Non-Easter Easter Weekend

My hand looks ridiculous in this picture, so short and fat. And now looking at it, I remembered that I had meant to go back to the graveyard where I took this pic to collect a bunch of these pine cones in a bag to bring home. Darn. Oh well, it's more of a Fall thing anyway.

So, yeah, Easter weekend. We did absolutely nothing Eastery, not that I mind too too much. We went to a Neil Young concert on Good Friday and ate at a restaurant, then Saturday we headed to Sussex for a few days, where we ate wings and ribs, sewed, baked, went for walks and watched outside as it SNOWED like crazy for 2 days!! (Luckily it didn't stay, but still, no spring activities for us!) It was still nice though, I so enjoy being home, it's getting harder and harder to leave now because I know I'm getting closer and closer to moving back there...anyway, it was a nice Easter-that-wasn't-Easter weekend.

The main thing I did while home was get started on my blanket, and surprisingly I got the entire top finished! My mom, my grand mama and I worked on it pretty constantly for 2 days, and because there were the 3 of us working on it, it went pretty quickly (also, I had cut and ironed the squares the last time I was home so they were all ready to go.) I wasn't sure how hard it was going to be but it ended up being really easy and fun, I think I may have caught a sewing bug!

So basically I cut out about 180-6 inch squares, and sewed them all together into chains of 12 squares long, then sewed the chains together. There were 16 rows in the end, so the blanket is 12 squares by 16 squares, which is approximately the size of a twin sized flat sheet. I made it that size because I was able to buy a pink sheet at Value Village for 3$ instead of buying material for the bottom, something my mom told me to do 'cause it's a great way to save some money! In all the whole thing only cost 65$, which was 50$ for the material for the top (Anna Maria Horner fabric from Etsy), 3$ for the sheet for the bottom, 5$ for the thread, and 8$ for the batting.

Here are a few shots of us all working on it. Basically my mom and I sewed, and my grand mama ironed and pinned, it worked out great, and I love that we all worked on it together.

(My secret wish is that this blanket will one day belong to my possible future daughter, so it'll be even more special that her mom, grand mother and great grand mother created it together. I'm planning on embroidering our initials and the year on one of the patches. I also have future plans to create a similar blanket but in blues and greens for any possible future sons. Kinda sad, but I guess I'm optimistic at this point...in the meantime though I'm going to use the blanket myself, it's too pretty not to!)

And here's a shot of the finished top (not a great pic, but you can see all the different patterns, I love the look of it, it really reminds me of some of the old blankets I have here that my great grandmother created, the patchwork, simple blankets made from fabric scraps, I love it.)

The next time I go home (probably not 'til May or June) we will sew the top part onto the bottom sheet with the batting in between and create a border by folding the sheet up around on top, it's the easiest way to do it, maybe on my next blanket I'll attempt a separate border with a different coloured material, but for now this will work. It'll be heavy enough for Spring and Fall probably, I'll be keeping it at the foot of our bed, or on the couch to keep warm at night. J'adore!!

So, yeah, I love sewing now :) As soon as this one is done and I have some spare pennies I'll probably start the blue and green version (probably with similar Anna Maria Horner fabrics), and I also have another, tinier one in mind that I want to create for another possible future baby (they are all for future babies, they sound like they'll be half robot or something!) Anyway, Heather told me that I can use her sewing machine since she left it at home, so soon I'll have one here to use, so expect to see more projects from me soon!

Other than that, not too much is new. I won the latest Creative Type Challenge with this layout, which is crazy, I've never won a scrap Challenge in my life, though I've played plenty of times. So that was a fun surprise :) I totally wanted to play the last Scrapmojo Challenge (imaginary friends) but today was the last day and alas, no scrapping has been done lately. I'm hoping to get back to work on my 365 mini and maybe do a few more 52Qs this week, Dan is going to a co worker's cabin on Saturday for the night so I should have plenty of time for scrapping on Saturday night (and Saturday day I'm hoping to maybe start a few potted herbs to keep indoors until it gets nicer out...and also do some more Spring cleaning. Yea, domestic me!)

Has anyone else been feeling domestic lately? Maybe with gardening or Spring cleaning?

Here's to more sunshine, pretty fabrics and positive attitudes!