Six years

Well, I'm a day late, but I was in Louisiana all weekend to help my step-brother and future sister-in-law celebrate their first wedding shower, so this will have to do. Six years ago, I said "I do" to the love of my life, my best friend, and a wonderful man who has since also become an amazing father.

I'm so blessed to get to share my life with you, and I am beyond thankful for every day we have together.

We celebrated last night with a delicious meal at a fabulous new restaurant we've been wanting to try and toasted to one more year together (our little joke).

Happy anniversary, love!

Ohio Log Cabin Mini Quilt finished!

The Ohio Log Cabin Mini Quilt is finally finished and just under the deadline for the Ohio Star challenge, which is due at the St. Louis Modern Quilt Guild meeting tomorrow (though I won't be attending, sadly, because I'm posting this from the road)!

I'm so pleased with how this little lady turned out. The quilt measures about 28" square and is composed of a 16" Ohio Star block surrounded by randomly pieced log cabin rows in various aqua, lime green, and gray fabrics.

After much debate, I decided to quilt it using a light teal thread because I liked how it popped, especially on the solid gray sections (a few on the front and most of the backing).

The quilting was a bit random, though there was some method to my madness. I started by outlining the inside of the four solid gray blocks in the star. I then quilted an "X" of two diagonal lines across the front and one line inside the outside edge of each log cabin row, and that's where I planned to stop, but it didn't seem quite finished.

So I added a triangle on each side, using the patterned gray triangle pieces to determine the "points." I love the way it filled in the side sections.

The quilt was destined for the wall of our downstairs guest space, but I didn't want to use a hanging sleeve and rod, so I decided to add a hanging strap (for lack of a better term) instead. I used some of the binding material and added a little piece of one of the aqua fabrics from the quilt.

The quilting shows up really well on the back, which I just love, and while it's hard to tell in these pics, up close the teal thread looks great against the gray.

For the binding, I decided on Leaves in Gray from Stof's wonderful Pure collection. I used a few bits of this fabric on the front, but I love how different it looks on the binding, where it looks almost like a dashed line or really big dot. I think it totally transforms the fabric.

And to top it all off, the hubby was so impressed with how this turned out that he asked if I'd do a wall hanging for his office. An excuse to buy fabric and start another project? Um, yes, I think I can handle that.

What, more grandparents?!?

We've been in the midst of a string of family visits (which we love!), and last weekend, we enjoyed a visit from my mom, step-dad, and little sister. It was the first time my sister had been to visit since we bought our new house, so that was fun.

We've been having this crazy late August/early September heat wave (I can't complain too much because we had a delightfully mild summer on the whole, but it's supposed to start feeling like autumn now!), so we spent much of the time inside just hanging out.

And we ate. Oh, man, did we eat.

We also did a little shopping, game playing, tennis watching, and breeze shooting. It was a delightfully chill weekend.

I snapped this shot of Beckett doing "hoop-dee-do," and I love the look of pure joy on his face. Does life get any better for a toddler? (I also love the look on the photo bomber's face.)

On Saturday night, we treated my little sister to a fun dinner out on the town while the grandparents watched B.

We capped off the weekend with a trip to our new favorite park (fully shaded, yahoo!), where Beckett gave us all some lessons on sliding, swinging, and climbing.

Working on our sign language for "deer"

It was a great weekend, and we can't wait for them to come back!