Baby Quilt

*If you are my little brother or his lovely wife… please stop reading now.  You can come back and read once my package gets to your house.  The rest of you, read on!*

My brother and sister-in-law welcomed their first child into the world earlier this week.  Archer is the first grandchild for my parents, so his arrival is a pretty big deal.  I decided that a handmade baby quilt was the perfect way to welcome Archer to the family.  I started looking for patterns online and came across a pattern I loved by Amy Butler.  She has loads of free patterns on her website.  Go check it out if you’re looking to make a quilt.  The pattern was for a queen size bed, so AutoCAD and I had a little fun re-sizing the quilt to baby-size.

My next challenge was ordering fabric online.  Thankfully, my mom did a little reconnaissance for me and found out where my sister-in-law had purchased her fabric for the nursery curtains.  The lovely Stitch Stash Diva helped me pick out the perfect fabrics for the quilt, then sent them my way!

Fabrics and a new rotary cutter blade in hand, I started cutting…

…and cutting some more.

Then, I sewed…

… and sewed…

… and sewed even more.  Finally, I had a stack of finished blocks. 

Now, I had to cut them into perfect squares.

Done! 

Next step – arranging the squares for the front of the quilt.

And more sewing…

and some more sewing (I used almost two spools of thread before all was said and done!).

Once the front was finished, I added the batting and the back and got to quilting. 

The rest of the quilt had gone pretty smoothly, but I am NOT good at quilting.  Ugh.

I had to take a break for a few days after I got the quilting done.  One, because my fingers were tired from all the pinning and sewing.  Two, because Archer hadn’t made his debut, and, therefore, I didn’t know his name yet!  As soon as he was born, I stitched a welcome message into the back of the quilt.

Then, I trimmed everything to fit.  There was a small casualty from the rotary blade – those things are razor sharp!  Yes Mom, I know it’s an actual razor.

Finally, I finished the edges of the quilt using the super-awesome-mother-approved method of rolling the edges.  Professional quilters… just ignore this part.

The finished quilts looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

I folded everything up and tied it with a cute bow. 

Now, I just have to wait patiently while I makes it’s way across the ocean and half a country.  I’m counting on my brother and his wife being too tired to check the blog before their package arrives.  Sorry if I spoiled the surprise guys.  I was excited to show everyone what I’ve been working on for the last two weeks!

Ireland – Dingle

The 23 or so of you who read this blog regularly know that my last vacation-related post was about our visit to the Vatican.  You also know that we were only about half way through our Italian vacation at that point.  So… this post is a little out of order, but it’s for a good cause.  A friend of mine will be visiting Ireland next week and she wanted all the details on what she should do while she’s there.

Prior to visiting Ireland, we spent four days in England and Scotland.  We took an early morning flight from Edinburgh, Scotland to Dublin, picked up our rental car and hit the road toward the west coast.  We were cruising along nicely when our car started making a terrible noise.  We pulled over at the exit for Johnstown Bridge, borrowed a phone from a guy who just might be the world’s friendliest grocer, and called roadside assistance. 

Two and a half hours later, the AA Roadwatch repair man arrived, told us there was nothing wrong with our car, and sent us on our way.  Johnstown bridge was a lovely little town, but it wasn’t where we had envisioned spending most of our first day in Ireland.

Several hours of driving though one beautiful little village after another, we arrived at our actual destination: The Cliffs of Moher. 

The cliffs were breathtaking and everything I had imagined they would be.  We spent several hours taking pictures and enjoying the scenery before getting back into the car for our drive to the Dingle Peninsula. 

We made it to Dingle, and because we were so far north, it was still light for most of the drive.  Chris and I both thought most of Ireland looked surprisingly like Iowa (if you traded all the sheep for cows) until we reached the actual Dingle Peninsula.  The peninsula looked a lot like our island except all the road signs were in Gaelic instead of Portuguese.  We checked into our bed and breakfast, found the only place in town still serving food, enjoyed our dinner, then collapsed into bed.

The next morning, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our B&B.  Then, we hit the road for a cruise on the Dingle Peninsula Loop. 

This drive is a must-do for anyone visiting the area.  Our guidebook included a step-by-step tour of the loop, but we saw maps and tour books everywhere we went in town.  We drove west from Dingle toward neighboring Ventry Bay.  From there, we continued west past quiet school houses, shear cliff faces, river fords, and lots of sheep. 

We stopped at a small beach to watch local surfers before stopping at the Great Blasket Center for lunch and a look at the history of the small island located just off the coast of Dingle.  If you’re going, lunch was great, but the museum was really boring.  Our afternoon included stops at the Gallarus Oratory and the Kilmalkedar Church.  The Oratory was built 1,300 years ago by early Christians and the Kilmalkedar church dates from the 12th century.

We wrapped up our tour in the early afternoon, which left us plenty of time to explore the town of Dingle, grab a few beers at the local pubs, and pick up some souvenirs.  We even took time to take a picture with Fungie, the town’s resident dolphin. 

We still have many, many hours of daylight left after touring the town, so we decided to play a round of golf at the local pitch and putt.  The pitch and putt concept was new to me, but I am convinced that it is the only way to golf!  You only need two clubs (a pitching wedge and a putter) and they’ve eliminated my least favorite part of the game – driving.  We played 18 holes in just over and hour.  It was perfect!

After our golf outing, we had an excellent dinner at a small, local restaurant.  Then, we went on a mini-pub crawl to several of the town’s pubs. 

We listened to excellent Irish music, enjoyed several more beers, and watched a group of local dancers try to teach tourists how to dance.  It was a great way to spend our evening.

Combat Dining Out

Combat Dining Out: An event at which military members and their spouses dress up in sometimes ridiculous camo-themed outfits and proceed to engage in a giant water fight.  There are rules of engagement and a grog bowl full of unknown liquids used to punish those who break the rules.  There is also a dinner, toasts, way too much rhyming, and did I mention the water fight?

This is one of those times when I think our life can’t possibly be real.  What other type of organization has traditions that are as much fun as this one?