Shop Hop...

My sister in law's are awesome!! I am a lucky girl who gets to have 8 sister in law's on my husband's side and they are so much fun to hang out with.

They like to do this thing every year called the Shop Hop. It's a quilt shop thing where there are 13 shops across the Wasatch front that are involved. There is a theme and each shop gets all decorated and has drawings, free quilt patterns, etc, etc.

So the point of the shop hop is to visit each of the shops and get your paper stamped, and when you get all 13 stamps you get to be in their big drawing. They give you 4 days to visit all the shops.

We did it in one day. Yes, we did.

13 shops from Logan to Springville in one day. It took about 11 hours.

And here are my lovely sister in laws who are always up for a good adventure. Just 4 of us were able to do it plus some of the younger girlies. I'm sure they love that I took a picture of them and am putting it on my blog. Here we are about halfway through the day on our crazy shop hop adventure!

We made it to the last shop about 20 minutes before closing. We totally did it in one day! Crazy! I felt crazy, like the amazing race but quilt shop style. It was a lot of fun. And I got all my stamps...

I wanted to do it so that I could spend some good quality time with my sister in laws. Also, it's nice to see the different quilting stores around and get ideas for projects. Like I mentioned before I'm getting geared up to work on my hexagon quilt and so I looked at all the different yellow fabrics that they had at the different stores and picked up some great pieces.



These fabrics make me happy! They look so fun together. It was a fun day and a long day. I haven't heard if I won anything yet, but it was fun to get out and see all the cute shops!

Curtains...

I finally got the curtains finished and hung in our guest room. I love all Joel Dewberry fabrics, they are amazing. I found this print that I've been eyeing forever over at Quilt Shops. I found this site after I called every single quilt store in the city I live in to find a certain fabric and none of the stores in my area had any more of it. This site is great if you are looking for a specific fabric, or specific designer, especially if the fabric you want is from a discontinued line (like this one) and is no longer being made. I found this print from his Chestnut Hill line for only $3.50 a yard!!! That's a steal! I'm totally in love with it.

And he has a blog... Joel does... that his wife runs. Love it. I might need to start stocking up on his fabrics now that I know where to find them.

My bedroom...

... is boring... period! I was going to do a before shot today but my camera wont even turn on... I think that it died. Lucky you!



I have never in the seven years that I've been married tried to decorate my bedroom... okay, that's a small lie. Last year my husband tried to help me decorate our bedroom and pressured me into buying this silver bedspread... which didn't help the problem. Then we painted the wall behind the bed a dark purple that was short lived because it just looked like mud brown... sigh... it's been struggling for a while now but I think that I finally have my ideas in line enough to make something of this room. That's one of my goals for this year is to make this room beautiful!



So here are the rough plans...





1- I've always wanted to make an upholstered headboard... and I keep going between a dark brown or a white one... but I think that brown is going to win out.

2- I love white bedding. I'm nervous about this one because I have a wild and sticky fingered little two year old... but there is always bleach right? This is one from West Elm that is just beautiful.

3- We need a new quilt for under the duvet as well.... and I really love this pattern called Stacking the Odds from Denyse Schmidt.

4- I love these knit throw pillows from West Elm. However, I think that I'm going to knit my own for our bed (besides, I saved this picture a million years ago and I don't think that they carry them anymore anyway...)

5- We had some amazing family pictures taken in September and I love them. Just the colors that I want to put in the room too... aqua, white, touches of yellow. And look at my little man... what a doll he is! I can't wait to put this one up on the wall!

6- We really need some more clothing storage in our room. I saw this Ikea Hack that Little Green Notebook blogged about. So nicely done! I think those would look great as night stands in our room.

7- Just tying in more of the pretty colors from the Hope Valley fabric line from Denyse Schmidt. More blues, aqua and yellow please!

8- Also some pretty artwork from Urban Design would look great on the walls...



So there are the plans... I can't wait for it to all come together!

Chairs...

Twas two nights before Christmas and we were completely done Christmas shopping!!! So we decided to have a little fun... eat some pizza and egg nog (because we're healthy like that)... and recover our dinning room chairs!

Before...

We bought our dinning room set a year and a half ago on Craigslist and the chair seats were white. We knew that they didn't have a chance of staying white in our house, and I've been meaning to recover them ever since... but I just kept putting it off.

So we went and got some pretty green/brown/cream/gray fabric to go on top. And I have to say, this $12 staple gun from Home Depot may be the best $12 I've ever spent on anything...

We just cut out the fabric, pulled it tight, I made husband fold under the raw edges because I wanted it to look nice (even though nobody will ever see the bottom of the chair...) and stapled away!

After...

We even went the extra mile and covered them in vinyl too... just so that we wont have to do it again anytime soon! I love them! They look so much better! Now to finish the rest of the room to match the chairs...

Stacking the Odds...

Oh my... have you ever fallen in love with a quilt before? I hadn't "fallen in love" until last night when I saw this Stacking the Odds quilt by Denyse Schmidt. Oh my... I love it!

I love the pattern... the clean lines... the rows... the white.... how modern it is compared to other quilt patterns... I love this new fabric line she has going called Hope Valley.

My husband has been asking me for years (literally) to make a new quilt for our bed. Ours was a wedding gift and has been well loved... and is falling apart. I've been hesitant because it's pricy and takes so much work to make a king sized quilt... but I'm doing it! I'm totally going to make this one... I can't wait!

Joel Dewberry...

I'm not into name brand anything... for the most part. I don't buy name brand clothes, or shoes, or food!!! Until it came to fabric...

I'm finding myself being so drawn to certain textile designers. One that is probably not new to you, but is new to me is Joel Dewberry. I just love his stuff!!! Especially his Aviary Collection. I've been trying to find a great fabric to recover our dinning room chairs with and this one might be the winner...