My Return and Aunt Linda’s Quilt

I’m so happy to be back on my blog, posting about projects I’ve actually completed!  I haven’t written since July, but I have a good excuse:   I’m pregnant with our second baby!   We’re due at the end of March.  I found out in July and the celebrating was cut short by some serious first-trimester nausea.

Lucky for me, the second trimester brought about a huge relief from sickness and a little burst of energy (as much as possible considering I’m up at 4am for my work-from-home job, and playing all day with my soon-to-be-two-year-old son).   Extra lucky, this surge of energy has coincided with me being able to make some of my Christmas presents this year.

So here’s the first completed project, soon to be gifted over the Thanksgiving weekend:

A nap-sized quilt for my husband’s aunt/godmother.  We haven’t seen her in over two years and she’s making a special trip for the holiday.   We’re going to go ahead and give her this gift this weekend rather than ship it out to California in December.

Here’s the back:

This design is from “The Modern Quilt Workshop” book.

This quilt was fun and relatively simple to make!  It’s sort of a log-cabin type assembly.    However, my stupid pregnant brain made so many mistakes that I almost cried twice over this silly blanket.   When I assembled the quilt-top I laid it out and admired it with my husband.  It took me about five minutes to realize that one of my blocks was upside-down.   I had to wait a day and spend an hour fixing the square.   Then I assembled the back, sewing the wrong side to the right side of the fabrics twice. This was a really labor-intensive mistake because I had set my machine to doing a really tight stitch-length.   Boooo!  So another hour had to be spent fixing the back.  THEN I laid out the whole quilt to be basted,  taping it down to the floor with painter’s tape after having my husband move all of the kitchen furniture out of the way.  I was just about to insert my first safety pin for basting when I realized that darn block was STILL UPSIDE DOWN!  I had spent an hour removing it and then sewing it back in THE WRONG WAY. D’OH! It was sort of a happy accident because I realized the block would look better switched with it’s neighbor to the north anyhow, so I rearranged both of those blocks, sewed them in place correctly and finally was able to baste the beast.   UGH!

Anyway, I did a basic stippling quilt design and I also did a new trick: I made the backing big enough to roll over to the front for the binding.  This was SO MUCH easier than messing with making bias tape, or even sewing on pre-made bias tape.  I’m a believer!

I hope Aunt Linda enjoys her present, and that you all like it, too!  I’m pretty proud.  Despite all of the errors, it all came out looking nice and I really like my color choices.  I also am proud of the backing because not only did I design it myself, but I utilized fabrics I had on hand rather than going out and buying more.

I have two more big Christmas gift projects in the works that I can’t wait to share with you all!  And YES one of them is finally the finish of Grace’s Art Quilt.