Blogger's Quilt Festival: Fall 2012

I always enjoy seeing all the quilts pop up for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, and was excited as I worked on Coop's quilt to be able to share my own!  Unfortunately, I didn't quite get it finished up in time for it this past spring, but I'm happy to share it now!  Head over to Amy's Creative Side to check out the rest of the quilts.

Those of you who have been around for a while already know this quilt's story.  I started it in January 2011, shortly after finding out I was pregnant, but before officially finding out that we were having a boy (I knew it all along).  I stumbled upon the Postage Stamp QAL at PS I Quilt & decided it would be fun to make for our baby, originally planning to make it gender neutral.  But then I found this Boys Will Be Boys fabric & couldn't pass it up since I knew deep down that I was having a boy.  Unfortunately, I fell behind in the quilt along, but hoped to be able to finish it up by the time our "Goose" (his name before he was born) was born in August.  I got the top & back finished, then basted it only 10 days before he was born.  Crawling around on the floor basting with that big ol' belly in the way was not an easy task!  Coop was born in mid-August, and since I had decided to hand-quilt it, and couldn't decide how to quilt it, I told myself I had to have it finished by his first birthday.  This past winter I played around with some different ideas, and finally decided on quilting lines through all the solid squares, and managed to finish it up in June.  We absolutely love this quilt & use it all the time.  Coop's not old enough to care much about actually using it as a blanket yet, but he loves crawling around & playing on it, and it lives in the living room for hubby or I to cuddle under as the evenings are getting cooler.  It makes me so happy & proud every time we use it, knowing how much work I put in to it.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats
Fabric:  Boys Will Be Boys by David Walker & Kona Brown
Finished quilt measures:  65″x 77″
Quilted by:  me
Best Category:  Hand-quilted Quilt, Throw Quilt

I must have been crazy...

I'm working on the back for the new quilt (which is taking longer than the top!), and was thinking about how long it took me to finish up Coop's quilt.  I got curious, and couldn't remember exactly when I basted it, other than remembering I was pregnant out to here & miserable crawling around on the floor to pin it.  I just looked back, and realized I must have been insane.  Or nesting.  Or...something...but probably just plain nuts.

Here Raven is "helping" me baste Coop's quilt, what ended up being just 10 days before I had him. 

And here's me two months before that (I apparently didn't take any pictures of myself after that...huh...), so I was still very much growing. 

Yes, I had some of my maternity pictures taken while standing in a soybean field.

There are corn pictures too. :)

Did I mention crazy?  I remember I was sweating buckets, it was so hot, even though I had the AC cranked & was freezing poor hubby out of the house.  And I was watching some random kids' cooking competition.  I was in such a hurry to get it done, and somehow I still thought I might be able to finish it before Coop was born.  

Anyways, there's really not much point to all this, except to remind myself that I really can't complain when it comes time to baste this quilt.  It should be a complete cakewalk compared to the last one!

Until next time...

I've been holding out on you...

Ummm...so, yeah, Coop's quilt is done!  And it's kind of been done for over a week, but I haven't shared the pictures yet.  So sorry!  The closer I got to the end, the more & more excited I got about finishing it, then once it was done I completely forgot about posting it.

I am so totally in love with this thing.  It doesn't hurt that I've been working on it for almost a year & a half!

I was so worried when I washed it the first time since I hadn't pre-washed any of the fabric.  My worst fear was that all that red would bleed all over the rest of it, but Color Catchers to the rescue!  I used a dozen (not even joking!), six on the first wash & six on the second, and they definitely did their job.  I'll probably wash it alone & use some more the next time I wash it as well.  The last thing I need is for it to get ruined in the washer.  

I couldn't have been happier when the very first time I spread it out on the floor, Coop was playing on it like crazy.  I think this is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Coop!

The back is fairly simple, but I really love how it turned out.

It feels so good to be done!

So you might be wondering what have I been up to the past week that kept me from sharing all this?  Oh, just this little project!

That's right, I made another quilt top!  This one is a little smaller than Coop's (50"x70"), but I finished the whole top in six days.  That's right - six days - start to finish.  I'm working on the back now & trying to decide how I'm going to quilt it.  I think I'm going to try doing this one on the machine, so we'll see how it turns out.  So far I'm loving it though!

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #32

It's been so long since I shared a WIP Wednesday, I'm happy to have a big update this week!  Surprisingly I'm really not working on a whole lot right now, but I'm spending a lot of time working on Coop's quilt.  My main goal is to get it done by Coop's birthday in August, something that I was starting to doubt I'd be able to do, but now I'm hoping to get it finished up by next week.  I've made a lot of progress!

I finished up the quilting on Sunday, and am working on the binding now.

You might remember my original plan was to quilt circles in each of the brown squares, then switched to a combo of straight lines with the circles, but finally settled on straight lines through the brown squares in both directions.  I still love the idea of the circles, but it was taking so long & was such a pain that I wasn't enjoying working on it at all.  Once I switched to all straight lines, it was relatively quick to finish up & in the end I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I ended up having to make the binding a little wider than I originally planned because somehow my back wasn't lined up quite right so there are some sections with the selvage or batting showing. 

Luckily the wider binding will cover those little mistakes (whew!), but unfortunately now my quilting is a little off in the squares on the edges.  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to redo some of the quilting, or just let it go. 

I'm so excited to be making so much progress on this, and can't wait to get it finished up.  Maybe by this time next week it'll be done!

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #31

I'm happy to say I've actually gotten quite a bit done in the two weeks since my last WIP update! Unfortunately none of it has been the Christmas gifts I hoped to start working on, but hey, progress is progress. Right?

New Projects: Kat was still looking for blocks for her Cheeky Quilt, so I made a couple for her. I didn't sign up the first time I saw her mention it (I just happened to notice that her first request was the same day Coop was born!) because her original October deadline just wasn't going to work out for me, so I was really happy to be able to help after all. I really enjoyed making these scrappy log cabins, and was so happy with how quickly they came together.

Kat mentioned that she likes bird & vintage floral prints, so I combined the two for this first block. Yes, it sounds like an odd pairing, and when I originally pulled the fabrics for it I worried it wouldn't be bright enough, but I love how it turned out.

The second block is truly from my scrap bins, with lots of fun memories. There are the elephants from my last round in the Pretty Little Pouch Swap; dots & monkeys from Coop's quilt; the green fabric from my nursing cover & carseat handle; Denise Schmidt prints from all those origami bags; a couple of my favorite Riley Blake Rainy Days & Mondays prints; and both prints from one of my favorite Keyka Lou City Totes.

Baby Charlie's outfit & football was probably one of my favorite things to work on over the past week.

I started another knit scarf, which I need like a hole in the head, but I absolutely love scarves in the winter. Unfortunately the ones I find in the stores are never long enough, so I have to make my own. Ah shucks.... ;) This is just a bit of a test piece to make sure the checkered pattern I've been wanting to try out for a while would look okay. I absolutely love this bright peacock blue & hopefully I can get some progress made on it this weekend. I'd like to do an ear warmer & possibly hand warmers to match.

I did work on one other secret project, but I'll have to wait to share that one. It's pretty darn cute though, so hopefully I can share it soon!

Ongoing projects: I've changed my mind about the quilting on Coop's quilt. Nothing drastic, I'm still doing the circles, but I've added some straightline quilting as well on the diagonals. The straight lines obviously go a bit quicker than the circles, which is part of the reason I decided to go this route. I also like the idea of mixing things up even more, so now there will be circles, straight lines, and Xs. I do like how it's looking so far, so I think it's a good decision.

I'm finally past the thumbhole on the green ribbed handwarmers. I've got to be honest though, I'm not really feeling these now. I'm really excited about having hand warmers since I'm not overly crazy about gloves, and I absolutely love the color & feel of this yarn, so I guess it's just the design that's not doing it for me. Also, I realized while working on Coop's hat, that for the past two years I've been doing my knit stitch incorrectly, going on the back of the needle instead of the front. This has made my stitches much tighter as well as slower & harder to work. Unfortunately, to finish this project, I really need to continue to do it the incorrect way so it will still look the same. So I have a dilemma, and a few options. Do I finish this one the incorrect way, and make the second the same? Do I finish this one the incorrect way & make the second the correct way, hoping they match close enough? Do I rip this one out now & completely start over the correct way? Or do I just scratch the entire project? I can't decide, but in the meantime, I'm plugging away to at least finish this first one. I can't even think about starting on the second until I either finish & completely tear out this one, and at this point I guess I'd rather finish it & then go from there.

No progress on the crochet blanket, I'm kind of at a stand still on that again. I love both knit & crochet, but I go through phases where I prefer one over the other, and it's definitely knitting lately.

Completed projects: I did finish up Coop's hat, which I'm just over the moon excited about. It is a bit big on him, and I originally planned on making another that fit better, but decided against it. You'll have to excuse the picture quality, I took it on my cell phone, but if you don't laugh, you're dead inside. ;) Seriously, I absolutely crack up every time I see this picture.

The expression on his face & way he's holding his hands get me every time.

And because this kid is just so darn cute, I can't help but share this picture as well. Just look at those eyes, hide your daughters! :)

I hope you all have a very wonderful Thanksgiving!

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #29

13 down, only 617 to go!

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #28

Unfortunately, I haven't much time for sewing, but I have gotten a few things done over the past few weeks.

One thing I haven't gotten to is Cooper's quilt (it's weird not calling it Goose's Quilt!), so it's still sitting with just a few of the over 600 circles quilted.

I've gotten a few things made for myself that make this mommy life a little easier. One is this padded piece for the car seat handle. It's basically just a mini quilt (think mug rug size), but I used four layers of batting.

The shape looks all funny now, but that's because it's been wrapped around the seat handle for a month.

I bound it with ribbon I had on hand, which worked pretty well. I just wrapped it around the edge & sewed both sides down at once. The top side looks pretty nice, but I got in a hurry towards the end & it got messed up a bit on the back side.

I did manage to finish up a nursing cover as well, using the same green fabric.

I also finally managed to finish up my August blocks for the String Me Along Bee. They were much easier than I expected, so I feel even worse about putting them off so long.

Now I'm working on September's block for Sharon. She asked for something made with half square triangles. I've gotten the triangles all sewn together, now I just have to figure out how I want to put it all together.

I'm also still working on a crochet blanket, but I haven't had much time for it lately. One of these days I need to get a picture of it!

And of course, saving the best for last, I can't leave without sharing this:

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #27

I'm back! Well, sort of at least. I can't promise this will be a weekly update anymore, since I haven't had time to do much crafting lately. But hopefully I'll be able to pick it up again soon!

Before having Cooper, I started working on the quilting for his quilt. It seems odd to still call this "Goose's Quilt." :) My original plan was to do random circles all over in different sizes, but I decided instead to make a small circle in each solid square. Yes, each and every one. Yes, I'm probably nuts.

I have a few more done since I took this picture, and I'm really liking it. I know it's probably going to take quite a while to make all these circles, and I may have to wait until winter when it's not so warm, but it'll get done. Slowly, but surely. This guy is totally worth it. :)

I also picked up supplies to make one of these nursing covers from Little Birdie Secrets. I haven't decided yet what fabric I'll use, but I hope to be able to finish it up before this weekend. Hopefully Coop cooperates & lets me have a little free time!

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #26

I'll tell you the same thing I've been telling everybody else these days - nothing much to report. ;)

I did get Goose's quilt basted the end of last week. Let me tell you, it was no small feat! This thing takes up practically all the floor space in our living room, and I had to take a few breaks from crawling around on the floor to sit decent. I even had to crank up the AC I was sweating so bad!

Of course Raven had to "help," and try it out.

After taking the picture, I went outside to grab the mail, and she got excited when I put my flip flops on & started spinning circles in the middle of the quilt. Luckily enough of it was already pinned together so she didn't make any extra work for me.

What do you say? I think she approves of "little brother's" blanket. :)

Hopefully, hopefully I'll have a really big finish next week! ;)

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #25 - the back is done!!!

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am this week. Finally, finally I made myself work on the back for Goose's quilt & it's done! I took the time to sit down, do the math, and cut all the pieces for the back one evening last week. I already had most of it figured out, but had to double-check everything before I started cutting.

I was so paranoid making those first few cuts. I only had 1/2 yard cuts of the fabrics for the back, and was cutting them wider than half the width, so if I screwed up I would have to come up with a different way of doing the back. Luckily my original math was correct, and it came out exactly the size I planned, which is a few inches bigger than the top.

Next up I have to baste this bad boy, and I can't even begin to think about how much fun that isn't going to be. I had to crawl around on the floor a bit to pin the pieces together while I was working on the back, which wasn't easy with this little bowling ball in the way. I'm not sure how I'm going to crawl on the floor for an extended amount of time to baste this thing. Anybody want to come visit to help me pin? And by help, of course I mean do all the work on the floor while I sit & watch. :) It's certainly tempting to wait until after he gets here so I can move around a little more easily, but I'm actually still kind of hoping to get this all finished up before he comes. We'll see!

Of course I still need to decide for sure how I'm going to quilt it. I'm really leaning towards hand-quilting with random size & placement of circles all over. No other great ideas, so that's probably what I'll stick with.

I need to measure again & see if the striped pieces I have left from the jelly roll will be enough to bind the whole thing. If not, I'm leaning towards using just the bright blue dots, which will match the vertical stripe on the back (and some of the squares on the front).

Nothing else is really in the works right now since I don't really want to start any big new projects right now. My biggest "in progress" has yet to make his debut & seems to be staying put for now. We sure are anxious & excited to meet him!

Until next time...

The top is done!

YAY! Finally, finally Goose's quilt top is done!

It ended up a great size, about 55"x77". It'll be a little big for Goose right now (well, in August!), but he'll be able to use it longer.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with the back, but I'm leaning towards stripes rather than squares. My problem is the fabric isn't wide enough to cover the full back, so I was thinking about doing a border around the whole thing. But (there's always one of those, isn't there?), I don't think I have enough of the blue dots to make a full border. So now I'm thinking about doing the stripes, but with a stripe of the blue dots splitting it down the middle. I'm still very much in the planning stages with it though.

Here's the order for the stripes on the back, if I go that route. Like I said, the blue dots will on it somehow as well.

I'm definitely happy with how the top turned out, and I can't wait to get it all finished up.

Raven likes it too. :)

Until next time...