesome!

Thanks everyone!

Then Saturday, we had our childbirth class. It was one class, from 10am to 3pm, and included breakfast and lunch. We watched some old VHS videos of various things. We learned about methods to help relax and things Shannon can do to help. Then a pediatrician came in and answered our questions for about 1 hour. At the end, we drove to the big hospital, St. Francis, and took a tour. Shannon and I plan on having the baby at St. Francis South. It's smaller and MUCH closer to our house. But still, the tour was nice. The room after delivery is freaking tiny! Both the ones in Wichita (where Jayme was) and Manhattan were really big compared to the ones here. But we'll see. Shannon and I will try to go to the hospital nearby and see their rooms. Maybe they are bigger.

There were 9 couples at the class. One of which has the same last name as us. Crazy.

Other than that, Gary was here and left Friday morning. It was good to see him some. I worked on the quilt and have the entire front done. But we don't have enough of the fabric left for the back, so I'll have to go back to JoAnn, darn it. :)


We also chatted about new Necromunda rules. :)

All the Blocks are Done

Last night I finished piecing the blocks. There are 24 in total and I plan to lay them out like above. This weekend I'll probably work on it some more. Maybe sew the blocks together and even put the borders on. :)

Our Quilt

Here is a picture of what half of our squares will look like. I'm almost done with the other half of the squares. I'll show you my progress at a later date. So far I'm pleased (and so is Shannon).

The Weekly Weekend Report

It's Monday, back to work and the dull-drums of money-making life. *sigh*

This past weekend was for sewing. I stitched up a lot of things. Shannon has been working a lot on making embroidery patterns for me. :) He's so sweet. I don't even ask him to do it. I think he kind of enjoys it. It's like graphic design, but for me to make things with. A lot of what we did was try something out, decided how to change it and go from there. The good things eventually make it to my Etsy shop, the Nausicaa Distribution. Such as this pi cozy, this Euler cozy, and these sold out pencil pouches. I'll keep putting new things up too. It's fun.

I also started on our quilt, finally! We decided on the "Quilt for Reba" from mamanance.


I just really liked the way the quilt looked. She did an awesome job on colors and fabrics. Ours is more tan and less white, and there is less variety to the fabrics used, but so far I like the way it looks. This picture is hers, not ours. I finished sewing together half of the blocks and cut out the pieces for the other half last night. But I didn't take a picture, so I can't show you. Maybe tomorrow.

In other baby news, she is moving a lot still. Lots of pushing, not just random jabs. :) Last night was the first night in a long time (months) since I've been awoken not by a horrible leg cramp (which I've always gotten, now they are just much worse and more frequent), but by having to pee or because she was moving a lot. Usually I just sleep through them both (not wetting the bed, but just holding it till morning). But last night, I woke up and felt her moving and then was like, "huh, I have to pee." So, that.

But all seems well so far. The nursery paint and molding has been touched up. Our Necromunda campaign is finished, after 160 battles, a 3600+ rating gang, a 400+ experience leader, and over 1 year of work. (It was worth it!) And I made biscotti yesterday.

Another Quilt

A while ago we bought fabric to make a quilt for our baby. And now I'm ready to start it. Problem is, we don't really know what design we want to use.

Our colors are beige/tan, lavendar, and sage, as shown below.


I've been hunting on the web-web for ideas and here is what I have so far. What do you think?


Some combination of our three colors instead of red, white, and blue.

I like the fact that the colored squares are made smaller colored squares. It looks pretty cool. Maybe go buy some plain beige fabric and do the squares in the three colors.

Pretty similar to our colors, but with more sage then light blue and beige not white.

Not so sure our colors work for this, but it looks neat.

This is pretty similar to our colors, but the purple is too dark. Anyway. I like the classic clean look of this one.
Probably replace brown with beige and then use sage and lavender for the diamonds.

Not so sure, but I enjoy the simplicity and traditional-ness. I wouldn't do stars...maybe dinosaurs or distributions...

I like this one. The quilting itself is fun. As are the colors. But we'd replace the blue with lavender and probably the white with beige.

So, yeah, pretty much not so sure what we like. But if you have an opinion/suggestion, let me know!

24 weeks and 3 days

I'm just past half way with the pregnancy and I'm already missing my old clothes. I have so many t-shirts that I just love! And I can't really wear them now... or at least they don't look the same.

More than that, I miss my corduroy pants. None of them fit me any more and I'm really tempted to take an old pair and turn them into maternity pants. We'll see how ambitious I feel.

In other news, teaching is going well. It's always nice to come home from the money-earning and be in a good mood with happy things to say about what I did. It's great to feel reward from your job.

Oh, I also finished my Prime Number quilt for Etsy! Now I just patiently wait for someone to buy it (please!).

Quilts!

Last night I worked on my Etsy shop quilt. I also practiced scratching my arms with the basting pins. My right arm has one about 4" long, my left only about 1" long. Neither hurt or bleed or anything drastic. But I look like I played with Hendrix for too long.

Also, last night we made another 78$ trip to JoAnn. But a good portion of it was 5 new blades for my rotary cutter. They were more expensive than we realized. But, if I can get as much use out of them as I have for the last one I owned, I'll be good for another 45 years. :)

Other outcomes from the trip: machine quilting thread and supplies for Jenette and Chris' quilt. :) Yay! If I keep working on things, I should be able to start theirs this weekend! Woo hoo!

A weekend at home

Shannon and I have been doing a lot of traveling and having a lot of visitors this past month or two. I really enjoy seeing family and friends but it's nice to be home sometimes. :)

This past weekend we were home and just did whatever sounded fun. Shannon got Final Fantasy from the Wii shop and played that almost all weekend. It was fun. He has an old guide from 1991 that he and Jenette would use to go through the game back then. So he got it out and I helped him some, since Jenette is 6 hours away. He got his characters to level 13 (I think).

I did some crafting (mostly sewing) and cleaning. I worked on the quilt for my Etsy shop. You can read about that on my shop's blog. I sewed together some plushies that I've had embroidered and stuffed 2 of them. I put eyes on the ninja I finished last week.


I didn't finish these booties this weekend, but they are the first thing I've made for our little girl. :) I used left-over yarn from the blanked I made Laura in 2008 . You can get the pattern from Saartje's Knits. She has a link on the right side bar.


I also fixed some pants and shirts of ours that had been sitting in a pile needing some loving for a while. Now, both Shannon and I have another pair of pants and another shirt.

Also, Chris and Jenette got me their colors! They are going to do brown with some light blue and a little bit of light pink. :) This means I can go buy more fabric!

Colors and Quilts

When my niece Nikki was born 3.4 years ago, I made my sister a quilt for the baby. Now, I am not an avid quilt maker, but I do know how it's done. I mean, I took a whole 3 hour class on quilt making back at the Garden City Community College in 2000 or 2001. :)

Now that it's time for my sister-in-law to her her first baby, I plan to make her a quilt. I know exactly what I'm going to do for it, the size, pattern, all of it except the colors and fabric. I have been pestering Jenette and Chris for about 1.5 months. I think I'm getting close. The deal is, JoAnn is having a 1$ off each yard of quilting fabric sale that ends Saturday. I'd like to take advantage of that sale. So, I may be pestering them again today. Or just picking colors myself like I did for Nikki and Jayme in 2006.

But for my own baby, things are opposite what they are for new niece. I know the colors and fabric, but don't have a design and size planned. I have some general ideas (concerning dinosaurs), but I still have a lot of planning to do. We plan to use tan, sage, and lavender in the baby's room. We bought fabric last week (you can see it here).

Either way, I'm excited to make new baby quilts for my niece and my daughter!