Baby J in her swimsuit

This is my cousin Daniel and his cute daughter.






































He sent me this pic of her in the swimsuit I made for her.
Seriously this little girl is darling...and already she loves the water.

Hope you all are enjoying your summer too!


Post about the swimsuit

Painted the porch swing

 Last week I spray painted the porch swing.

It looks brand new and is so much fun.

I really wanted to paint the swing like this:

Pinterest source

But alas my swing slats didn't go that direction.

I was slightly lazy about painting and probably should have taken the entire thing apart so that I didn't get any of the hardware painted.  That seemed like too much effort.  Besides, by keeping it hanging up I could just flip it over and spray the bottom without having to prop it up against anything else.  And the day I painted it was so warm that it dried super quick.

Instead of taking the swing apart I broke out the Glad Press 'n Seal Wrap and put it over the chain parts near where I was spraying and any of the bolts that I could get to. 

It felt pretty genius on my part.
Once it all dried I just pulled it off and threw it in the trash.

What our view looks like as you sit in the swing.

Lovely!

Details:

• Rustoleum Ultra Cover 2X Gloss Spray in Deep Blue.  This color makes me REALLY happy!

Samuel's T-shirt Quilt Top

Our nephew Samuel, in Nebraska, just graduated from Hastings High School this past May

(as well as received his Eagle Scout Award). 

Post graduation he gathered up the t-shirts he felt he could part with and sent them to me so I could put together this t-shirt quilt.

He is a tall guy (goes without saying for our family)--about 6'3"

and so I had to make sure this quilt was long enough to cover his frame.

That was a trick as he didn't have as many shirts as his sister did.

His older sister is the blondie middle one of this trio of cousins. 

I had to be a bit more creative in how I put his quilt all together.

The finished top.

I am really loving the gray/black keyboard look.

A little close-up of some of the t-shirt piecing I did for the borders.

Now to pick out the back, binding and send it off to the quilter.


Details:

• Front and back (where possible) of about 7 t-shirts plus a sleeve logo.  He had an EXACT duplicate of the white shirt front and back so I only cut the paw print off the second shirt and placed it in the quilt.
• For this quilt I pieced much more of the solid color portion of the t-shirts to add to it, including the sashing. I might have even pulled some solids from other t-shirt quilt extras I had.
• Post about his sister's t-shirt quilt. You can see how different they ended up being even though they attended the same high school and both ran cross country.
• Finished quilt top dimensions: 69 x 89 inches

A-Frame Porch Swing Frame

I like a good porch swing. 
It reminds me of my Grandma Johnson. 
They always had a swing at their homes. 
Though the swing that Grandpa made at their Idaho Falls home was more like this glider.

When we moved last year we took the porch swing with us that had been hanging on our kids' swing set.  The new owners didn't want the swing set and we gave it away on Craigslist in about 2 hours after listing it, but the porch swing came with us.

On Saturday hubby and I made the A-frame for the porch swing.
I'm not going to show the entire process, but just a few to give you an idea.  We based it off of a couple plans we found.  I listed the links at the end.

 17 degree angle cut on the legs and markings of where the cross pieces will attach.

 Leg pieces

 We used a circular saw to cut the lap joints on the legs.

We could have just attached the 2 x 4 pieces with a butt joint but lap joints are stronger.

You just make a number of cuts between the markings down to the depth that you need.

Measure and adjust the blade as needed.

 Then hubby just used a chisel to bust out the cut pieces.

 Once the cut pieces are all out then you do a little clean-up with the chisel.

After you have all the cuts done we dry fit the pieces and take additional measurements of the cross pieces.  The larger piece on top is the beam placed there to determine the correct placement.

Then we just started assembling and screwing down pieces. 

The only cutting down of pieces were on the 2 x 4's.  We left all the 4 x 4's at 8 feet and the top 4 x 6 beam at 8 feet also.  We debated on cutting some of it down, but decided we liked it as is.  The bottom of the top beam ended up being 7 feet 4 inches from the ground once we were all done.

Porch swing is in place. 

It would've been nice to actually hang it on our front porch too;

however, there would not have been much room to actually do any swinging.

You can see the stump back left that we need to remove too. Here is the post on that tree. And then we plan on putting a garden back in that spot too now that it isn't covered entirely by shade.

 A little close-up of how hubby attached and stabilized the beam and frame.

We angled the legs out 10 degrees to prevent some rocking from side to side.

The little stabilizer block piece is cut 45 degrees on the right,

10 degrees on the left and is 6 inches long.

After some time decided to place the swing here so we could enjoy the view of the pond and sunsets. We eventually plan on putting in a permanent fire pit there in front of the swing.

I am really happy with how it turned out for us.

It already is a nice addition to our backyard.

Details:

• (4) 4 x 4 x 8 ft. green treated beams for support legs --$7.65 each
• Cut top of each leg piece at 17 degree angle.
• (2) 2 x 4 x 8 ft. green treated boards for cross support --$3.75 each
• (1) 4 x 6 x 8 ft. green treated beam for top post --$15.57 each
• Total Lumber $53.67
• Plans based off this frame and this frame.
• How to cut half-lap joints here.
• Swing hook kit hardware from Menards for about $9 for the pair.
• Bench swing bought at thrift store a couple years ago ($30). It'll be painting it next.