Happy Ever After and The Wedding Dress

So, apparently I have wedding fever or something of the sort because I just finished reading two wedding related books. The first was Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts and the second I listed to as an audiobook called The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck.

Happy Ever After is the last book in the Bride Quartet series. This series was great for quick and relaxing reads. However far-fetched some of the stories might be they're almost like modern day fairy tales and are cute and charming. I especially liked this book best because I semi-related to Parker and her need to plan out everything. Now she does it to extreme, but I've always been a planner myself. I also like Malcolm's rough edge, what girl doesn't like a bad boy? If you're looking for a happy ending kind of story this is a good one. 

The Wedding Dress on audiobook was fabulous. I love how different the reader made the characters come alive and very unique. The story drew me in too, and I loved how there was a little bit of mystery and both stories begin to come together. One story takes place in the present with Charlotte and the other about 100 years ago with Emily. Charlotte is a bridal gown store owner and is in turmoil over her own engagement and Emily is engaged to a big-shot mine owner and is having to choose between someone she loves and her status. Both stories I felt were well developed and I connected with both girls. I loved the extended layers as well, how all these women were connected by this dress. I loved the playfulness of this book and trying to figure out things as charlotte did.

Overall, two great books to try and cure my wedding fever...

Start of Guestbook Quilt

I'm getting married in about two years from today and I decided that I wanted a guestbook quilt pretty much right off the bat. I'm an avid quilter for about 5 years now so I loved the idea of making something that I already love to make that we'll have forever. I knew I wanted to do something I could use a lot of my scraps for because 1) I use up my scraps and 2) there are little pieces of all the quilts I've made for others in this quilt. I found a pattern for what's called a "Double Wedding Ring Quilt" and figured this is the perfect option. I had seen the pattern in the past and didn't care for it because I tend to like more modern designs, however I saw this picture:

blog with this quilt

on pinterest and I was drawn in by the bright colors and figured I could mimic it with my own bright colors as well as same batiks. I found a free pattern here. I decided to start on the quilt now because well if you take a look at the pattern there are 1500+ little pieces I need to cut out. Needless to say it's gonna take some time just to cut out all the needed pieces. Here's my progress so far:

only about 1400 pieces to go! Woot!

Anyway, there will be updates as I go as I'm sure I'll have many trials and tribulations with this pattern seeing as I've never done anything of the type before. I'm hoping I'll love it as much as I think and that my guests will love it too and be able to find pieces of their quilts in it. 

Warming Megan's house

One of my best friends just moved into a house a few doors down from me (very exciting!). So I decided to put together a little housewarming gift for her consisting of the makings for awesome cupcakes. Who doesn't love cupcakes right? Here's a picture of what I put together:

a new cupcake tin, a mixing bowl, cake mix (confetti cake), Funfetti frosting with sprinkles, and zebra print cupcake liners. I hope she likes her gift and it warms her house! Any other neat ideas for house warming gifts or care packages?

"The Selection" and "The Elite" by Kiera Cass

I just finished the second book in "The Selections" series by Kiera Cass and let me tell you this series does not disappoint. Now I'm a Bachelor/Bachelorette junkie so if you don't share my guilty pleasure than you may not enjoy these books as much as I do. I say this because the story line is essentially The Bachelor meets royalty told from the contestants point of view. America is endearing, spirited, and likable. She makes mistakes and when she does it's humorous in her expense. Maxon is how I think every girl wants their prince charming and Aspen throws another kick in an otherwise fairytale story. Needless to say I can't wait for the next book in the series to come out in 2014. Until then hopefully, The Bachelorette will fill the void.

Ombre Quilt in progress

I'm in the process of working on a quilt for a coworker of mine who's having a little girl this September. Her colors for the nursery are pink and grey. I had seen this quilt on pinterest and had been wanting to do this pattern for a while.

Here's the link for the pattern and tutorial: Ombre Quilt

I chose to switch out the black for grey and did more pinky pinks rather than corals. Here's the progress thus far: 

I also had the idea to put the baby's initial on one of the triangles. I have an amazing embroidery machine (Pfaff Creative Vision if anyone is wondering) so I decided to add a "G" to the quilt. They're thinking the baby's name is going to be Giana and if it's not it can be g for girl or their last name also ends in g. So girly girl baby G gets a personalized quilt. 

The final product to come, but I'm always excited to show my progress on my quilts. This pattern was super easy and a really fast quilt too so I would highly recommend it to any beginners who are looking for a unique easy quilt to start with. Thank you to the See Kate Sew blog for the pattern. I will definitely be using this again.