all those balls in the air

Tags

HST baby quilt, quilts, repro granny square quilt, spinning stars quilt

balls in the ayee-aiRRR.

ahem.

Here’s what I have going today:

1. Finished piecing the top of this baby quilt. I’m SO on the fence about this one. Sometimes I look at it and LOVE it. Sometimes I look at it and think it’s dull, like it’s missing…something. I plan to bind it in Kona Tomato OR a beach chair stripe from Riley Blake’s Seaside (used in the quilt top), and I think that’ll give it what I feel it lacks.

I found inspiration for this top on Pinterest, and have continued to think of it as my “Smazoochie” quilt top. (I also *heart* finding new quilt/sewing blogs to follow via Pinterest. I have such a problem. Post one cute quilt picture and I’ll follow you, forever.)

The baby this belongs to is due at the beginning of October. Here’s another waffler: the parents elected not to find out the sex of the baby before birth. While I admire their fortitude, it makes quilt-making a stumper. Unless you do a decidedly green or yellow quilt, anything you make “unisex” looks so boy-ish. Navy’s my favorite color, and I thought the red and yellow would girl it up a bit, but…it ends up looking nautical and little-boy. Maybe I’ll make a girl top to have in the hole just in case?

2. I’m also trucking along with my Spinning Stars quilt. I’m going to gain nine pounds making this sucker. One pound for each blasted block. Everyone on the Flickr group posts these lovely photos of flat perfect blocks. Mine are all poofy in the middle, and I’ve tried several things to fix it: starch. Squaring up the four “square” units before joining them. Not yanking so hard on the fabric as I pull it through the machine. (Type A.) I’m so depressed I didn’t even make the effort to take a good photo of what I’ve got done.

I think the plan here is to JUST FINISH. I hand quilt everything, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to redeem a non-perfect wavy-ish top with a little hand-stitching love. And all I want out of this quilt is a replacement for the only quilt of my granny’s that I have that my husband wads up on the sofa and puts his feet on *ahem.*

3. Binding the Repro Granny Squares–finished hand quilting this one a few days ago, made the binding today, and will have a finish to show by the end of the week, wheee!

Here’s sort of what it looks like around here during naptime. You can see all three of my main WIPs here. In my hurry to get to the sewing machine, I just shove all the toysbooksandjunk to one side so they don’t get too much in pictures. Sighs.

repro granny squares (and baby feet)

Tags

baby, quilts, repro granny square quilt

Two of the reasons we haven’t stopped by this blog in six weeks or so.

The month of August flew by in a flurry of toddler-chasing, moving (not ours, thanks goodness!), furniture shopping, husband-sicky, toddler-sicky, and…summer life. I’m hoping to show up here more often now that the siren song of the beach isn’t quite as sweet and loud. When I wasn’t here, or at the beach, I was making, doing, and reading up a storm. I finished my plus quilt. I got this granny square quilt all the way to basted and half-quilted. I planned and cut and made 50 HSTs for a baby quilt (again, not ours!). I read Gloria. I read (sigh) Gone Girl. I’ve watched waaay too much Gossip Girl (sheepishness). 

More to share in this blog space soon. For now, granny. Tutorial for the blocks here. Fabric is Kona Bone (I pulled a Jo Ann’s scam wherein I purchased 6+ yards for $20, using a 60% off a single cut of fabric coupon; now I have a bolt that should last me through the next two or three projects) and two Aunt Grace “Jolly Packs,” Fat Quarter Shop’s version of the charm pack (which, honestly, I don’t think they’re doing anymore, a shame). I’d been hoarding the Aunt Grace for *just* the right project. This was absolutely it.

Here is a very crummy photo of my first six blocks. I found that the actual block construction was a breeze, and it was a lot of fun. I enjoy making blocks that are sort-of-planned, sort-of-not. Choosing the fabrics as I made each block encouraged fabric and color play, sometimes a lot more fun than just cranking out a certain number of blocks in a certain prescribed color scheme. I was nervous to trim them down, but you know what? It wasn’t bad, and I didn’t lose any triangle points. Go me. At my 16-month-old-chasing-feeding-cleaning, summer-laziness pace, this whole quilt top took me two weeks, about three blocks a session. NOT BAD.

I’ll post more pictures when I get the delicious lavender dotty binding on it. Have you had a recent color crush on lavender and yellow? No? Just me?