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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

WIP Wednesday

I seem to be accumulating a lot of projects lately, so I thought it would be a good idea to organize them a bit. I seem to do WIP posts when I'm feeling a little scattered! 

Untitled

I started this baby quilt for one of my cousins a couple of days ago. They aren't telling anyone what they are having, but the nursery is going to be yellow/grey so I thought this was safe. I know these are gender-neutral colors, but to me, grey and yellow says "It's a girl!". Maybe that is because I'm hoping she has a girl so I can send her Jill's clothes...

Basting, round 2. #finishit2013 
I started this quilt last spring, I think...I was in a sewing slump and trying to break out of it by pulling some fabrics for a simple baby quilt. Then the pile of squares sat around forever until I put this on my FAL list for this quarter. I just finished basting and I'm planning to attempt orange-peel quilting.

So far.

Here is what I have so far from the blocks I've received from my Always Bee Learning ladies, plus a few that I made yesterday. I am so excited to be able to keep this one for myself! I'm waiting to see if a couple of other blocks come in before I finish. I think I'll add one more row. Oh, and those scraps in the lower left are the beginnings of Wyatt's first improv quilt.

Basted, waiting for quilting:
Grey/yellow baby...choose binding
Patchwork baby...choose binding

Waiting to be basted:
 Max's quilt...find backing, choose binding
Baby Steps...choose binding

Tops in Progress:
Chicopee Herringbone

Future/Maybes:
Geese in the Forest
Orbit QAL?
possible tutorial for Baby Steps?

Monthly Projects:
Lucky Stars BOM
Sugar Block Club
Woodland Sampler 

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Weekend Sewing

For the most part, I would say I have had a successful weekend of sewing. 

Exploding Star

Yesterday morning I finished February's Exploding Star from Elizabeth's Lucky Stars BOM. I really just can't get enough of these colors lately. So not my usual thing, but navy, teal, grey, and a bit of apple green just look so good right now!

Then yesterday afternoon I started a baby quilt for some good friends that will be having a little boy soon. I have the hardest time deciding what quilt to make sometimes. I can literally spend hours scrolling through my Pinterest board designing quilts in my head and never getting anything done. I did that for a little while yesterday afternoon during nap time, then got annoyed with myself and grabbed some graph paper. Why yes, I am high tech, thank you very much! After just a bit of math, I had my plan and got to work.

Baby ZigZag, top

I was inspired by this quilt by The Girl Who Quilts. I thought it was a fun variation on a zigzag pattern. This top came together so quickly, I can definitely see myself making another one sometime! 

Wanting to keep my sewing high going, I grabbed the beginnings of a zip pouch that I had started in December for one of the boys' teachers. I had made a few mistakes on it and gotten tired of my seam ripper, so I just threw it into my cabinet and moved on to something else. Since things had been going my way, I decided to give it another shot. 

It would be nice if I caught these mistakes a little sooner.

After sewing on the left side of the pouch twice, I finally got the zipper how I wanted it, only to realize that the lining piece was too small! How I didn't notice before I don't understand, but I have a feeling this beauty is going to get thrown back into the cabinet! 

Now I am taking a bit of a break, though I just ordered the pattern for this quilt, so I'm about to get up and start digging through my green scraps. My plan is a low-key Christmas quilt, doing a few blocks here and there when I feel like it. My only indecision right now is what to use for the background, Kona Snow or a mixture of low-volume prints. Thoughts?


Saturday, February 16, 2013

Twins!

I'm finally getting around to showing you these quilts I made for our friends' sweet little baby girls. I think I finished them in early January! 

Baby Trip

The first quilt I made was inspired by this quilt by Jessica at Twin Fibers. I love simple patchwork and the Trip Around the World setting is a fun spin on that. I had a bit of a hard time choosing prints for this quilt. I knew that I wanted to use the aqua FMF print along with some coral and grey, but I went back and forth several times on the center two prints.
Baby Trip Around the World
I originally had a grey print in the center and a lighter coral for the first ring, but thought it needed something a little more bold, so I chose the dark FMF print and the coordinating yellow/pink one, and it looked so much better! I was a little worried about the brown print sticking out too much with the others, but I think it works.

I had originally started this quilt for another couple that was having a baby girl, but I was still loving this color palette so I decided to make another and give them to our friends that were having twins. I obviously don't have twins nor am I a twin, but for some reason I have strong feelings that twins should not have everything match. Coordination is good, matchy-matchy not so much.

Hourglass Baby
Let's just ignore those wrinkles, okay?
I love classic hourglass blocks, especially with these colors mixed against the crisp Kona Snow.

Untitled

I added a few more prints in this quilt, then had a hard time choosing a binding, but once again, DS dots to the rescue! On a side note, do you start a quilt knowing what fabrics you will use, or do you figure it out as you go? I am definitely the latter which makes it a little more stressful adventurous. Especially since I am stubborn and almost always use what I already have rather than wait on shipping.

Baby Trip, backing

I backed both of these quilts with the AMH's Folksy Flannels. I just love how snuggly  and soft it is for little babies!

And with that, I can check another project off the old FAL. I really should have listed this as two, shouldn't I?

**Linking up with the lovely ladies at Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday**

Friday, February 15, 2013

3 Weeks

Three weeks since my last post. 
What can I say, life has been full around here lately. Mostly full of snot and antibiotics, but thankfully there has been plenty of fun stuff in there to balance out the funk.

At the end of January, this little girl got baptized wearing the same dress that her mom and grandma did when they were baptized. She took it like a champ.

Guess who just got baptized...3rd generation in this dress.

Then, this little boy turned six which is just insane. Unfortunately, I was crazy-sick on his birthday so we had to postpone the festivities for another week.

Wyatt

In other exciting news, we had a little demolition in the backyard.
And even as I type this, our Amish friends are out there digging footers for a new barn. I think Roger is just a  little excited. 

On the sewing front, I finished my Triple Zip Pouch for Wyatt's birthday.

Triple Zip
and have been finishing up a few bee blocks.

Four Scrappy Trip blocks in Loulouthi for Hettie in Always Bee Learning.
Loulouthi Scrappy Trips

Two Road to Fortune blocks for Kelli in That Stash Bee
And then there were two. @kelliw6 #thatstashbee

Bracket blocks in shades of green for Lindsay in dGS
Untitled

Today I'm spending a good bit of time in the kitchen, making Debbie's granola, and experimenting with Slow Cooker Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal, and No-Knead Bread. Let's hope they're good! 

Have a great weekend, friends!