I should have known...

that I would have already neglected this poor little blog of mine. That has to be okay though...

Life has been BUSY - and I have been soaking it up. Had some time off of work; which was VERY needed! I got to spend some quality time with K, and I made a baby quilt (that I needed to get done because I was actually selling it!!! more on that in a minute). We had a great four day weekend and now it is back to the salt mines.

K's friend's sister (sorry that sounds confusing...) was having a baby. This friend, we will call him B from now on to lessen the confusion, mentioned that he was going to become an uncle and of course the first thing out of my mouth was - " OH! I should make it a baby quilt you could give it!". Much to my surprise B actually got pretty excited over the idea and the rest is history.

I am actually kind of proud of this quilt. I learned A LOT while I was making it. I found the most precious classic winnie the pooh fabric on Ebay. I fussy cut the characters out of one piece of the fabric and I made 9 patch squares out the rest. It turned out better that I expected, especially since I didn't follow any kind of pattern or anything. It really felt good to just figure it out as I went. I put some Pink sashing between all of the squares, and it had the softest pink backing.
BUT - the highlight of what I learned making this quilt.... FREE MOTION QUILTING. That's right! I did it. My neighbor (who is the one who got me started quilting in the first place) showed me how to begin and let me practice on some of her scraps. Let me tell you, I know that I have mentioned how I struggle with cutting into fabric - well, that is still true. But, NOTHING is as terrifying as the first moment you start quilting on a piece of fabric you have worked on and tried to "perfect" for hours. I was honestly SO nauseous and I also was SO tense. If you have ever quilted before you know that being tense is the exact opposite of what you need in that moment. I did some meandering stitches, and I also added some loops. Some on purpose, and some accidental. To be fair K thought it turned out great! I am WAY to picky and hard on myself to comment on the matter (let's just say I thought it could have been better...).
After all of that the binding sewed on fairly quickly and I hand stitched  it to the back (I love all things hand sewing... I'm learning this) in no time. Voila! The baby quilt is completed. K dropped it off with B yesterday and according to him he was really happy with it! I felt the biggest sigh of relief I have felt in a while when I heard that.

There is nothing quite as stressful as knowing that this thing you are creating is going to be well loved by someone, and paid for. People don't like to pay for just anything. There is a certain level of trust from a buyer when they haven't seen the quilt they have agreed to pay you for. In fact, he hadn't seen anything I had sewn. That really is trust! I'm just glad it all came out well in the end, and I learned a LOT from the process. Now I need to get back to the blue and white quilt I was working on... I'm having a hard time get motivated for that one though. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe this weekend I can find some time between my other projects I have in mind, to sew some sashing and maybe that will make me feel better about it.

Speaking of other projects; here is a list of a couple things I have running in my head. Maybe if I can get them down here I won't forget about them.
Not in any particular order:

- Cat coasters (long story... but, I'm excited about this one - and there is a time limit, YIKES!)
- Pillows for new couch (more like cushions then pillows)
- Curtains for living room (lets just say either make new ones and scrub mine to death... they are pitiful looking lately)
- Blue & White Quilt
- Life Journey EPP Quilt (this is one for another post... I started a pretty cool project I'm excited about. Hopefully I can remember to write about it here)
- Quilt for dad... maybe


Well - That's it for now.

Happy Sewing!