Quilt-A-Long ....

The last couple of days have been filled with a LOT of mishaps with my quilt. Yes I am admitting to it! Scott made me promise haha. I have 3 new best friends this week too, my seam ripper, pins and my iron. haha for Example: I let myself sew after Sloan went to bed on Friday night and over an hour and a half of the three hours I worked on my quilt I spent unpicking mistake after mistake. I was about ready to pull out my hair. First I attacked a row backwards, unpicked it, flipped it over, stitched it again, pressed it, realized it was upside down this time... then I had my light bulb moment! Instead of sewing onto the bottom (the correct way) I was sewing on to the top. I had mixed up my labels after showing off at my grandma's house...

Anyway! Here is my progress! I have 8 rows pieced together and 6 of those rows sewn together!! It is coming together wonderfully even though my weekend was full of headaches! I just realized that I have more than half of my quilt front done already!!!
I will be posting about how to sew the rows together soon but I wanted to make sure I had all of my kinks flushed out from the weekend!

Also my grandma gave a GREAT new tip to piecing together each row! It may take more time but it makes life SO much easier! You need to press each seam open after each seam not just when you are done with the whole row like I was doing!!!

Happy quilting!

Quilt-A-Long Part 2: Piecing

Now that you have cut all of the triangles (its ALOT I know!) you can start assembling the individual rows!!
First sort the fabric you will need for each row. The key is to label every Row as you sort it. I then stack them in order with Row L on the bottom and Row A on top just to make my life easier!

Row A: (under fabric 1 in the cutting section I specified what to cut for Row A) 

Fabric 1: 2 small triangles and 4 large triangles

Fabric 2: 5 large triangles

Rows B,D,F,H, and J: 

Fabric 1: 5 large triangles

Fabric 2: 2 small triangles and 4 large triangles

Rows C,E,G,I and K:

Fabric 1: 2 small triangles and 4 large triangles

Fabric 2: 5 large triangles

Row L: 

Fabric 1: 2 small triangles and 4 large triangles

Fabric 2: 5 large triangles

Now that you have the fabric sorted you can start pinning! 

Lay out Row A starting with Fabric 1 small triangle, lining up the long side with a Fabric 2 large triangle. Now alternate Fabric 1 and 2's large triangles until you end with the second Fabric 1 small triangle like you started. (The pictures will help I promise!)

(The white is my Fabric 1 and the Teal print is my Fabric 2) Does that make sense? 

Now to the same process with Rows B-L always starting and ending with the small triangles and alternating the large triangles!

(I don't have space to lay the whole quilt out so I like to lay out and pin at the same time.)

Pin your triangles together. When pinning them together offset your corners like in the picture below (not very much though) and it will make sewing/ pressing them SO much easier... I made the mistake of not doing this on my first row. Needless to say I redid it!

Next sew your pinned edges together. All seam allowances are 1/4". 

(If you don't have one of these nifty tools, GET ONE!!! You can slide a piece in the center to your seam allowance and make sure you are sewing a straight line. This is a life saver for me!) 

I did each side separately instead of trying to turn the whole row at the corner.

Once you have it sewn, press your seems flat starting on the back. Make sure the seams are completely open otherwise your seam won't look straight even if it is. Flip it over and press the front.

TADA!! Row A after being pressed! 

Repeat for all of your Rows.

Here is Row A and B after being pressed! You can start to see the zigzags all ready!! 

That is all for now! It should be enough to keep you busy for awhile! I have to piece from Row C on and only after Sloan goes to bed do I have a chance! So it might be awhile before I can post the next step.

Happy quilting!

A Zig Zag Quilt- A- Long Part 1 : Cutting

So most of you don't know but my Grandma White actually bought me a sewing machine for graduation. That summer my crazy Grandma Jo decided I needed to learn how to quilt! (Just what ever 18 year old wants to do right?!) We each made an awesome quilt that looked liked a puzzle and to my surprise by the end of the project I actually loved it!!! And I have been sewing ever since!!!

I have now decided to make a Zig Zag quilt! And I am going to share step by step how to make it so you can make your very own! This is my very first tutorial so if something doesn't make sense or you have any questions please ask!!

Fabric Requirements:
Zig Zags- 2 different fabrics, 2 1/2 yards each
First Border- 3/8 yard
Second border- 3/4 yard
Binding- 5/8 yard (I am using the same fabric for both the binding and the first border so I bought 1 yard)
Backing- 3 yards


Other Supplies:
scissors or rotary cutter
batting
self healing cutting board (optional)
Pins
Matching thread

Before you cut any of your fabric always press them to make sure you are getting an correct measurement!

Cut: all directions based on 40" wide fabrics

First Border- cut five strips 2" by width of fabric
Second Border- cut six strips 3-3/4" by width of fabric

Fabric 1-

For row A :
-cut one square 9-1/4"; cut this square in half diagonally in both directions to make four large triangles. See pictures.
-cut one square 4-7/8"; cut this square in half diagonally only once to make two small triangles

For Rows B-K:
-cut fifteen  9-1/4" squares and cut diagonally in both directions. You won't use all of the triangles
-cut five 4-7/8" squares and cut diagonally only once.

For Row L:
Cut two 9-1/4" squares and cut diagonally in both directions. You won't use all of the triangles

Fabric 2:
-cut eighteen 9-1/4" squares and cut diagonally in both directions. You won't use all of the triangles
-cut six 4-7/8" squares and cut diagonally only once.


There you have it! Happy cutting! I will be back with piecing it together within the next couple of days!

Sloan's First Big Boy Haircut!

After 4 hair trims since July, I finally decided to get him a big boy haircut. We cut off almost 4 inches all over! He was super good and sat on my lap perfectly still until the very end. My grandma came with us and at the end he reached out to her....and fell asleep as Jen (one of my mom's best friends since kindergarten) finished styling his hair! So here are his before and after pictures!
These are the best "Before" pictures I could get.

 Passed out!

 SAfter!! So Cute!

 HHere is a better "After" picture! Isn't he just adorable!

TThis last weekend we went down to Utah to visit some of our friends. Scott took their family pictures (if you would like to see them head over to www.syndragonphoto.blogspot.com) and while they were doing that Sloan and I played at a park! He decided he was big enough to swing in a regular swing all by himself! He did great! He also found the tallest side and went down all by himself without even waiting for me to catch him! 

My Semi Annual Blog Post!

So yet again I have forgotten to update my blog! I am very sorry. There will most likely be LOTS of pictures again. It has been a fantastic 6 months! Sloan is now 15 months old! Where did the time go!

So here we go!! Lets rewind back to June from when I last posted!
Scott and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on June 20! It was a great day! Sloan had his first sleep over with my parents and Scott and I got away to Lava Hot Springs. We stayed at the Lion's Gate Manor again and stayed in the same room we had on our honeymoon!

Fast forward to the Fourth of July! It was Sloan's first and he absolutely loved the fireworks! My uncle Ryan and his family came up from Denver and bought fireworks in Wyoming on the way! Besides almost blowing up a few of the guys and almost setting the park on fire, it was extremely fun! It was crazy hot, over 100 degrees.... In Mackay, ID ... with a hot wind! And our little cabin has no air condition, poor Sloan was roasting! Sadly I can't find any pictures and I can't remember if we took any...

Next on the List: Sloan's first hair cut!

 This is Jen! She has been one of my mom's best friends since kindergarten! She would kill me for this picture but she is computer illiterate so it doesn't matter hahaha!

Afterward we let him play with the mirrors!

In August we went with our friends Brett and Mickenzie Bringhurst boating for Brett's Birthday! It was great and Sloan was way funny in his life jacket!

Later in August we went for another hike up in Mackay! This one is called Bear Creek Lake! It was SO hard! But you get a beautiful lake at the top! Scott and Sloan swan but I didn't want to hike back in wet clothes so I just put my feet in! I can't believe we made it up and back and carrying an extra 30 lbs ( I started the hike carrying Sloan but it got STEEP fast so Scott took him and was a trooper!)

Later in August my cousin Ericka came home with her boyfriend and their son Taysen! It was the first time we got to meet him and he is super cute! We took some fun pictures of our little families while they were here. Here are a few pictures of the boys. Taysen was about 5 months I think and Sloan was 10 almost 11 months.

In September we took Sloan and his favorite Sock Monkey to the hospital's annual Teddy Bear Clinic! He had a blast and we got to watch the Life Flight Helicopter take off which he thought was really cool! This is Dr. Sock Monkey. He was a patient but Sloan didn't like that much so we made him a doctor. oh and yes that is a cast on his tail and yes Sloan kept it on for almost 2 weeks!

Sloan turned 1 on October 2! We had a fun little get together with our families. My brother Kyle was actually home too which was a fantastic surprise!  Here are my favorite pictures of his special day!

Oh Halloween! Sloan was Yoda! He loved his costume and put it on by himself many times! I recently made his fabric lightsabers to go with his costume and he LOVES them! We also watched all of the Star Wars movies and he sat and watched them all it was SO funny!

Sloan decided one night that he wasn't done with his bath. So after we got him out, dried him off, put lotion on him and got him dressed we noticed it was oddly quite... this is what I found (Scott had forgotten to drain the tub.. oops!)

We spent Thanksgiving with both of our families again and it was wonderful! We didn't take any pictures though!

My Mary Kay National Area had a Christmas Party this year! It was a blast! We drove down to Heber City, UT and rode the Polar Express! They give you hot chocolate and cookies and while singing and doing Christmas Trivia and then Santa comes on board and gives each kid a silver bell! We stopped by the Salt Lake Temple on the way home and looked at the lights! Sloan would look around and say "Oh wow!". We had gotten rid of his binky at the beginning of the week and he was so good that we didn't even have to  break one out all day!

 And last but no least CHRISTMAS!!! We has a fantastic holiday this year! We started a week early with Scott's family as they went to Saint George to spend the holiday with Cindy's parents, then we spent Christmas Eve with the Morgans and then we got to spend all of Christmas Day with my family! (I'm not sure how happy this made Scott seeing as we are crazy and better in small doses but he was a trooper!) My brother got to come home again and it was SO fun to have him home and watch him play with Sloan!

 The one and almost only day we had snow! I am so glad we got to put that snow suit I bought him to use at least for 1 day. He loved it!

 He was watching his breathe!

 Santa came!!!

 He actually opened a few of his presents without help this year! He LOVES those bear slippers too!

 One of the BEST presents ever!

 He freaking loves this couch! It folds out into a little mini bed! I don't know who likes it more him or me! It is super comfy!

 That little spinning thing in the corner is a remote control car that Kyle bought for him in NYC... It says for 5 and up on the box... they obviously don't know my son... without having us show him to it works he did this... I love him!

 I made this basket FULL of handmade goodies for Tom's present! He loved it!

This is how we ended the night after a BUSY day! We were all spoiled! Thank you to everyone again!

Oh and I guess I should mention New Years! Scott worked so Sloan and I watched movies and then when he went to bed I baked and did special spa treatments while watching Star Wars! I thought it was great!  I am really going to try and be better about updating this.... We shall see