At about 1:30am yesterday morning Bea and her dad got back from a father-daughter vacation to San Francisco and Santa Barbara. This is my favorite photo from their trip.
And today was also Bea’s first day of first grade! It was a bittersweet moment, and I can’t wait to see her when she gets home from school.
But, only having two kids with me this morning allowed me to get the binding sewn on my newest quilt. It is in the dryer right now.
Have a fantastic weekend!!!
This quilt measures about 39” square.
The fussy cut fabric is called Kharma Baby, most of the log cabin fabric is DS Quilts and Metro Circles, and the sashing is Kona ash. I used warm and white batting and the backing is a wonderful fabric from Connecting Threads from their Quilter’s Candy collection. It is light gray with little stars all over it.
I used a zig-zag stitch to machine bind this quilt and you can see it’s getting more and more accurate on the back as I’m sewing from the front. It’s just taken a lot of practice. This is probably my tenth quilt I’ve completely machine bound.
Here is a peek of the next project I’m working on. The fabrics in this one are from the Maya collection.
Linking up to WIP Wednesday!
I accidentally joined two online bees this year. I meant to join one, but somehow I found myself as the January block person for a different bee too! I thought they were the same bee, but in fact, they are hosted by two different people on two different blogs. How did I let that happen? Children, I’m sure. Not being able to focus for more than a few seconds before somebody needs me! Anyway, this should be interesting!
So I was really sweatin’ my fabric choices for January since this is my first bee and I’m the first to pick. Then, this beautiful quilt came across in my reader and I was smitten! It is made by Melissa Burt and posted on the Connecting Threads blog, Notions. The quilt is called “Wonkytown.”
I went ahead and bought some fabric for the border and back since it was still technically 2011 (for 2012, I have resolved to spend less time looking at fabric online—and buying it—and more time sewing).
 |  |
The fabric is by Anthology. I think it’s called Woodlands.
I made three tree/house blocks just to see how easy/difficult it was and give better guidance in my preferences for the block. It was a bit of a challenge to make the blocks, but I am pretty happy with how they turned out. I did my first ever embroidery (if you can even call it that) on the sun’s rays in this block:
When I showed it to my husband, he said, “Isn’t it a little asymmetrical?” Ha ha, men just don’t understand!
Then I tried another tree block, and this time made it night.
The fox sleeping in the bush isn’t quite what I envisioned. The two snow-ball corners of the bush got cut off in the seam allowance, but overall it is an acceptable block. I plan to put it in a pieced back.
Then I made a house block:
This one turned out pretty good I think. I tried to make it on a hill and that’s how it looks to me.
I can’t wait to see what my other bee members come up with! Melissa, who made the original quilt, hung it on the wall in her daughter’s bedroom. I was thinking that might be a nice thing to do with this quilt as well since Bea and Esther are moving to a new bedroom this year. It is much bigger than their old one.
On a personal note…I have been having unbelievable urges to have another baby! I joke about it all the time, but there is literally a jumbled pile of exersaucers, bumbos, boppies, and a swing at the bottom of our stairs by the front door ready for me to pass on to another person…and it’s been sitting there at least 2 months! I guess I am not ready to call it quits yet. The only problem is that I have been having trouble sleeping lately and now take a prescription to sleep. In November my husband went on a business trip and was gone about a week. I literally did not sleep for almost 4 days and had to go to urgent care when he returned to get medical intervention!!!! It turns out that I was taking real Sudafed for a cold, and whatever the active ingredient is, it was making me jittery and unable to sleep. So, since then I’ve been taking Ambien. A few nights I haven’t, but usually I am so nervous when I go to bed that I won’t be able to fall asleep that I can’t fall asleep unless I take the prescription. It is such a dumb problem, but I certainly don’t know how to get around this.
I counted, and I have 7 quilt tops finished that have not been basted or quilted yet. I am going to see how many I can get finished in January. I am not going to start any new quilts until they are all completed. They are: Greek cross, charmed prints, Chinese coins, Valentine’s quilt, my dad’s flannel quilt, my mom’s denim quilt, and a new one I have almost completed, Little Leaves. Oh, and I just remembered, I have a flannel quilt I made for Bea two or three years ago that I never got around to finishing. This quilt is huge! I think it will need to be tied instead of quilted. So, that makes 8 quilts to finish up first!
Here’s to a happy new year!
