laser beams

Ta da!  Skully's all finished - now what to do with him?

This weekend I finally convinced Jesse to hang the art we'd purchased for Quinn's owl and bird-themed nursery (this is a man's job, you know).  I also dressed her crib in the adorable bird bedding set my sister and mom got for us. 

There is a small bare wall above the "head" of the crib (on the right hand side of this photo) and I've decided to embark on a more elaborate embroidery project for that space.  In keeping with our decorating theme, I found this gorgeous vintage owl pattern.  I added Quinn's name (which won't be as contrastingly bold when I embroider it) and came up with this template:

How cute is that?!  What color scheme do you think I should go with?  I don't think I want to overdo it with pink on this.

As for a pregnancy update, I'm still feeling pretty good as I near 30 weeks (though Quinn is kicking my guts out as I type this!).  My belly is growing one centimeter every week, and I'm definitely aware of it!  It can feel pretty taut and uncomfortable at times, but warm baths and Bio-Oil help a lot.  Here's an amusing photo Jesse took the other evening (from above my head) after one of my Bio-Oil applications (that's the only reason I ever walk around the house with an exposed belly).  I look fairly misshapen, which would either be because Quinn was struggling to escape or I was having one of my mega-frequent Braxton Hicks contractions.  These poor laser cats don't know what to think.

sugar

Where to begin?  I won three prizes in a raffle today.  :)  My luck had waned after my grand prize of a positive pregnancy test, so I welcomed the renewal.  I was awarded a $5 gift certificate to Sonic, a dinner-for-two certificate to a small, local Italian restaurant, and a free oil change.  Dinner's on me tonight.

I've been spending a lot of time preparing for my first craft night.  Jesse recently went back to school (this is very exciting!) and he's now working most evenings out of the week.  As a result, I have a lot of time on my hands and I decided it couldn't hurt to have some girls over for a fun evening of chatting, eating, and crafting.  I'd had my eye on some cool embroidery books for many months, and I determined that it would be the perfect group-conducive craft to try.

We'll be practicing a variety of stitches, learning how to transfer an image onto fabric, and then working on a small project.  I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before trying to show other people, so I spent a night trying about 10 different stitches on scrap fabric.  I then moved on to a small sugar skull design that I found in the book Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart.  Here's my progress so far:

This piece incorporates the backstitch, split stitch, cross stitch, straight stitch, and the lazy daisy (aka isolated chain stitch).  The lazy daisy stitches (in the center of the eyes) was the trickiest, but I think I did a decent job.

I have a couple more lazy daisies to complete, along with several French knots, then I'm finished.  I have a million different projects I'd like to try out, it's just a matter of deciding which one is next!

veinte ocho

28 weeks

dear zachary

You've got to watch this.  Just trust me.

Available on Netflix.