Scouting... it's what's for dinner...

On the 23rd of January, Justin and I were invited to a special banquet to honor the Scouting leaders in our district. About seven stakes were represented. At the banquet, we were awarded the Second Miler Award for, basically, "going above and beyond the call of duty". They had all the CORs, Stake presidency reps, and basically anyone over a Scout unit in a line to shake the recipients hands. There had to be nearly fifty people in the line...

Anyway, here we are in our uniforms after the ceremony.

I'm not sure if you can see it, but if you blow up the image, you can read our names and everything.

Oh, by the way, the Boy Scouts of America are celebrating their 100th Anniversary. We're all way excited and have all kinds of things planned to celebrate. If anyone would like to come support Justin and I and our little pack, our Blue and Gold Banquet is on Saturday, February 27 at 6:00pm at the Gunlock Ward building. No need to purchase tickets.

Ok... so I'm not a math major...

Last night, as I was sewing mindlessly, I realized that I made a mistake on my dimensions. See, originally, I had planned to do rows of 7 twelve inch blocks which would make 84". But looking at it, I realize that, I had made 7" blocks instead... so I need to do rows of 12 seven inch blocks. So it's gonna take more jeans that I had originally stated... But still, I should have enough for extra quilts.

Anyway, I promised a picture of the block I pieced, using the paper piecing method, and here it is... in very poor quality because, once again, I was flying out of my house and only had time to snap the picture with the camera in my phone... but here it is!
P.S. I know that it doesn't look square, but I swear it is. Honest... its just the lighting and the crappy quality of my camera on my phone.

Pictures to Follow...

Ok. I have learned my lesson. At the beginning-ish of the month, my sister-in-law, Jamie, decided to make some quilts for her kids. At the time, I thought, "haha". Not because I doubt Jamie's amazing crafting skills, but because I know how much work and time and effort and the occasional swear word goes into a quilt. The next day, my mother calls me and says, "by the way, with this stuff I'm sending, I'm also going to send the jeans. I would like you to make a jean quilt out of them. The box weighs fifty pounds."

HOLY CARP! I think to myself. D'oh! You see, for Christmas, I got a new sewing machine, which is way awesome and I love. So I agreed to do it.

I did some quilting research, since I've never actually pieced a quilt, just found cute fabric and tied it (and bound it, so I have experience with the binding aspect). When I got the jeans, I looked at them and thought, there is no way these jeans will make one quilt. I looked at a few more tutorials on YouTube (where would I be with out that informational gem?) and found a tutorial for paper piecing. It looked super easy and I found a really simple pattern for a block and made myself a pattern for a 84" X 84" quilt. It requires 19 dark 7" blocks, 20 light 7" blocks, and 10 pieced 7" blocks.
Now, it took me two days to cut up the jeans with the help of my friend, Hannah. Then I took a break from the jeans while my knuckles recovered from the cutting. On Monday night, I ironed all the pieces and started the preliminary measuring, seeing how many jeans it was really going to take. The answer: 8 pairs. Seriously. 8 Pairs. So, not only am I going to be able to make this one huge quilt for my Mom and Dad, but I'll be able to make quilts about the same size for myself and both of my brothers. Awesome. All that designing for nothing.

Anyway, last night (Tuesday), I got all the blocks cut out and (after several practice attempts) got three of the paper pieced blocks done. This quilt is coming together faster than I thought. And, with the paper piecing, the paper has to be torn off, but its kinda fun because the small stitch length perforates the paper pretty well, and Justin likes to pull the paper off, so he can say that he "helped" with the quilts. It actually is a big help to me. I'm so lucky to have him!

I will post pictures. I was going to take them and post them today, but I was running late out of the house, so I'll take pictures tonight and post them tomorrow.

Wait... what? You didn't go to the Coral Pinks? Are you crazy?

No... not crazy... just not in the mood to sink into the snow again... ugh... I hate snow....

Anyway, we went to the Hurricane Sand Dunes this year instead of to the Coral Pinks. My parents and youngest brother came down for the New Year holiday so my Mom, Alex, Chris, Shae and Max (Chris and Shae's dog) came with us. Due to time constraints, we didn't actually get our Jeep ready. :( I know, I was sad too. So we took Mom and Dad's Jeep and Shae's truck.

I had a great time, even if we only went for a few hours. It was nice to not have to travel so far, but I did kind of miss the Corals.

Mom and Dad's Jeep and Shae's truck. I think it looks like a car add.

How many shots of the temple do you see from this angle, eh?

He can fly!

A picture of the valley. I know that it doesn't really look all that impressive, but when you're standing on the two hundred foot cliff, it's pretty intense...

To put the cliffs in to perspective, I took this picture of Alex "on the edge of oblivion!"