Robot Quilt!

This is how Eli's bed looked for the last few years. 

The football 'blanket' is just an extra piece of fabric my husband thought was a blanket and gave to Eli one night several years ago.  Unfortunately it stuck, and now it's a special blanket to Eli, uncut selvages edges and all.  The toddler sized quilt served him well in his crib, but it doesn't fit as well in a twin bed.  So time to make a new quilt!

I planned on giving it to him as a birthday present.  (Keyword: Planned)  I loved his sheets, so I was hoping to tie into the colors and style a little bit, with cars and robots.  I also wanted to keep it around into his preteens, and dare I say, teens, so I wanted a usable neutral pattern on the back.  Given that I was planning for longevity, I was willing to pay more for fabric.   I did a bit of research and pinned some ideas.  I really liked the prints below.  When Eli glanced at the computer he had me print a photo of the robot one for him to cut out and play with, not knowing it was fabric.  I took that as a sign I was on the right track.

Source: etsy.com via Cassie on Pinterest

After a long time of planning and pricing, I decided on what I wanted and ordered it from fabric.com.  When it came, I was SUPER disappointed.

      

 

 Kona Cotton vs. Pure Organic

The website said I could use the Robert Kaufman solid colors 'pear', 'teal' and 'orange' to match the prints...  but they meant for the organic cotton, not their [less expensive] Kona collection.  (Why in the world use the same names??? ) The only solid I could use in the first order was the grey.  I was really disappointed that I ordered fabric I couldn't use, and then I had to pay more for organic to replace it... and I'm terrible with returns.  I reordered and after a painful conversation with the customer service, I was ready to return them.  And I never did.  I totally forgot, since it was hidden with all the other birthday/Christmas gifts and didn't find it until after the UPS sticker had expired.  I'd say the quilt cost me about $100 to make, with a bit of lefts overs + $80 for the first box of fabric.  I really need to list those on etsy or something :(  Far more money than I wanted to put out... but at least it's almost entirely organic. ::Sighs::

This was my first twin size quilt, so I wanted to keep it quick and easy to sew.  Once I started piecing things together, it didn't take long at all, just as planned. I also got to use my Mom's cutting table (dining room table sized), so that really sped up cutting the long strips.   I planned ahead and had all this done long before Eli's Birthday.  Then I stalled.

I changed my mind on using the warm and natural batting (you can see it in the picture above) and went with Quilter's Dream Cotton Batting.  I had to drive to a local quilt shop, and thankfully they had some reasonably priced twin size quilters dream batting in stock, but not in "deluxe" loft, so I settled with "supreme".  I still haven't returned the warm and natural either ::More Sighs::

Pinning took forever, even with quilters pins.  Then re-pinning it took even more time, after seeing I needed to adjust the width a bit.  Then I spent a much needed, but time-consuming task of cleaning my sewing room  sewing walk-in closet.  It's so much nicer in there when I can actually use the table.  I also whipped up a super quick kindle holder so I could use it while I sew, and finally drilled the hole for my arm-lift in the table.  More time taken.  At least I was able to watch/listen to some streaming shows on the Kindle while I worked.  Did I mention everything from buying the batting was done the day before his birthday?  Maybe... I was just being impatient and it wasn't that slow.  No, wait.  It was.

Source: ohfransson.com via Cassie on Pinterest

On the morning of his birthday, I started quilting.  Had I settled for something really simple, like stitching in the ditch, I bet it would have been done by his party.  But, of course, that wasn't what I decided on.  I went with the dark green pattern, up in the corner, not realizing how hard it would be to do.  Pinning may have been slow, but quilting that pattern was painfully slow.

That quilting pattern requires that you use not use freemotion,  so as to have nice straight lines.  So everytime I needed to turn a corner, I had to turn. The. Entire. Quilt.  Straight lines parallel with the stripes were easy, but I quickly learned I need to use a square to be sure the vertical stripes were straight.  So as I went, I'd have to line it up and draw a line (with water soluble markers) near the foot to guide me.  After about 3 hours of quilting on his birthday, I realized there was no way I'd get it done by his party.  I cut the thread, wrapped it up and give him my presence instead (Pun intended, thank ya).  We showed it to him that day, but it was sad that he could use it.

Then we had a few weeks of hiatus with Christmas and Eve's birthday, so I didn't get back to it until mid January.  It really started to intimidate me, now knowing how much work it would take to finish.  But one day I started on it again and set small goals.  I knew I could keep them if I just worked a little at a time, but keeping the days I worked on it close together so it didn't feel daunting anymore.  It worked!  Eli even got to help on the last day, sewing some of the line himself.  I really need to estimate my fabric a little better.  I had a tiny 6x12" square left when I was all the binding was cut.  Eli wanted a matching doll blanket... but we'll have to use a different fabric for that.  I had to finish the rest after he went to bed that day, but I was so happy it was done, I swapped his blankets in the middle of the night.  And took pictures to commemorate how much he loved it.  See the appreciation?

The next day I shot a few more look-at-my kids- awesome room pictures.  And as all pinterst style photography goes, I pushed or cropped all of the mess out of the shots :) Expect of course for the quintessential classic toys that makes the room look lived in.  Funny, it was trains in top pictures too, and that was taken 4 months ago.  Yes, from planning to finish, this 'quick' quilt took 4 months.

I'd love to have a picture of it from afar, all flattened out.  But that's not gonna happen anyday soon.

Here's the reverse side, for his cranky teen years.  Although, if he's anything like Jon and I, he'll keep on with his childhood lovies, regardless of social stigma.

My husband had the idea to break up the three stripes with a little square at the end of the middle one, and I really like how that turned out.

All in all, I'm happy with it.  The quilting goes really well with the style, and in the end, was worth the extra time.  I'm glad I used the Quilters Dream Batting, as it feels a lot nicer than Eli's crib quilt, which had used warm and natural.  It still needs to have a final wash to see how it all shrinks up (the fabric was prewashed though), but I really like it.  It's so much easier to use his bed during the day, having a nice uniform surface to sit and play on.

Kindle Fire HD & New Tutorial!

We finally embraced some technology and bought a Kindle Fire HD!  (Which is a pretty funny statement coming from some computer programmers.)   We've stayed out of the whole iPod, iPhone, iPad and cell phone craze.  Our cell phone has a sweet green LCD screen, but it holds a charge for about a month and fits easily in our pocket.  If ours dies my husband will be looking for another one, I'm sure.

Nokia 1100, our current depth of mobile technology

Generally, we're fairly picky about what we spend our money on.  For the first time in our lives we have an abundant, stable income and it seems like the best time to update the stuff we got for free that has been falling apart or to get stuff we've been living without (I finally have winter boots!).  But we're saving for the biggest item we'll ever have to purchase...  a house!  Finding a balance between the two is a little tricky.   A tablet computer didn't fall into either.

Our library has a few eReaders available, so we've been able to try a Nook, Nook Color, Kindle Touch, Kindle Fire and most recently the Kindle Fire HD.

1)  I liked the E Ink e-readers (Nook, Kindle Touch) a lot for my reading, and very luckily we were able to find one for free.
 2)  I did not like the Nook Color.  We returned it a week early.  Something about the controls made it feel really clunky.
3)  I really liked the regular Kindle Fire.  Good for kids' books, videos and the internet.  Sadly, the library didn't have any magazines loaded on it, so I didn't get to test that.  Reading an adult book on it was easy enough, but I like the E Ink version better in most cases.
4)  So when it was announced that our library was getting the Kindle Fire HD, we signed up right away.  It was everything I liked about the regular Kindle Fire but slightly better.  The sound blew me away.  Really. I think it was the sound that sold me.  The camera is a nice addition too.

Still it wasn't enough to make us go out and buy one.  We figured we'd just keep borrowing the library's.  Something about the tablet worried me.  For the same reason I don't like cell phones, it's like always having some sort of technology available to you.  Still, the pros seem to outweigh the cons... I hope.

In early December the Kindle Fire was on sale for $119, which was a tough choice but we passed on it.

Later in December I got an email that the Kindle Fire HD was $30 off for Moms with Amazon Prime.  And we took the plunge.  I justified it because we canceled Netflix a few months ago, and don't have cable and can't have broadcast TV in this apartment...  So the fact that we can hook it up to the TV and stream it on there is big plus.  Plus it does a million other things that will help free up the laptop for Jon.  Jon justified it because he feels he needs to be able to develop games/apps for the Android platform, and we needed a device to test it on and wanted the most development power.  Still, we made it work with our budget by splitting the cost and using our allowance.

So ta-da!

 

 We've had it about a month and I have a few review-y type things to say about it.  But I'll get that in another post.  On to the nitty gritty of the post.  This:

I made another Kindle Sleeve tutorial, appropriately named Kindle Sleeve Tutorial II. (You can find the first one here.)  This was actually my second try on this pattern, and I think it turned out well.  I tried using a snap for the closure at first.  I covered the back of the snap with fleece and that was just fine, but I was worried about the kids trying to snap it together hard they would damage the screen.  The next best thing seemed like simple velcro.  Personally, I don't like velcro on most things (non-scratchy bibs!), but it's perfect for this case.  Not sure why I don't see many patterns or cases for sale with velcro.

I had ordered that fabric on sale with no real intentions for how I'd use it, so it's nice to have a project for it.  Seems fitting, since we'll be making games for the Kindle.  The pocket seems out of place, and aesthetically I would have liked to go without.  But the convenience of being able to carry the USB cord (and AC adapter) around with it far outweighs the looks.  I think if I had used the same fabric, it would have been better.  I might try to add a matching decal on the front to make it look a little more uniform.

The process was so iterative that it would have been tough to take pictures as I went.  I did make up a couple of them, so hopefully it's not too hard to follow.

Outdoor Eating

My desktop is still not up to the job of blogging, but in between crashes I was able to back up our pictures on an external hard drive... so I'm back to posting.  Yay!

One of my undertakings this summer was a picnic table.  We don't have any place we can put an air conditioner in the bottom floor of our apartment, so it gets pretty hot during the summer months.  We can skirt around it by staying upstairs/outside, but dinner is always a pain.  By that time of day the temperature outside drops off, but inside it's still really hot.  Without another option, we would stick it out and eat in our kitchen.

I wanted an smaller, but still adult sized table, so we could keep it in our covered porch for the winter.  I couldn't find anything exactly, but it was easy enough to combine what I like from these two plans: Big Kid Picnic Table and Adult Picnic Table.

 When I saw there was a big pile of scrap wood at a local business a friend and I went snatched it up (with the company's permission).  It was rough cut, but still seemed good enough for a quick picnic table.

My share.  I didn't even come close to using this much.

In a few hours of careful picking we were easily able to get enough wood to make the table, plus enough for my friend to side her cow barn and then some.

 
The wood was rough cut, but I was able to plane it down to a smooth finish.  I bought a hand planer, which gave me some practice with the tool without worrying too much about the outcome.  I had really been wanting to expand my repertoire of hand tool skills.

Because the free wood was rough and not the best quality, I did end up buying some lumber for the load-bearing parts.  While I was there, I also picked up a mis-tint can of paint for $2.50.  I would have gone with a brighter color if I had a choice, but it was $2.50!

Someone commented on the original plan's site about how big of a pain it is to paint in-between the slats.  Minding this, I was sure to paint the sides first before securing them.

I countersunk the screws from the bottom of the table through to the top.  I didn't really want to see screwheads on the table top and it really didn't take much extra time. 

 The first time I screwed the legs and seat together, I totally flaked and didn't even check the height of the legs from the ground to see if they were even.  After being shocked by the wobble, I went back and made some minor adjustments.  The table now sits great.

 

 With that above little guy's help, it took about a week (stop and go) to get it to a painted, usable state.  It wasn't quite finished yet, but that didn't stop us.  The color grew one me and I think it turned out to be a nice neutral picnic table color after all.

After about a month of use, I got back to the project and used some scrap wood to add some diagonal cross supports to stabilize it.  I didn't want to go with a bar straight across, like the big kids plan, as  it seemed to take up too much legroom.  It was acceptably sturdy before and would have been fine for at least a year more, but now it's very solid and I would feel comfortable even storing it on one end. 

 After that, we painted.  My daughter got to help paint some of the top, so I thought it was only fair to share the fun with my son.  He was super cute and did a great job. 

Here's the cost breakdown:

•    Top planks & Seat - Free
•    Cross supports and legs - $10
•    Screws - $2.50 (An overestimate; I didn't use them all on this project)
•    Paint - $2.50

There we go, a $15 painted picnic table.  And more importantly, a completely finished project.  (I love when I actually finish the last few steps of a project.)

The size is just what I wanted.  Two adults can fit on one side, and three kids on the other.  Now, all that's left to do is enjoy it before the snow falls.

Updates and Homeschooling

Sadly, our desktop computer hasn't been working lately, so I haven't posted in a while in hopes we would get it up soon.  Still haven't.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some more DIY stuff up soon, but for now...

Homeschooling!

Homeschooling Charge!

This is our first year of homeschooling.  Eve, our oldest, did public kindergarten last year, but beyond kindergarten we really wanted to try homeschooling our kids.  Quick overview of why we opted to try homeschooling:
     1) Academic - Yes, we do think we can do a better job.
     2) Religious/Moral - We think know kids are exposed to too much, too early
     3) Time - We want to enjoy our kids growing up.  I actually relish the time I get to spend learning with my kids.  They're awesome!

The picture above is the day we got most of our homeschooling supplies.  Eli dove right into the math cubes and made... a sword.  Yep.

 It's funny how much I enjoy math.  I get excited when working with the kids and have to restrain myself from buying more math manipulatives.  Beyond the math cubes, we got a set of Base 10 cubes and some dice.  I really love the math cubes.   Mathlink is the brand, and they're really good quality. We've used them every time we've done math so far, and they really help illustrate early math skills, and my kids are pretty strong in math.  Since I'm such a math fanboy, Jon and I have decided that I'll do the math with the kids after work. (Can I just say math a few more times in this paragraph? Math. Math, Math, Math. ) So far, it hasn't been stressful at all, but Jon is taking care of our crazy two year old, which from what I hear, is half our homeschooling battle.

Here's *most of* our other curriculum.  We're starting off with a mix, which works well with us.  Some we've I've fallen in love with (Singapore Math), some not some much (Power-Glide French).  We're missing Eve's language books in the picture, and I'm planning on getting Eli a math and language workbook.

Quick Breakdown:

Math - Singapore Math Standards Edition, 1A and 1B.  We have the workbooks, textbooks, and 1A activity guide.  They recommend testing your kids before choosing a level, as it's not necessarily grade based. I'm going to get the 1A workbook for Eli this year too, since he's following along really well and I hadn't even bothered to test him.   Probably an extra problems workbook too.  Love this curriculum so far.

Science - My (formerly a science teacher) husband is doing the science for the kids following along with the "What's science about?" Usborne book.  Seems like a great intro to science at a 1st grade level.

History - Story of the World Vol1, in the "Well Trained Mind" series.  I was put off by the WTM series all-in-all, but I really enjoy the history side of it.  The activity book has a lot of nice suggestions/activites/worksheets, along with a solid course plan.  It also cross-references the Usborne history book I had picked up at the library already.

Language - We picked up A Beka Letters and Sounds 1 and Language 1.  We got them recently, so we'll see how they go.  At first glance they seem nice, but I'm worried that it'll be too much activity work for a slight amount of learning.  We'll see though, Eve really likes activity sheets.  For reading, we're just picking up history related books (suggested by the history activity guide) and regular easy readers at the library. We're also having the kids write in their journals at least once a week.

French - We got the Power Glide French Unit.  I'm not a fan.  We're still going to keep trying it, but I feel we could have done a better job ourselves.  (I might talk my video-game-programming-husband into making something interactive for French if I can't find anything better).  We're also doing a sort of french language & cooking combo.  Eve loves to help in the kitchen, so we introduce a lot of words in French as we go.  J'aime le gateau!

In addition to what we're doing at home, we're also in a co-op with 3 other families (surprisingly made up of 3 homeschooling dads (including my hubby), and 1 homeschooling mom).  Art, literature, and science are the primary focus, fun is the second :)  There are 10 kids in the group - five in the big kids group,  four in the little, and poor Eli is stuck somewhere in between.

A fresh box of crayons make everything more fun.

As for what we got for school supplies, most of those came from Walmart.  I took the kids with me to get them excited and they were (me slightly more, I think).  We bought typical supplies- new crayon boxes, special pencils, erasers, rulers, markers, etc.  (Picked up some for the OCC kids too) It's not often the kids get to shop for themselves, so it was quite fun.  This was the first time we bought more than a box of 24 washable colors for them, so it was a big step.  With a 2-year old in the apartment, I feel like I'm pushing the limits, but so far so good...

 And that's about it....  I'll leave you with some pictures of our archaeology dig (the neighbors must have though I was crazy digging up the parking lot the night before). 

...and if I get around to it we have a funny video of the dig I want to post.

Super Easy Kindle Sleeve

Last night when I got our kindle was charging, I remembered I still hadn't made a cover for it.  Well, that's not entirely true... 

When we were packing for a trip one time, I stole away to make a quick sleeve (to protect in the bag, of course) before my husband noticed I wasn't packing and instead working on a project...  And of course, within 30 seconds my daughter asking what I was doing.  Not wanting to answer I was working on making it, I stalled with a couple ambiguous answers for about 30 more seconds, so I could then I could yell out that I finished making it.  

Anyway, this project was quick, but not hide-the-project-from-my-hubby quick.  It's nicer though.  Much nicer.  The fabric is from the On a Whim series (1 or 2, I can't remember), by Amy Schimler.

I still have to finish sewing on the button (and make get some nicer looking elastic), but it was fairly easy.  Plus it matches my mei tai :D

Check out the tutorial here: http://bluedinosaurs.com/kindle-sleeve