Pregnant Dreams

For you ladies that have been pregnant, you have to know what I'm talking about. For those you getting ready to get pregnant or sometime in the future will be pregnant, listen up. There are many "side effects" to pregnancy that you don't know about until you are here my friends. Some of them are great! For instance, my hair is growing at a rapid pace, and we all remember when I donated my hair for locks of love over a year ago, I'm begging it to grow!! There is a great book I highly suggest to you, Jenny McCarthy's book, Belly Laughs. Entertaining and true!! Don't tell, but Daniel has even read the whole book! lol
So one of the symptoms that I didn't know existed were these crazy dreams. Sometimes horrific and sometimes just plain odd dreams. I have read that it's homorone and anxiety related. I guess if you blend a horomonal woman with anxiety about birth, pregnancy, stretch marks, etc... you get crazy pregnant dreams! Did all you math whizzes catch that?
Last night I was trying out for highschool cheerleader again, at a different highschool. I think I made them up in my dream, our mascot was the wild cat. haha I giggle at myself just thinking about it. In my dream, I had to make up a cheer for tryouts and I think it was getting pretty good until the coach (who looked like a beauty queen) asked me how old I was and I said, "uhhh 25." Which by the way in real life I'm 26, so did I lie in my dream or was I confused.... also weird.
A few nights ago I was a nurse, which at best I have some first aid skills you need a bandage I can stick that on, you need some perxoide to wash out a wound I can pour, you need your ankle wrapped with an ace bandage... that's taking it a little too far. I'll probably cut your circulation off. So me being a nurse is quite the stretch, but in my dream I was and damn good at it. I even wore a nurse hat and outfit from like the 1960's or a sexy Halloween costume. Anyway I was treating this girl that was probably 2 who was addicted to heroine. That was awful. I was trying to break her of this habit and her drug dealers were trying to hurt me and this little girl was crazy. It was sooo weird. I think I dreamed this because they keep showing on access hollywood about that little boy who smoke 2 packs of cigrettes a day in some foregin country.
http://www.parentdish.com/2010/05/26/boy-2-smokes-two-packs-a-day/
Which if I talk about that long, this post will turn into a rant or a rave. On to the next dream.
Last week I delievered my own child. That's right I did it myself. First I'm cheerleader, then I'm a nurse, now I'm a doctor. Good news is that labor and delivery didn't hurt, I guess I got the epidural? The nurses were standing around my bed watching my push and I reached down and literally pulled the baby out. Yes I know you are probably grimacing about now, but a dream is a dream and delievery will actually be far more gross than that. So for everyone who will be pregnant in the future prepare to dream crazy shit.

Quilt Along Week 2

Quilt Along Week 2- Cutting the Fabric for your quilt

Week 2 means we have our fabric and supplies, and we are ready to get started.
You need: an iron, a rotary cutter, cutting mat, straight edge, and fabric
ok... good luck see ya next week
Just kidding! Let's get started
First I like to lay out all of my fabrics, sometimes you can tell one isn't going to match or go for the look you are going for, I actually eliminated a fabric when I did this.

Next you want to iron out all of your fabrics. You want nice straight cuts and nothing ruins that faster than lumps, bumps, and wrinkles. So get out your hot iron and press all of your fabrics.

After ironing all of your fabrics we are ready to cut! Ok so here I have layed out one of my fabrics on my cutting mat. After I ironed it, I matched it up along the "selvages" The selvages are the pieces you won't be using in your quilt fabric, usually it is a plain color and has the maker of the fabric written on it or they are frayed edges. You want a nice smooth edge to start your cutting, so we need to cut this off. If you have never made a cut into fabric before and are nervous, go to youtube and look for how to videos on cutting fabric. They give a lot of good tips. And a good tip I'll give you, start with your least favorite fabric first, in case you mess up lol

A good thing to remember is everything is fixable, don't stress! So line up your straight edge across your cutting mat, whip out your blade and go to town!

Ok, make your cut! You did it! ahhh look at that nice straight edge! Voila, you are catching on fast!! Ok, now you can move your straight edge down to measure three inches, make your cut. Then6 inches and again 9 inches. Next you will cut your strips into squares that are 3'x3', 6x6 and 9x9. I promise it's as easy as it sounds. If you were/are good at math/geometry this will come a little easier, if you weren't/aren't don't you worry you will get it! My first quilt I messed up the first two fabrics and now look at me, on my own :)

From the fabric I have been showing you, it was a 1/2 yard cut and I got four 9' squares, six 6' squares, and 18 3' squares. Obviously you want to mix up your cuts for each fabrics to give yourself a varation and you don't need 400 3' squares... get me.

Now move on to the rest of your fabrics, cutting them the same. In the end you want a total of thirty 9' squares, thirty 6' squares, and thirty 3' squares. After I cut my material I had thirty-six 9' squares, fifty-three 6' squares, and one hundred and tweleve 3' squares. Whoa Brittany! Too many!!! I know I know.. I like to have the choice of varation and I'm working on a scrap quilt too. You do as you like :)

Doesn't it feel good to be finished with the cutting, look it only took two seconds, JOKE! It takes a while and you want to take your time. So be patient! Not much longer and these little squares will be a blanket in your house!! Ok one more look at our hard work.... feels good my friends.

See ya next week ladies! We'll start putting together our squares!

Quilt Along Week One

People ask me all the time about quilting. Is it hard? How did you learn? What do I need? Usually followed by, I could never do that.

Well.... Yes you can! I taught myself and so can you. You can learn from a book, friend, class, why not learn right here with me over the next 6 weeks? Sound good, great! Let's get started. (And I promise it's not too hard once you get started.)

First I must say, I am by no means an expert and would definitely classify myself as a beginner. Just like I taught myself, I still haven't had a class or read a book. Looking through other people's blogs has been really helpful!
This quilt is called a ragged square quilt, great for beginners! I've never made one myself haha so we will learn together ;)

Ok, let's start with Fabric! This is usually one of my most favorite parts, I love to scour JoAnn's and find the perfect combination of colors and patterns. If you have seen my previous work I like to work with lots of color, pinks, polka dots, brights, this particular quilt I am actually going to be making for the upcoming baby's bedding, Mr. Landon <3>

Ta da! That's my fabric!! I suggest you all take a picture of your fabric like this. I think it's fun to go back when you have the finished product and say I made this from that! So pull out your cameras :)

You will need at least 3 1/2 yard of fabric, I got a total of 5 yards of fabric. I like to have some leftover so I can use it on a scrap quilt or in case one color doesn't look well, etc. You can also chose how you want to break it up. For instances I chose 10 fabrics and got 1/2 a yard of each. The more fabrics you choose the more variation your quilt will have.
For those of you who have never quilted before, when you go to Walmart/JoAnn's the fabric comes in bolts. Choose the fabrics you want then take them to the counter and the lady will cut them. Know in advance how much you want of each bolt. HINT-JoAnn's runs coupons all of the time! And solids are usually much cheaper than prints. I am actually using two solids in this quilt. Sometimes you can shop online for fabric too, take a gander if you are interested in doing that :)Also, many of the ragged square quilts I have seen are monochromatic and they look great. So if you have a favorite color think about it... Here is an example of a pink monochromatic quilt and this is a ragged square quilt. So this is essentially what we will be making. I love the monochromatic look!

We will discuss the binding, backing, and batting later ok?

On to Supplies

Here is some of my supplies. Notice Ali, my lab, and Lucy, my kitty, needing some attention. Camera Hogs! lol


You will want/need- scissors not your kitchen scissors. They need to be strong enough to cut fabric and not have meat juice on them ;)


straight pins, pin cushion, and quilting safety pins- get the straight pins and safety pins specifically for quilting. They are longer than regular straight and bigger than regular safety pins you will want them! I chose some that are very colorful- sue me I am a colorful gal!


Thread duh you need thread for sewing. I usually go with a natural, cream, or tan for my quilt top because it will blend well and not show mistakes as badly. You will want a couple of spools, trust me go ahead and get more than you think you will need. When we do the binding and actual "quilting" you can pick some funky colors :)


You will also want a rotary cutter, a straight edge, and a cutting mat. Get a big quilting mat, you will thank me later. These three items are more important than a sewing machine in making your quilt. This allows you to cut your fabric to the size you need with a smooth straight edge.


Finally an iron, ironing board, and a sewing machine. I actually iron on my carpet and not a board so I wouldn't say it's a neccessity and if you can sew by hand you don't have to have a machine. The process is just longer. For those of you that live near me I'm more than willing to share my machine, I don't have a long arm quilting machine which means I can't make really big quilts, but smaller ones fit fine.


Well look at you on your way to quilting! Week one is complete! See you next week! I might post some of this early for those of you that are working ahead, my overachieving students. Just look to the right hand side of my blog under quilting. You will be able to find everything there.


Here is our schedule

Week One- Gathering supplies

Week Two- Cutting the fabric

Week Three- Sewing the blocks

Week Four- Assembly of Quilt Top

Week Five- Qulting the top, backing,

Week Six- Binding