This morning was an epic adventure for Lilly as she slipped on her pink gloves and marched into the garden with Daddy. Finally she could pick a vegetable!
She led the way over to the hot banana peppers we have been watching grow and waited patiently for Brandon to lift up the mesh.
She tried to take a bite, then decided Mr. Hoppy might want it instead.
You should have heard Lilly, talking a mile a minute about everything else in the garden. She knows which plants are tomatoes, where the eggplants will come from (purple eggplant comes from purple flowers) and loves to see all the tiny cucumbers (which she sometimes calls pickle peppers) that are growing on the vines. Her little face gets very serious as she inspects all the bean plants looking for what she knows as green beans. She calls the bean plants “hot beans” which gets me every time. No hot beans yet!
In other news, I’m going to be chronicling my quilting adventure that I am working on for my girls. I will try to add every step of the process so you can join in if you feel so inclined. I’m reusing and recycling as much as I can to make the project easier on my wallet!
The first step of this process is to gather and cut all of the fabric. I am using only scraps (my own, and then some from my Mom and my Mother-In-Law). There are so many amazing fabric collections available these days but I figured, for my first project, I better use what I have since I’m not sure if the whole quilting thing will be for me. You could use anything though- old clothes, table cloths, curtains, napkins- anything with a fabric you like.
Being as this is my first “real” quilt project, I’m going with a very simple, square patchwork design. But not a pattern. Each square will start out 4″x4″ and shrink accordingly once they are all sewn together. The quilt top will be 16 squares by 22 squares for a total of 352 squares per quilt top. So if you’re good at math that’s a grand total of 704 squares of fabric needed for two quilts. Yikes! We can do this. I’m making two twin size quilts so if you want a different size, add or subtract squares accordingly.
The best method to cut your squares is to use a gridded cutting mat, clear ruler and a rotary cutter. Grab some 40% off coupons and pick them up at your local craft store. These tools are a must and are worth every penny. It’s also a time saver to fold your fabric in half a few times and cut a few squares at once.
These are going to be Christmas presents so I have plenty of time to work on them slowly without stressing myself out. That means you also have plenty of time to quilt along with me!
This is the beginning of my square stash:
Fun, right? So what are waiting for? Grab some scraps, cut your squares, and get ready to learn how to quilt!
Kelly says
I’m going to send you some coupons for JoAnn. We don’t have one close by!
mrsdmsartroom says
Thank you! They’ll go to good use over here.