Saturday, July 9, 2011

Hanging on with both hands

I don't want this vacation to end. I am so relaxed, so happy. I've been getting done what needs doing, but not stressing about the rest, and I am so proud of myself! Plus, I've been getting some wonderful sewing time in.


First up, the binding is on my Ella Quilt, and it is in the wash. (please come out of the wash unscathed and wonderfully crinkly!! Do any of you worry about your colors running or stitches not holding or some other catastrophic event taking place between the time you put your quilt in the wash and the time you take it out?) I will be ready to send it off to my friend on Monday.




Secondly, I finished the Birdie Stitches BOM for May (yes, I know it is July - just smile and nod and be happy for me).




As usual, I modified the block a little - there were too many flowers in there for my liking, so I took some out.



And finally, I've been trying to come up with a quick and easy baby quilt for a co-worker who became a father for the second time this past week. I have been seeing lots of quilts with panels of a focus fabric, so I wanted to do that. Plus, I wanted her initials (we weren't clued in on the name until she was actually born). But it turns out that I don't have much fabric that I feel coordinates with the fabric I want as the focus panel. Be honest - is this too plain?


Do you have any suggestions for me? I haven't sewn anything yet, just played with things on the floor. Unfortunately, being the scrap quilter that I am, I only have limited quantities of the fabrics I want to use, so the quilt will be quite small, but then, so are babies, right? In all the time I've been agonizing over making something simple, I could have pieced a top!


Other than sewing, I've been alternately hanging out on my bed watching Brothers and Sisters (I'm on Season 2 now and still ridiculously addicted to that show!) and hanging out on my porch, reading, drinking iced tea and eating these beauties that I picked in our yard before breakfast.



Oh, how I don't want this vacation to end! I am hanging on to each second of it with both hands!

6 comments:

Cheryl Willis said...

I think simple is lovely, are you going to hand quilt it? the baby won't be able to read it for awhile but will get a kick out of have a personal quilt to use when she gets older playing with her dollies. cw

Quiltluver said...

What a beautiful quilt. I recently washed a quilt for the first time, and I added a couple of those color catcher sheets. It was a good thing. The color catcher came out dark brown, and the quilt came out ok. They really do work.

Debbie said...

When ever Im worried about colours running i use one of those colour catcher sheets from shout.

I washed a mostly white quilt with this one (for the first time) with 3 sheets(just in case) and had NO issues!

http://debaeremaeker.blogspot.com/2011/06/critter-ufo-done.html

with the bold blues and red I was sure something would run so i put the sheets in. I had used the sheets before so I had no problem putting in my mostly white one with it.

Julie Fukuda said...

Glad you are having such a fun and fruitful vacation.

Michelle said...

I love the plain quilt. I think it looks great.

Glad your enjoying your vacation. I'm desperately trying to finish up cleaning and organizing this week so I can get into piecing quilts together to work on in the camper before we move!!

Take care!

joe tulips said...

Ella turned out beautifully. I always wonder what will come out of the dryer...will it hold together? will colors run? will it crinkle just right? So far they have all come out of the dryer with no problems.
The "plain" quilt....What if the blue was cut into squares (one of the squares would have her initials) and then all that blue was sashed with the flowers? Maybe even applique a few hearts, here and there. It looks really pretty in my head.