Two Baby Quilts

Both of these baby quilts have been finished for quite awhile, but I haven't posted about them yet! They are both made of 5" patchwork with a 4" border; they are quilted on my simple Brother with a walking foot about 1/4" from each seam.

 Low Volume Vintage Sheets 

The patchwork was a giveaway win and then I used my own stash for the border and binding. I found the perfect backing at a rummage sale or a thrift store - I had just enough for the back!

 This quilt was quite girly and because we didn't find out Peanut's gender before she arrived, I kept telling myself that I'd donate it if Peanut wasn't a girl. I was happy when I was able to use it ;)

Seaside!

 I still can't believe I let myself buy Seaside (October Afternoon for Riley Blake). I couldn't help myself - it was just too cute! And then two months after the purchase, I found out I was pregnant and I knew exactly what I'd make with the two charm packs and the two half-yards! This was gender neutral enough that I knew it would be used no matter what. The backing is a JoAnns' flannel that I purchased on Black Friday two years ago.

I have since purchased Sasparilla (again...October Afternoon for Riley Blake) with a gift certificate from a giveaway win)... you know, just in case Peanut ever gets a sibling, I wanted to have another cute, gender neutral quilt all ready ;)

Linking up with Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday and Link-a-Finish Friday.

Hand-Pieced Quilt Along... Finally Finished

Way back in January 2012 (yikes), I started Erin's Hand-Pieced Quilt Along. I loved it! It gave me something to look forward to each Friday when she posted the next block. Well, I had the top pieced together last summer, and this summer, I finally decided to get it quilted and bound. This WIP is finally finished.

Here it is!

 It will hang in my sewing/craft room someday, and I hope Peanut asks about it. Then I can talk to her about...

• loving what you do
• doing what you love
• not everything will come out perfect
• even if it's not perfect, you can still be proud of it

You see, there is no way I'm ever going to wash this wall quilt. I'm pretty sure it would fall apart. I'm not kidding. Sorry there are no close-ups... it's wavy, some triangle points are completely cut off, and the stitches are totally uneven.

 BUT, I still love it and I will be proud to hang it up. I started something and I finished it. And I'm OK with it being perfectly unperfect :)

PS: The scrappy binding is definitely my favorite. It took awhile to hand-sew the scraps together, but I managed to use scraps of each of the fabrics I used in the blocks to create the binding. I love it!

Linking up with Connie's Linky Tuesday and Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday and a new one that I've found called Link a Finish Friday over at Richard and Tanya Quilts... Links are on my sidebar!

August Goal Reached

My August Goal (of piecing the blocks together into this quilt top) is finished and photographed! 

I have been working on piecing this top all summer, and I think I will add a border or two to it once my fabric stash and I are reunited this fall after our big move.

In my head, the neutral diagonals were going to pop more. However, I wanted to use all the colorful and neutral scraps that my mother-in-law gave me, so some of the softer pinks blend in a bit with the neutrals. Overall, though, I think it's a scrappy success!

I've always loved the idea of using nine-patches to create diagonal lines, so I made up this quilt to do just that. The blocks are 6.5" so the nine-patches are made from 2.5" squares.

A big thanks out to Grizz for entertaining Peanut while I took the pictures... afterwards we went on a short family run and then got 50¢ ice cream cones :)

Linking up...

A Few Quilts in Grizz's Family

I took these pictures of a few quilts last summer when we were visiting Grizz's parents. 

Please bear with the poor photo quality and just enjoy some eye-candy :) Perhaps I can take better pictures another time...

A Grandmother's Flower Garden and a Wedding Ring
Faded and well-loved... and still loved today :)
(I've been told who has made these before, but of course I have forgotten... perhaps Grizz's great-aunt?)

Hand-Appliqued Butterflies
Aren't the colors beautiful? And the hand-quilting!
(Grizz's Mom)

Pretty Pink Pineapples
More beautiful hand-quilting!
(Grizz's Mom)

Sewing Time... Finally!

Peanut is slowly allowing me some sewing time... aka, I don't always have to hold her for her naps anymore! In appreciation, I'm sewing her a twin-sized quilt... yeah, yeah, yeah, I know she's only 2 months old, but I believe in using time wisely. I don't know if I'll have time to sew her a quilt for her big-girl bed when the time comes, so I might as well sew it now! Plus, I need to get rid of fabric :)

Cutting... the fabric is all from Grizz's mom... fabric that she didn't want anymore!

 Piles for nine-patches...

 Pinning the nine-patches...

And sewing the nine-patches! I still have lots more nine-patches to sew, followed by squaring them up and finally adding in the solid squares to sew the quilt top!

Progress!

Until next time... aka, next nap time ;)

Linking up with Freshly Pieced on WIP Wednesday

Gifts from Gma Q

I showed you the quilt from Grizz's mom the other day (here)... and this weekend we finally hung up the quilt from my mom, so I can finally share it!

I found this quilt pattern online while searching for baby quilt books. This was the quilt on the cover of Cuddle Me Quick (link), and I loved it right away (must be the teacher in me! I bought the book and had it shipped to Mom, who lovingly obliged to make it for me... errr, for Peanut! :) The yellow goes perfectly with the furniture we painted for Peanut. Now, I just have to attach the label (the top picture) with a few buttons and it will be complete!

Mom's usual gift also includes a baby bag with the name on it. I still have mine from when I was a baby. These bags started out as being completely made of corduroy with faux fur for the name. Over the years, Mom has started to experiment and add denim (often times from a pair of jeans that was worn by a special person in the baby's life... either a parent or a grandparent... in Peanut's case, she gets a pair of my jeans!). Mom still uses the faux fur for the name and the corduroy is still used on the inside of the bag. But, as you can see, she has used the pockets of the jeans, fabric from the quilt she made, old doilies from my wedding and even added some ruffles to the front. I'm sure this will become one of Peanut's favorite things to tote around :)

More Low-Quaility Phone Pics

The Many Faces of Peanut... we have yet to get a picture of her smiling (gassy or otherwise) and I refuse to take pictures of her crying (so far... I'm sure that will change eventually!). This refusal leaves us very few opportunities to take pictures other than of her sleeping, but at least we have a few of her awake and alert. The bottom left picture shows Peanut contemplating about wether or not she likes the swing yet. She has improved  - as long as we put her down when she's content, she'll stay content swinging for about 5 minutes :)

She is still a cuddlebug! I still can/t get over how much she likes to have her head in a crack while sleeping - in my armpit, neck, between my legs, between my arm, body and/or the chair/bed, etc. She'll just wiggle herself around until she finds the perfect placement for her face!

We've been having her practice sleeping in her pack-in-play in front of our porch door during the day. Then we'll wheel it back into the bedroom at night. If there's one thing I've learned about being a mom, it's "you do what you gotta do." She's mostly been sleeping with us - either on my chest or on her side next to me. I have figured out, though, that she'll sleep well on her own on her tummy. I know, I know. But it works. She even slept by herself for two sessions last night and with me for only one session. Improvement!

There's Peanut with her cake at the math teachers' shower. So cute! The bottom picture shows a blanket she received from one of Grizz's coworkers. It's John Deere cotton on one side and minky on the other. It's perfect for this future farm girl :)

Last up for today is the quilt from Grizz's mom. (I'm still waiting to take a picture of the quilt my mom made... I'm hoping to hang it up as soon as we find a dowel long enough to hang it up with). Back to this beauty, tho :) She machine appliqued with verrigated thread and added hand-embroidered details to the cute bugs. She even hand-embroidered Peanut's name and date of birth. Peanut is lucky to have precious quilts from both grandmas! I know I still treasure the quits I have from both of my grandmas! This quilt has a special place on top of our ottoman to brighten up the room and it's perfect for supervised tummy play time!

*Her fussy times are still sticking around. We tried gas drops to see if they would help, but they actually seemed to make her crying/screaming worse, so we stopped those. I'm still concerned about what seems like "silent reflux," but for the most part, I've resisigned myself to having a colic-y baby.
*I think her hair is growing a little bit. Her Alfalfa rooster-tail only shows itself every once in awhile, instead of all the time!
*She's starting to enjoy bath time a little more; well, at least she isn't screaming while in the water! She still dislikes the drying off part and the lotion part.
*Cloth diapering is actually going really well. We have only done it during the day and at home - but because it has gone so well, I may even try it at night or while we're out in public soon!

Ok, Happy Tuesday! I'm a single parent for the 2nd time in my life tonight; Grizz has to stay overnight somewhere up North for a night. This also happened a few weeks ago. Wish me luck - hopefully she has a better evening than usual :)

Instagrams...

... going all the way back to this past November! Yikes!

 Christmas Joy... hand-painted on old barnwood.

 Lefse! A Scandinavian tradition.

 Twilight :) Grizz is always nice enough to come with me.

 A Thanksgiving Prime Rib. The tape is on the oven to remind us "NOT TO OPEN IT."

 Fluff mail. So, yes, the plan as of now is to try out some cloth diapers. I'll let you know how it goes ;)

 Ultrasound flowers. Grizz is great.

 More Christmas projects. Still working on my painted handwriting.

 Some random breakfast.

 Spritz. Spritz. Spritz. Christmas COOKIES! Geez, I'm starting to crave sugary goodness...

 Alma Mater men's basketball team traveled to Big Sky Country. We gladly wore our blue and gold to support them.

 The crib is up!!

 More goodness from the Alma Mater. Family and friends know just exactly what Scooter needs to wear once he/she arrives!

 A snowy day from a third floor math classroom.

 Scooter's quilt top...

 Scooter's quilt top quilted.

 A January walk.

 A Birthday Snow (maybe three or four days after the nice walk in the previous picture).

En Route to Yellowstone.

And finally... today's project while watching Downton Abby on Netflix. Scooter has a new hat! (Removable flower depending on which gender Scooter surprises us with).

My old bedroom...

Not a lot of sewing has gone on around here lately... actually, not of lot of anything has been happening. But, thankfully, I took a lot of pics while we were back home for a two week vacation so I can at least show you something (well, it was two weeks for me but Grizz had to spend one week at work training...). 

Here are some pics from my old bedroom :)

 My iron bed - used by a hired hand way-back-when at my grandparents' farm. It was red at the time. Mom took it from my grandparents' basement when I needed a big-girl bed and painted it white with a few small painted details on the flowers. Perhaps in middle school or at the beginning of high school, I finally got permission to change my bedroom - wallpaper and painting furniture... so, as a 4-H project, I refinished the bed once again into what you see now.

 The quilt is one I used throughout college and the one year I taught before getting married. It's a log cabin pattern made my the ladies at my home church as a graduation gift.

When I realized it wasn't cool to where high school athletic shirts in college, I spent a summer cutting them up, ironing on some interfacing and sewing them together. This quilt is huge. Mom was the one who finally finished it as a birthday gift to me in my junior year of college, but I was in charge of tying it!

 This was my first, true, pieced, tied, and bound quilt I ever made. I think it happened during a high school summer (4-H project!). It is the Yellow Brick Road pattern that you can still find in quilt shops - a great beginning pattern that uses fat quarters!

 I love books, but I never had enough space in my bookcase. My oldest brother had the bigger bookcases in his room... Grandma Q made a Sunbonnet Sue quilt for each of her granddaughters before she passed away. Some of us got pink ones and some of us got blue ones. It is definitely a cherished keepsake!
*I'm not sure what that lamp is doing there... I did not put it there... so, let's just ignore it, huh? :)

 I used to spend a lot of time during my childhood just staring at all the stitches!

 My room is definitely not as organized as it used to be. It is mainly a storage room for all my childhood things, plus wedding gifts and other things that we don't have room for in our two-bedroom apartment.  Along with storing all my stuff, it also has two twin beds and a crib... so it's slightly full ;)

 Perhaps I shouldn't even talk about the closet. I love this closet... a walk-in with built in shelves... shelves big enough that I had a friend actually sleep in one at a middle school slumber party :)

 Yup, in those shelves :) which now are home to college books, notes, photo albums... oh, and a record player and a pampered chef cookie pan!

 Look, a wedding dress! If you go up two pictures above this one, in the back are the banners that Mom made for the wedding. All those baskets were decorations at the wedding too.

And there are my childhood photo albums and scrapbooks. I'm going to have a lot of fun clearing this bedroom and closet out someday. Memories!

Yes, Parents, I promise, as soon as we get a house, most of this will leave your house ;)