A SECRET SANTA QUILT.

merry christmas! i'm your secret santa!

i hope you like your quilt! i am not really great at sewing. i don't cut fabric in straight lines and i don't sew straight either. i've named your quilt a "hodge podge" quilt. i don't know if you saw online or not, but i've started an etsy shop. i wanted to keep myself busy with crafting- well, anything really. i've realized that it's something i need to do to stay content. i need to make. so i've made christmas cards and a print.

for december, i decided that i would make this quilt my monthly project. it is the "season of giving", so i'm not listing anything (this quilt) in my shop. now that you know a little bit about the background, i'll let you in on the story of the quilt.

when rorie was just 5 months old in the winter of 2012 i drove to the lincoln square area and picked up two garbage bags full of fabric scraps. i used freecycle and thought i could make something for rorie. well, i didn't. but i held onto the fabric and moved it with us to NH.

some of the fabric i used was from my old kitchen curtains in chicago.

some are scraps from jacobs crib sheets (stars) and my current kitchen curtains (newspaper).

there's a red sweatshirt material from a "camp squanto" sweatshirt whose original owner was my dad (it was falling apart).

other fabric is leftover from the pillowcases i sewed while pregnant with jake. i was nesting (little red flowers & green).

and lastly, there's fabric from the scraps of a dress my mom sewed for rorie when we were waiting for jacob to make his arrival.

the back of the quilt is an old fleece blanket i impulse bought at old navy when i was in high school in VA. both of my kids have spit-up on it (don't worry, i washed it!).

so there you have it...the story behind this epic "hodge podge" quilt that i made specifically for you,

my "secret santa 2014: out-of-towners-edition" (town=chicago-birth place of the burgh babes)

so merry christmas, again!

i love + miss you!

chelsea

p.s. i had my friend britta... if you were wondering who this was sent to.

MOVING, RUBY, & THE BURGH BABES.

this whole moving experience is really making me feel all sorts of crazy. i'm up. i'm down. i'm healthy. i'm stuffing my face with pizza. it's really ugly guys.

my biggest concern is that this is my first time doing this alone. as in, without my family. i've moved about 6 times in my life and then 5 times in/after college. that's 11 times that i've packed up my stuff and moved. the only difference this time... is that it's just me and aaron packing up our stuff. not me and the other 5 people in my family. not me and 15 of my burgh babes. just us.

and things keep happening that are out of my control- per usual, but right now they are really hitting me hard. troubles with getting our rental application approved, utility troubles, new house owner issues, our wii is broken, my internet keeps going out, aaron sprained his ankle, my toddler is running out of things to do because i keep packing her toys, my maternity pants don't fit, liquid laundry detergent spilled in the trunk of my car... i mean, a lot of these things are just ridiculous.

.....

but yesterday was wonderful. i got to meet sweet ruby for the first time. she's the daughter of my friend, christine. the only one in our group to have a baby as of now. my large group of college girlfriends is called the burgh babes- after our IM basketball team- now we're working on our second team... the burgh babies. so far we have two with a third in the works.

we all gathered together in a wrigleyville apartment to have dinner together and pass around the sweet one month old. it was really great to get together again with my chicago family. and it's fun to see how our group is growing and changing with significant others, spouses, and babies. we've shared a lot of fun memories together and it really does keep getting better. i like that we are all in different places in life, too. it really makes me appreciate our differing experiences and perspectives. it's a beautiful thing i think.