Yes, finally, a post!

I know.. I'm awful.. I've been too busy reading other peoples' blogs to even bother with my own. Also, I've been rather busy in general. The man and I actually keep a calendar now, can you believe it?
So, first, a quilting picture..
This is a baby quilt I made for the man's boss who had a baby girl recently. I got it done the night before his last day at work before taking paternity leave. What? I've always been a procrastinator! On top of that, I'm too lazy to figure out how to rotate this picture.. I never said I was great with computers..

The man and I celebrated 1 1/2 years of togetherness (April 13.. I know that was LAST month) and I just have to brag and show you the sunny tulips he got for me!



The other exciting news is that we're gardening! I LOVE spring and I just can't help that instinctive urge to dig in the dirt. We're doing the Square Foot Gardening method. This way I'll try to keep from digging up our whole (rented) yard and think inside the box for a while. :) This is one of our 4x4 square foot boxes. The man loves that he got to get all sorts of tools out for this.. We're going to have two boxes. Just today we worked on filling up the second one with soil and put babies in the first box. Pictures of that soon.. I promise! Well, the oven is yelling at me to get the pizza out.. I promise I'll be better at posting!

Getting settled...

So John and I have moved in to the house we're renting. Still working on getting the boxes all unpacked. We're definitely comfortable and have everything we need - very grateful for that. It's nice to live together now. One of the best things about the house is that we have three bedrooms.. And one of them happens to be dedicated to sewing! Whoohoo! Here's a picture of part of the sewing room (still messy.. who am I kidding - it'll always be messy).

I'm very happy to have this space to call my own. From this view, to the left is the cutting table and against the wall across from the desk is the ironing station. I also have a good sized closet full of the 'stash' of fabric! It's a nice big window that allows a lot of light to come in for most of the day.
The other sewing news is that I went to the Hampton Quilt Show with a few ladies from the shop. It was my first time ever going and it was certainly quite impressive. Lots of quilts entered for competition and then a lot of booths for shops and dealers to show their goods so to speak. Only $5 to get in - definitely worth it for an educational day (with a fair amount of shopping too of course).
Other than that the news is that I just finished my first week at a new job! I am officially a Coastal Liaison for a state environmental department. Yes, a downtown job. I have to admit, despite the traffic, it's quite nice to get out of my old situation. I'm still getting into the swing of things at the new job but once I get a bit more comfortable I think it's going to be a really great thing for me.
So, now that we have internet (after 4 hours of phoning crazy Verizon) I hope to be blogging more often!

My first stuffed animal!

SO, I finally made my first stuffed animal and it's a pink batik elephant! The pattern is from the wonderful book by the people from Purl called Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.
My oldest sister gave me the book and I seriously 'welled up' because I was so excited. I had wanted this book since the day I saw it on purlbee.com
Anyway, I didn't follow ALL the directions (i.e. he has no eyes). And I used bamboo filling which is very nice to work with (it's a bit sticky though in the way that it lints up and sticks to things really well but nothing a lint roller can't fix).
Anyway, he's fun and huggable. His trunk end got crooked so he looks grumpy. It's hard to capture in a picture but this other one may show it. He has a little snarl face. Very appropriate for me.. I feel like I often (unfortunately) have a snarl but overall I'm still cute (right....?).
Anyway, I highly recommend that you check out the book. And some day when the 'evil place' (my job that doesn't make me very happy) lets go of its massive grip on me I may post other fun things I've made from the book.