Monthly Archives: March 2017

When You Just Can’t Focus

Today is a crazy day. So much to be done and my mind is just wandering from one thing to the next with little actually being accomplished.  Baby Girl is just far too content on the inside and my daughter-in-law is having labor induced today.  So far things are going just fine but I am excited for the baby’s arrival and, as any mother would be, empathizing with my DIL and remembering how it was to deliver the first child. Exciting, nerve wracking, lots of unknowns. My DIL is a physician which means she has less of the “unknowns” than I did but still… until you experience it, you don’t really know what it will be like.

So I am distracting myself and playing in the sewing room. It is so cold out – we got a dusting of snow which often seems to happen just when my daffodils are blooming.

As for projects, I have a number of things stacked up in the sewing room!  My first priority is a bunting I am making for Baby Girl. I have each flag ready to go. I will applique her name on it when I find out what it is. Until then, I can’t really do anymore on this.

I am using gray fabric for the letters. I suspect I will be working on this tomorrow!

Over the weekend I started to cut out a shirt. I didn’t have quite enough for the entire layout and figured I would run over to the store and pick up another yard of this gorgeous charcoal gray knit.  However, they are out and it isn’t coming back.  🙁  So, I am changing plans and will make the sleeveless version. It is cute and will be a good way to make sure the pattern fits correctly. If I am happy with it, I want to make it with the three quarter length sleeve and a cowl neck. I love the  version with the cross over in front.

When I got the pieces cut out, I realized I didn’t have the right needle for my machine. Clearly, this just wasn’t in the cards for me and set it aside. I will go pick up needles later today!

Moving on from the shirt, I decided to cut pieces for a baby quilt I am making for my niece. Her third child, a girl, is due at the end of the month. I am using the pattern, When You Wish, by Kristy at Bonjour Quilts.  It is a free download when you sign up for her newsletter.

I had plenty of fabrics to choose from and they create a nice rainbow effect.

This quilt is just a very effective arrangement of HST’s. I have most of the HST’s completed and have begun stitching them together. I love the look.  I am saving my HST trimmings. Some time ago, I saw something on Kitty Wilkin’s blog, Nightquilter.com, about leaving the trimmings out for the birds and seeing them in nests in the spring.  We are just coming into spring and we have a plethora of birds so I want to see if we get any colorful nesting going on!

I plan to gather a few more and put them out in a suet feeder. I will let you know if I get any results.

Ok – last thing for today — I made this awesome frosting over the weekend! (Talk about jumping into a completely unrelated subject!)  Julia and I were making a treat for my husband to celebrate a (work-related) special accomplishment. But he can’t have dairy products so I was looking for a new way to ice a cake. The cake was chocolate and it seemed like this Peanut Butter frosting recipe would be a fun one to try. Oh. My. Gosh! It was amazing.

Peanut butter, coconut oil, almond milk and powdered sugar. Amazing. Not at all healthy and three zillion calories, but for a treat? So yummy.  Here is a link if you would like to give it a try.

That is the latest and greatest. I will be on pins and needles (ugh, terrible play on words) all day. Hoping for a swift delivery of Baby Girl and that her amazing mama does well throughout the process.

A Quilt for Baby Girl

We are playing the waiting game for Baby Girl (my first grandchild) to arrive.  Everyone is so excited to meet her but she seems to be taking her own sweet time. My daughter-in-law is great about my constant texts – although I had better knock it off or she might block my number. 😉

I did get the baby quilt finished and sent off. It turned out so cute! Remember I used the Simply Snuggly pattern by April Rosenthal, making adjustments to size it down just a bit. The baby’s room is lavender and white. My daughter-in-law asked for lavender, gray, white and pink for quilt colors. I had fun shopping for these.  This was the initial fabric pull but I didn’t end up using all of them.

The quilt is a collection of HST’s set on point with sashing between each one. It was very simple to piece.

I enjoyed quilting this sweet little project. I free motion quilted a flower on each HST.  Once those were finished, I did little loops on the long sashing rows and a little heart on the sashing between each block.

Simple and sweet for Baby Girl.

The backing was made with a cute bunny print and I added a few leftover HST’s to jazz it up a bit.

The quilting shows nicely from the back. There are some puckers, or ripples, where I quilted the sashing. I am guessing it might be from the order in which I quilted it? Quilting the blocks and then coming back to the sashing might not have been the best choice? Maybe I should have been more methodical and quilted each row in its entirety and it may have given me a smoother finish. But it is what it is, right? I washed it and it is all crinkled up and ready for Baby  Girl to use it.

I bundled it up and sent it off. The strip of fabric I used to bundle it up is actually a scrap from the binding fabric. Sweet lavender and white flowers.

Hopefully I will have news of the baby to share with you soon. Until then, I will try to be patient and leave the kids alone! Believe me, it isn’t easy. 🙂

Linking to my usuals, as well as She Can Quilt for the end of Q1 FAL link up. Check the Link Ups tab at the top of the page for the details.