Gift quilt.

I mailed off my first gift quilt last Friday and hopefully the new owner will open the box before she reads this! You've actually seen this quilt here before because I made two of them (thanks to bad math when cutting out all the pieces) so I was excited to have a reason to give one away!

Sweet Baby Ryelle (a.k.a. the unnamed, unborn, they-are-keeping-the-sex-a-secret child of Dani and Ryan) will hopefully have a snuggly first winter with this quilt. Since I don't know the sex, I thought it was safe to do something that wasn't so "baby-ish" and though it is mostly blue, there are some fun pops of red and yellow in there too so it should work (I hope!). This is also a design that I came up with pretty off the top of my head after seeing something mildly similar somewhere else.

This is the whole quilt. It is a square...about 45 or 50 inches on each side. 

I decided to sew a stripe of material on the back too to give it a little more dimension. While this quilt isn't perfect (don't look too closely at the quilting!), I'm pretty proud of it. 

I hand sewed the binding on which takes forever and makes my fingers tired but it is so absolutely worth every single stitch. I love the way it looks so finished on the edges. 

Baby Ryelle, you are so loved and hoped for and prayed over!

 I can't wait to meet your sweet little face. 

Chicago 2015

Why not make it three posts in one day?

Chicago!
I got to go back for work again - a training - and it was just as lovely as the first time!

PNW 2015

Well, now that I'm back and settled down from a few crazy weeks of travel, I've remembered to post pictures from our adventures. This is mostly for posterity (and my mother's) sake since I've moved them from my phone to my external hard drive. So, phone dump it is...

I think this might be my favorite photo of the trip. Haystack Rock at sunset...it was incredible. 

Of course we had Voodoo Doughnuts...and mom had a fritter the size of her face. Literally. 

I have about a million (ok...fewer than that but whatever) pictures at the International Rose Test Garden but here are just a few.

Toes in glacier water...

Skeeball break!

Windsurfing in the Columbia River Gorge (not any of us, sadly). 

Mt. St. Helens is just above the treeline on the right half of the picture...

We had a lovely trip and were hosted by my mom's lovely friend Ellie and her family. She was the best hostess and chauffeur and we saw so many great things. I'm thankful for the chance to travel with my mom and my sister, as that never happens anymore these days. Sweet memories were made!