Sew Awesome

Wow. If anyone read this blog, I'd feel bad about not posting for nearly a week. But I'm sure you'll understand, Mom :o)

My best friend is visiting from Boston, and she brought her penchant for crafting with her. What better time to initiate her into the dark side world of quilts? (I swear, she really wanted to. What hypnotic spiral?)






She has two baby showers coming up, so taggies were in order. (Tag blankets, or "taggies," are small blankets with ribbons sticking out of them that babies love to cuddle/chew on/drool all over.)

To the stash! Sight-seeing be damned! (But we did that too and it was fun.)

Introducing someone to quilting was really fun. It made me realize how much I love my tools and fabrics and (ahem) how skilled I have become.



Here are her creations (blogged with her permission, and quite lovely too, if I do say so m'self):

Ah, the joys of the nine-patch. We tried it wonky (tutorial here, though it gives a method for making multiple blocks, and since we made just one there was a lot of leftover fabric. There must be a better way, but I couldn't figure it out. Lazy brain!)

 And we tried it disappearing. The disappearing nine-patch has so many possibilities. We must have played around with four blocks for half an hour.

This black and white fabric is going to captivate baby.

Which brings me to the joys of crafting with a buddy (well, not really, but hey, let's talk about it). I completely love crafting in the company of a good friend. All of a sudden, things go faster and better. All those nagging questions get voiced as you go through the process, and having someone to hear and respond to them (as opposed to, say, the nearby bonsai tree I normally rely on) really helps me make decisions.

Then I learned that one of the babies-to-be has a 2-year-old sister named Poppy. When you become aware of a 2-year-old named Poppy, there is only one thing to do. You make her a bright orange doll quilt. (Like, bright, prison, traffic cone, retina burning orange. But I feel like Poppy can totally take it.) Eager to take over and dominate any crafting situation get in on the fun, I helped myself to starting the project.








In the spirit of Elizabeth over at Oh, Fransson! , and really all of Portlandia, we felt this was a good time to Put a Bird On It.














Then I built a little log cabin nest around it. First time trying liberated log cabins and I love love love them. More to come in the next post...