A quilt for Lev

It's been a long time since I've blogged, but it's been a crazy month - both at work and outside of work. I actually made this quilt awhile back but just recently got pictures of the baby with the quilt, which is my favorite part. I mentioned previously that I work with all women, and a lot of crafty women at that. It's nice to make a gift for someone who I know will get a lot of use out of it but will also really understand and appreciate all the work that goes into making it. Leah has been a good friend to me since I started working and a really great mom to Lev as well.

My challenge for this project was that the baby's sex was a game-day surprise and I also wanted to make something really bold and not too stereotypically baby-ish. I absolutely fell in love with David Walker's Robots collection for Free Spirit when I saw it in person and matched it with some other coordinating fabrics. I figured that planets are fine for boys or girls and since we work for a girl-serving agency I shouldn't worry about gender stereotypes anyway.

I based this quilt on the Happy Hour pattern, which I fell in love with instantly and have really enjoyed the different versions I've seen other people make as well. I didn't do any interesting quilting on this one - just around each of the squares and rectangles. I'm happy with how it came out and am even happier that they get a lot of use out of it.

I'm working on a bigger project right now and am going to start my Christmas projects soon (crazy!), so hopefully I'll have more to share soon.

Thanks for looking!

blogging from a distance

It's been a busy couple of weeks - I bought a car last Tuesday, moved in with Buddy on Wednesday and then came out to Montana on Thursday. That's a lot of things to happen all at once, and a really long time to be away from my sewing machine! Especially considering that when I get back home, for the first time, I will have a whole permanent sewing area of my house all to myself! Once I get that (and the apartment) set up I'll share some pictures.

So now we're in MT and the trip is going really well. It's nice to inhale and not be grossed out by all the city crap you're breathing in - it's the small things, really. haha. Here are some more reasons why I love Montana:

Me and Buddy's mom tried to go to a few quilt shops nearby and one said "closed permanently" on the door and the other is on sale so they didn't have much of a selection. How amazing would it be to own a quilt shop?? Anyway, I'm not quite there yet. I'm surprised there aren't more places around here though since quilting seems pretty common. Oh well.

Buddy's sister gave me a Celtic quilting book for Christmas a few years ago and I never shared the pictures of it with her! So here it is, pretty small, and my first stab at applique. Looking at this project from one year ago I'm amazed at how much I've learned and improved in the past year - the binding and stitching on this is horrible! haha. At least you can only really tell that up close.

It was the perfect project for being stuck indoors on a rainy beach vacation last summer. My SIL suggested I make a whole big quilt made out of these smaller appliqued blocks, but I was just so happy to finish a project that I decided to leave it as a small wall hanging - about 14"X14". She's right, it would be really nice, but I have so many unfinished projects as it is! Maybe that would be a good project for later on in life - when I'm better at hand applique and I have more patience! :)

Thanks for looking!