Just a Fruit Tray

A friend of mine was having a party, so I asked what I could bring. She suggested it would be great if I brought some fruit. And that is how this began....

I started making jokes that I was going to make the greatest fruit tray ever; so, I started looking at fun ideas to bring a fruit tray, and got pinterest-spired and it snowballed. I saw a really great pin about how to make a watermelon pirate ship, which I obviously concluded would be the coolest thing EVER. But, then I saw a tutorial for apple swans. Well, I had to make those as well. What other opportunity would I have to do so?! And hey, swans and ships are both in the water... so it could work right?

I enlisted a friend to help...and hubby stated that this was my project, and he wasn't helping. My friend bought all the fruit at costco and brought it over for me. We had put the kids to bed already, so it was about 8pm when we started. The party was after church the morning, so it had to be done before bed.

I used  this tutorial for the pirate ship. Hubby quickly came over to assist me (as he almost always does). We didn't to put a skull, because part of the party was for a baby dedication, so we ( I mean hubby, because really he did most of this part) cut a cross on the mail sail. We (I mean my friend) used a melon baller to get as much out of the watermelon as possible We used some of the watermelon to make waves at the bottom as well.

 

As pieces were done, they went in the fridge overnight and were just fine the next day. 

We also cut out letters out of the watermelon. I had seen this posted somewhere.. like this, and they used cantoloupe I believe, which would have been easier because it is harder. Watermelon was finicky. We cut out flat slices of watermelon and used little letter cutters (that I use for fondant).

Lastly, we (I mean me) carved apple swans. Now, this looked like the most difficult part, but was really simple. I followed this video here.

Doesn't it look fun?! Everyone was very impressed. It was a great project... unfortunatley, now my kids always want their apples cut into swans before they will eat them...
Oh well.. What can you do...

400 Triangles Sewn Together ... Baby Love quilt

Well, Well, Well, I'm back. I didn't feel like I had enough time, or was doing enough projects to make this worthwhile. Now, I have a whole backlogs of things I've done, so I am going to give it another go. I really enjoy blogging, and really feel I need to focus on things I like doing, for a break from everything. Life as a working mom of 2 gets stressful... So here I am!

I have been quilting a lot. I still only do baby quilts... I always want to move on to the next project, so I keep them small. And seriously, Wikipedia (thats a legit source right??! ... sorry every professor I have ever had) says that quilts are traditionally made to commemorate a birth (and other stuff.. blah blah)... so there! This quilt is not the last one I made... but, it is the favourite one I have ever made.

I found this tutorial at Must Love Quilts. I had it sitting on my pinterest board for a long time, but my silly friends never found out the gender of their babies! I knew I wanted pinks, so this was not going to be a gender neutral quilt. FINALLY, a friend from church, who lives down the road told me she was having a baby girl (her 3rd BTW), and I knew this would be for her.

 

 

On "Must love Quilts" one of the ideas was sort of ombre looking and this was my original inspiration. I was a little intimidated by the idea of cutting out over 400 triangles and I spent a few hours pondering some shortcut to do this. I realized there probably wasn't one and decided to just get going. After picking out my fabrics, I started cutting out my triangles. When I had a bunch ready, I decided to lie them out to get an idea how it may look. 

 

 

 

At this point I wasn't convinced. It never looks like I am picturing in my head, and I started to get discouraged. So, I impatiently sewed my quilt together in chunks, in no particular order, in the hopes of seeing what it may look like. 

This hodgepodge of strips finally started getting finished, and as I was hanging them in rows on my wall (which Hubby does not appreciate, having pins in our walls) I was starting to like it.

 

 

Now, a few weeks after little Ella was born, I was almost done. She was actually born in February, very close to Valentines Day, so I knew this was perfect!!

 

I love the backing fabric, I had bought it on a whim, knowing I wanted to use it as backing at some point!





 And Done! I am working on taking better pictures of my quilts. After working so hard, I want to have a record of all these things I have made!!

 

 

There are so many variations of this quilt you could make! I know this is definitely not my last equilateral triangle quilt! It was time consuming, but I love it!!