My Current WIPs

So here's what I've been working on one weekend at a time.

My sister's baby quilt is finally basted. I had to run to Joann's the night before Halloween (huge mistake!) to get basting pins because I couldn't find mine. Or rather, that was the night I finally couldn't take not having some anymore and ran out to get them. I literally had a box in my hand two minutes after walking into the store and then stood in line for over half an hour to pay for my one box of pins. Since all of my sister's baby showers are now done, here it is in its full glory (minus elephant and birds):

Unfortunately, I have not yet found the motivation to start quilting it. So it's just sitting folded over the back of my sewing room chair. Oh yeah, my sister is expecting a boy that they are going to call Henry.

So in my effort to find something to keep myself busy while I wait for my quilting motivation to arrive, I pulled out all of my Kate Spain charm packs and took out all of the duplicate fabrics. I am using the following: 35 pieces of Honey Honey, 40 pieces of Daydream, 19 pieces of Serenade, 40 pieces of Cuzco, 38 pieces of Terrain, 36 pieces of Good Fortune. Because this did not add up to even close to 256 (I blame the Serenade), I also pulled out my charm pack of Sunnyside even though I'm already using a Layer Cake of that for another quilt, which garnered me an additional 40 charms, and then I filled out the remaining 8 pieces with some loose charms of Verna, of which I have a FQ Stack that I'll be making into a quilt someday. I sorted everything into colors and arranged them roughly in rainbow order (had some brown, pink, and grey to fit in).

I have sewn together the first two 4x4 block. Once I get all the blocks done, I am going to decide if I want to sash the blocks. I'm thinking of sashing them in 2.5" black strips to take the finished quilt from 72" square to about 82" square, which seems like a better size to me. But we'll see how I feel when I get the blocks done. I kind of like the way it looks without sashing.

Finally I've been working on my (late) October bee blocks for the Stash Bee. Here is the first quadrant complete:

Even though I've completed the first quadrant, it took forever. Something about my quarter inch seams is off, because the pieces are turning out too large, and each quadrant requires 20 pieces. I've cut all of the background pieces, but I'm not sure I can really convince myself to finish another three quadrants. Maybe I'll just finish one more (I've been making two blocks for each person and the finished block is 24" square, so I think two quadrants is plenty), and then send the queen bee the rest of the background pieces and whatever other odds and ends I've completed.

The November blocks are super simple 12" churn dash blocks, and I'm actually looking forward to those, but first I want to get this one out of the way.

It Worked!

So my hubby had an idea to get me motivated to make my September bee blocks and it totally worked. He told me to start by sewing my sister's baby quilt, which is what I'd wanted to do, and then switch to the bee blocks. And it totally worked! Not only did I get further with my sister's baby quilt (all the blocks are now sewn into rows), but I also made two blocks for the September queen bee (a bit late, but not as bad as August).

 

I really enjoy how they turned out too and I got them in the mail the next day. Whee! The tutorial for the block can be found on the Stash Bee blog here.

Progress shot from the baby quilt with all of the navy or magenta removed. I really hope I can use my long weekend to finish this quilt. I'm starting to get a little worried.

Here is my other work in progress:

The seedling had its 20 week ultrasound this week, but wasn't cooperating. So we know neither the sex (even though we didn't want to know, the ultrasound tech seemed to think it was a big deal that she couldn't determine this) nor could the tech get a good picture of the heart. However, the heart appears to be beating just fine (we saw it beating and she measured the heart rate), she just couldn't get a clear shot.

I'm getting more and more excited about our trip to Michigan next weekend and the chance to see my sister and have a joint baby shower with her.

Back to Sewing - Yay!

I now have more energy (although it still deserts me occasionally) and I have rediscovered my quilting mojo! Something about deadlines brings out the overachieving procrastinator in me. I am currently working on a baby quilt for my little sister, Claudia (she's about six weeks further along than I am and all of a year and a half younger). We're having a joint baby shower in Michigan in three weeks, hosted by my brother's wife, Molly (have I mentioned how awesome all of my sisters are, related and in-law, I have another awesome sister on my husband's side, Rachel, and I'm about to get a fourth sister, Jess, once his younger brother marries). I also had to wait until last Friday to find out what Claudia's having, because she wanted either navy blue or magenta depending. I will not disclose what she's having and you'll have to wait to see the finished quilt until after she's ready to go public, but I can show you the pattern I'm working on and some of what I've done so far. :)

So here's my pattern, the elephant will have two birds on its back. And the stripes will either be magenta or navy. I'm using blue and green or magenta and yellow for the elephant and birds for some contrast. The pattern is based on a grey and white rug my sister bought for the nursery and also matches her grey and white crib sheets.

And here are all the grey pieces cut out right before I added the colored stripe pieces. I have now cut and sewn on all the white border pieces (each block is 8.5" unfinished) and have started joining the blocks into rows. The white makes things so much lighter and more playful. Just the grey by itself looked a bit somber for a baby quilt, so I'm glad that's working out.

I also managed to get started on the For Pinks Sakes quilt at my last DCMQG meeting. Finally!

I got so many great blocks, that I'm thinking a queen sized quilt is in my future. I have already managed to patch together the top right corner section and since that encompasses some of my favorite blocks, may end up building around that as a sort of center medallion instead of the layout I currently have on those design walls. There's more to the left of that as well. I tried to pull out at least one block per person, and will grab more as I need them. I've also trimmed and reassembled one or two "extra" blocks to make things fit, but for the most part I'm hoping to keep them intact. It was a great sewing project to work on during our September guild meeting, which was dedicated to making quilts for charities. I also made a wonky star block to contribute to a group quilt.

Yup, that's me in all my pregnant glory. By which I mean, you can't see jack all in this picture. :)
And last, but not least, I actually took pictures of my August Stash Bee blocks before sending them off. They were done well before the end of the month, but it took me halfway through September to actually send them off to the Queen Bee. Luckily most of the people in our group are not in a rush to get their quilts done.

Two heart blocks in eye catching shades of pink and purple with low volume backgrounds.

Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather as much as me!