It’s January 20th and I am very nearly done with my first quilt of the new year! This is kind of amazing to me. Especially because I feel like we’ve already been crazy busy this year. There was seeing Star Wars for the 2nd time, checking out the lights at the Denver Botanic Gardens, going to the National Western Stock Show, and still working to integrate our new kitty into our family…
Working around all of that, I started a quilt. I thought I’d have more time- the baby is not due until later March- but it turns out that the shower is this weekend- so I sprang into action! Fortunately, I had a plan in mind all along- Star Bright by Swim Bike Quilt. The baby is a girl, and the mom and I share a love of a particular color scheme.
I had a false start- my original batch of greys was way too brown. So I replaced some and was much much happier! Honestly, the trickiest part of this one is truly picking the fabrics… Also really neat about these greys- some from my scrap bin go back a decade or more, and some are brand spanking new. I love that!
The three-day weekend meant that I had enough time to baste and quilt this sucker- using my brand new quilt bar. I wish the arm(?) came further forward to line up with the walking foot, but, it was still a help.
I tried a pop of aqua for the binding- and I have to say, I’m loving it. Not loving so much the self-threading needles I bought as an experiment. Not all that easy to thread after all, and then I broke my thread several times when it caught on the top of the needles. I quickly went back to my old needles…
Meanwhile, I thought you might like to see all my helpers. George (top right) is the newest member of the family (adopted 12/18/15) and as such, hasn’t yet learned not to climb on the sewing machine table. He was deeply offended that I wasn’t petting him at that moment. Wally, bottom right, at least had the decency to wait until I finished basting before he sat on the quilt. And Bob, normally the worst behaved of the lot, actually was happy to snuggle on my feet while I hand bound the quilt.
Even with all this help, I still managed to almost finish the quilt last night. A teensy bit more hand sewing and then burying a few quilting thread ends, and it will be good to go! Whee!
Then back to the Tardis quilt- which has actually been started! Annie and I are still in the cutting tiny squares phase, but now that the design wall is free again, we can start laying it out.
Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday, WIP Wednesday and Let’s Bee Social.