QUILTED!

YAY! I finally have this blanket ready for binding! For a while last night I thought I was going to have to take my machine in to get repaired because the bobbin tension was too tight and none of the regulators were working. But after a quick cleaning under my plate, I got right back to work. I finished up the tail end of this before work today and just decided to go with squiggles on the pink part. I like how it turned out. Now, I just have to make the binding. :)


One quilt ready, one more to go (as if I will actually get 2 ready to be bound this weekend...). Here is the beginnings of the next quilt.

Other news: We are just a month and a half away from meeting Baby Nielsen. We are getting more and more excited as the days (and the aches and pains of the third trimester) go by. Brian's nose is doing pretty well for post-surgery and we are so glad he was able to get it done. Hope you all have a great day!

Took a Break...

I know, I know... how dare I not blog for a whole week and a half!?!?! Well, the truth is, we took a little bit of R&R over last weekend and I figured it was a good time for me to sink into a good book (Mockingjay) and give the sewing machine a little rest as well. Thursday, Sept 2, Brian had his nose operated on to fix his deviated septum. He has had some trouble breathing easily through his nose and getting surgery now versus when the baby comes sounded like a good idea to us. Well, that 'good idea' turned into this:

... for a week straight. He slept on the couch to stay elevated and to not wake me up. For the whole week after surgery his nose was blocked up and he had to breath through his mouth. No fun at all. But he was a good sport through it all, even with the added pain of canker sores in his mouth and throat.


So, he got to spend a lot of time playing his Gran Turismo racing games and just chilling/working at home for a week. A week later we headed back to the doctor and took the splints and (most of) the stitches out. Brian is breathing through his nose much better now, but there is still lots of healing for those broken bones and the raw skin.


So, after the weekend was over, I dove back into some projects to keep busy. I finally hemmed the curtains I hung in our bedroom:


I took a razor blade to our crib box:


Taped pieces of it together for thickness and painted them:

{ignore the spill down the front of me... I blame it on the baby.}

And then added paper to them to hang on our bathroom wall. These still need to be mod podged, but I didn't have a sponge brush to do it with. Maybe after work today....


My sewing machine got busy again and I started quilting on this quilt. Notice the walking foot on my sewing machine? Thanks for letting me borrow it mom! As for the actual quilting on this quilt... it's a challenge. I am all done with the white portion and I almost finished up the top brown part, but my bobbin tension got all messed up and I was not in a mood to deal with it, so we'll see when I get back to this one. My goal was to have two quilts ready for binding by this weekend... I'll let you know how that goes.


My new inspiration is this little roll of preciousness. Doesn't it just make you giddy?


And I know exactly what I'm going to do with it. The only problem is, I can't start that one until I get my project with this fabric going.


Look how ADORABLE those turtles are! :) I guess that's inspiration enough.

Ode to

I know, I know, it's only the FIRST DAY of September... But the way I see it, September is the gateway month. It always leads to the holiday months which starts with OCTOBER! Oh, how I love October. I love the fall leaves and the halloween decorations. I love the corn mazes and haunted houses. I love wearing light sweaters and jackets. I love the BYU football season. And I love the feel that the holidays are here!

So call me crazy, but I'm jumping into the holiday feel. I even had a cup of hot cocoa last night to get in the mood of fall! You know, that excitement and all the planning? That's what I'll be experiencing all month long- and all next month too! I'm already picking out my holiday projects. LOVE IT!

Speaking of projects, I managed to get my rag quilt washed and mostly dry this morning before work. Due to the massive amount of lint, I took it to a laundromat and the dryers took too long so I just hung it up before work to let it finish. Here is a picture of the finished product:

{Not too bad for a quilt from mom's scraps!}

And another little tidbit of a project I did. I decided I love these flowers and I made a little one for our baby's headband. Super cute! I am planning to make a bunch of these with clips on them so I can change out the the flower colors with different outfits.

{oh my goodness! I'm having a baby!}

Introducing the newest member of our family:

Clarise "the clean" Nielsen

Yes, Clarise is our new (used) portable dishwasher! HOORAY!!! Our apartment didn't come with a dishwasher so ever since April we have been keeping our eyes our for something other than elbow grease to clean dishes with. Who am I kidding? Brian does the dishes. But at least now I don't have to feel guilty about not scrubbing down the dishes by hand!

We ran our first load of dishes last night and I have to say, I've never been so excited to empty a dishwasher!

Sorry if you're bored of my blogging. I think I'm making up for lost time.

A party, a picnic, and a play

We had a great weekend here at the Nielsen home. Our ward party/"camp" out turned out great despite the bad weather we were hit with on Friday. From traffic to detours, we finally made it to our spot and set up our tent just in time for the rain to start pouring. The inside only got a little wet before we managed to get our rain fly on. Most of the ward came up for dinner and then headed home for bed. Only about 6 brave couples stayed the night. I have to admit, as much as I love camping, we will have to put our tent on the shelf until next summer when I can actually get some sleep.

We enjoyed a leisure Saturday just playing wii and getting the laundry done. I love Saturdays like that. We also managed to have a picnic in our front room as a little stay-at-home date. Yeah, yeah, we're silly, but we like it that way.

On Saturday night we headed down to Payson to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Brian's parents. We had such a great time together and really enjoyed the music and fun performance. Even our little girl joined in the fun with some pretty amazing cartwheels inside my tummy. She loves to move to the music.

And, of course, the weekend wouldn't be a weekend without more of my projects. All the sewing I did this weekend was hand stitched stuff. I stitched around two of my onesies to give them the homemade look they deserve:

And I made some flowers for my quilt top. I'm not sure yet which ones to go with, or if I should do a combination of the three. Here is general idea of the final product:

But maybe with a button:

Or two?

And last, but definitely not least, today marks 7 months pregnant! I am getting so excited to meet our little baby girl!

Brownies Anyone?

I made THREE batches of these delicious brownies from scratch today. It was my first go at a recipe rather than boxed brownies because let's face it, box brownies are still super good, amazingly convenient, and loads cheaper to make. But ever since I tasted these goodies at one of our friends', I've been dying to make them. And our ward camp-out tonight is the perfect place to take them (so I don't end up eating the whole batch myself). They are called "Gotta Have It Brownies" and here's the recipe!

First you bake them....

Then you put a whole bag of marshmallows on top and bake 'em some more...

And then you frost them with yummy frosting...
and EAT them!

Now I just need to clean up this.

The Crazy Nester...

So, it's becoming pretty apparent that I am enjoying this whole "nesting" phase thing. Ever since we broke down and bought our crib, I have been exploding with projects! Brian thinks I'm going a little crazy on him, but I absolutely love how I feel. I have so much energy and a drive to get so much done. Take Monday for example... I dropped Brian off at work by 8am and then headed to Walmart where I picked out a curtain rod and some brown bed sheets. I went straight home, unstitched the edge of two sheets to change them into curtains, ironed them, installed the curtain rod above our bedroom window, and hung the curtains. I haven't hemmed them yet because I wanted Brian's input and he didn't exactly know that I was doing any of this. (SURPRISE!?!)

My morning didn't stop there though. Before I headed to work I managed a stop at the fabric store to buy the rest of my supplies for my first quilt. I took some fabric from my mom's cupboard over the weekend and decided I could make a cute quilt out of some of it. Hopefully it will turned out as cute as I imagined. Last night I ironed the pieced and sew the backing pieces and the top pieces together and then laid them out with the batting between. I also purchased some curved safety pins yesterday (another trip to the fabric store) so I will be able to baste this so I can get it on the machine to do some stitching in the ditch (there's a first time for everything right? wish me luck!!!). Here's the top so far.

On Monday night we also added a new baby item to our list: the travel system! We got the Chicco Cortina Travel System. It includes our car seat, base, and stroller. Brian was such a proud daddy and put the whole stroller together when we brought it home.

{just look at that smile!}

While he was piecing that together, I saw our new purchase as an opportunity to make a car seat canopy! I've been waiting for that project until I could measure the handles for strap placement, but I think it turned out cute. Thoughts?

{me at 30.5 weeks}

So am I going as crazy as Brian says I am? Did I mention I have onesies ready to have applique added to them? Hmmm... yup, this nesting business is for real!