Graduation Quilt

The second great accomplishment of the summer!

My brother graduated from high school this past June and I am so happy to finally give him the gift he wanted: a quilt in his school colors.

I started this queen-sized quilt last June. I knew I wanted a scrappy, strip block, but the layout went through many incarnations before I settled on these giant criss-cross blocks. I never get tired of them - this is one of my favorite blocks. And I love them even more when they are HUGE.

These long-suffering gentleman were so patient with the wind, and all my directions to hold this corner higher, etc. Thanks to Mr Awesome (hand at top left!) and our kind neighbor for their quilt holding services! They're going to start to run the other way when they see me coming.

I pieced the backing "blind," putting together any and all scraps I had on hand without looking at the final layout until it was done. Then I folded the backing over the top in a self-binding method.

Mr Awesome acquired this piece of fabric during a trip to the Pacific Islands years ago. (Little did he know he was picking up material for his quilt-obsessed future wife!) It was the perfect thing to complete the backing.

Cool stuff like this happened spontaneously.

My amazing long-arm quilter friend, Kristin, designed and executed the quilting. As with Mumu, I gave her totally free reign, and the final result is as lovely to look at as it is to feel that quilty texture. I love how she chose a Polynesian-inspired pattern.

Top and bottom border

All wrapped up and ready to go off to college...here's hoping it survives :o)

In baby sewing progress...
I've been way more tired lately (as in, take a shower, then lie down to recover from over-exertion), so I'm logging a lot of couch time. This is not always awesome for my sanity, but it's been really good for the little ball on my to-do list. Thank God for hand-sewing. I'm surprised at how quickly it's coming together.

Sorry, no pic. There was about an hour of sun today and I was too tired to find the camera.

I'm striving to be very zen about quieting my inner self so I can channel my limited energy where it is most needed, but some days are much harder than others. I like to be doing things, making plans, crossing items off lists. As my ability to do stuff diminishes, I get more controlling about the tasks I can do. This is why I haven't started the cloth book yet. In my mind, a 6-page book meant to be chewed on has morphed into a visual-tactile encyclopedia for infants. I want it to be PERFECT, to have text pages and picture pages and textural pages, and to be just the right colors, and and and.

A working title: As I Lay Planning, by Your Mother, Crazypants.

Back in real life, the clock is ticking on this pregnancy, so I'm going to finish the book by next week. At 34 weeks, both babies are head down again (yay!) and everything is looking good. The docs tell me they can safely be born at any time (what the what?!) - I'm hoping for at least 4 more weeks though.

Other projects I haven't started yet:
1. Gobbi mobile (this is super quick, no sewing involved)

I've let go of the idea of making another quilt/play mat. Nesting aside, I have to know my limits. I'm a little sad about it, but it is possible to sew once you have kids, right? Right??

Enjoy more stories about progress at Lee's:

WIP Wednesday

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for a Works-in-Progress Wednesday post!

In Progress:

Spring
What started as a sampler to use up scraps quickly morphed into a an all-out study in green and yellow. I've now got 13-18 blocks, depending on how they're grouped, and I'm trying to figure out a way to put them into one cohesive unit. More on that here. (Warning: this post is a bit melodramatic. The soap opera that is my quilting life...)

Well, I'm happy to say I've made some major progress. First, I ditched the white background. It was a sheet I found at Goodwill. It's possibly the softest, weighty-est, coolest-to-the-touch sheet in the world...but it's a bitch to cut and sew, let me tell you. Lesson learned: stick to 100% cotton for piecing and save the crazy-cool finds for backing.

Lucky I just happened to have a bit of Kona Coal lying around...

Yes!! Much more like the rainy spring day I had envisioned when I was inspired to start the project. Which called for a new title: 'Lemons and Limes' becomes 'Spring.' (Whew, that's out of the way. I find titling quilts awkward. But I can't keep calling it 'that yellow and green one.')

I've been adding borders to my improv blocks to make them all 18" square. I can't decide if I'll add sashing as well, or if a few gray borders will be enough.

Brother Quilt
Obviously, this is for my brother (to commemorate high school graduation). As for titles, my husband suggested...wait for it.... 'Quilt-ageddan' or 'S'ain't Nothin' Like a Quilt' (the school's teams are the Saints). While I'm mulling those over...

I have all the blocks done, but I'm still playing around with the layout. So much yellow and purple intermingling is sort of a puzzle since it's outside my normal palette. I played around with these tradition layouts first:

What do you think? Does it work? I'm a little...bored by them. But maybe I should fight my tendency to eschew simplicity? There is something nice about big, bold, and simple.

Hmm. Next I tried out some modern layouts. I like them much better, but I'm not yet ready to commit to one.

So far this one is my favorite. Don't mind the living room furniture! :o)

Do you have a favorite?

Paisley Sunrise
I'm still plugging away at these liberated Amish cables. I like having a little hand-quilting around to drag into my lap on winter evenings, so I don't mind if this one takes a good long while.

Finishes
Nope!

New Projects
Since I only have three projects in the queue, I'm planning and plotting what I want to make next. Here's the short list:

Wonky Crosses
Liberated Churn Dash
Wonky Stars (probably my favorite block ever...why haven't I done this yet?)
HST Cross (aka Criss Cross)
Liberated/Wonky Nine-Patch

Probably the hardest part is choosing a color scheme for each one. I like a lot of things I've seen on Flickr, but I don't want to copy! Hmm hmm...

Oh Yeah, That Quilt

My brother started his senior year in high school last week, which reminded me...I sort of promised a quilt for his graduation. Hmm. Time to get back on it. Here's the grand plan (in it's latest incarnation):

Only 80 blocks. And as of today, 61 of them are done!! Yay! Granted, this includes some 12.5" solid squares. That I just had to cut out. And then they were done. But still! This is victory, because I'm simultaneously managing to ignore the pressing responsibilities of my day job(s) and the chores that need doing and and and. And.

So let's just gaze at the pretty pictures and appreciate that while I may or may not have clean pants to wear tomorrow, all the purple blocks for this massive quilt are good and done and I like them.

Meanwhile, only 4 more gold blocks to piece. I hope I can show you those next week!