Torin's quilt

Last weekend I got to meet our new sweet nephew Torin. Isn't he Adorable with a capital A?

I knew as soon as I found out they were expecting that I wanted to make a quilt for baby. I picked out fun and modern fabric from Home Ec Workshop, and made up a pattern that I thought would show off the graphic prints.


The quilt back was made up of my fabric leftovers, and I think it is neat that the back is interesting in addition to the front. 

On each black and white city bit, I embroidered a color around one building or car, just for fun. (Thanks to Bethany for holding the quilt for me)

I also took a few minutes to embroider a signature on the quilt top before I joined all the layers together.

I recently took a class at Home Ec about free motion quilting. Between my new knowledge on that subject, and my new awesome sewing machine, I knew I had to try quilting it myself. I opted for a square-ish design, to match the city prints.
 


I wish my binding had been a bit neater, but other than that I'm super happy with how it turned out. And even happier that I got to see him snuggled up in it before I headed home on Saturday.

2012 year in review

2012 year in review
Originally uploaded by Kirsten W
I wanted to share this here because I just love how it turned out. I'll be using this as the last page in my 2012 Project Life book. The template was designed by Jennifer Hignite and I put it together in Photoshop Elements. It took quite awhile to choose and add the photos, but I had a great time looking through our photos from the past year.

Welcome 2013!

I always feel drawn to blog around the first of the year. Everyone is thinking about goals/resolutions/changes for the new year and I'm no different. Although I have many areas that I'd like to improve in my life, I've decided to focus on one.

Resolution 2013 - Keep the house "guest ready"
Although I have no illusions of keeping a spotless house, especially with my two little people/mess-makers, I would like to have a house that is more tidy, and presentable on a daily basis. I'm thinking of it in terms of how I would feel if a friend decided to drop by on short notice. Would I be embarrased to let them in? A goal for myself is to put things in their place right away, instead of letting them pile up - and also to teach our kiddos to do the same. I think having a cleaner home will make a happier home for all of us.

Of course, I can't resist taking on a few daily projects...

Daily Project #1 - Keeping a daily/monthly journal - I plan to write a little bit of something that happened in each square, or something I'm thankful for, or even a little drawing about the day. Inspired here.

Daily Project #2 - Keeping a dinner journal. I think this is a cool idea (inspired here). Also hoping to do some weekly meal planning.

Weekly Project - digital Project Life 2013. So excited to start a new year with Elise's Seafoam Digital Kit. Also really looking forward to printing 2012 into a 12x12 book (still have to catch up on a few weeks!). I won't be sharing weekly here on the blog. Instead I will continue to update on Flickr. I even started a Flickr group for other scrappers who want to share digital project life inspiration.

Year long project - 2013 project list - I posted a list of projects I wanted to accomplish here last January, but three of the four got pushed down the priority list and were never completed this year. Which is fine. But I decided to write a list in my journal (same one where the monthly journal lives), so that I can add as I start a new project, or note when I finish one (I think I'll just highlight when complete). I'm hoping that by the end of the year it will be a fun record of all the things I made this year.