This bride is crazy organized and had a theme over a year ago. Rustic Beach or some thing like that. All I know is she plans to have lots of peacock themed stuff. So I took that and ran…

Did I ever mention that I eloped? I don’t want to sound like a hater, but dear lordy, weddings these days are so big and involved. This here wedding celebration is starting on Wednesday with brunch and winding up late Saturday night. And there is no avoiding any of it, my hubby it the best man! Oy-Vey!

It is enough to drive a girl to strawberry daiquiris on the beach. Not that I had 2 or maybe 3 earlier today. Give me a justice of the peace and a nice quiet beach anyday.

anyway- the backside-

All green with a nice little pieced stripe. That navy is the bed sheet, I might have had a photoshoot with a daiquiri and not noticed that until now. Don’t worry folks, there is an aunt and uncle and grandma around to be in charge should anyone need to have a diaper change.

Sorry, got distracted there for a second. Here is another photo of the pieced stripe on the back.

And a little tag, Ta-dah! Now back to the beach. Much more relaxing to be done this week!

This little quicky was so satisfying to work on, and the recipients loved it!

however, the velour backing from Ikea was a terrible idea. It stretched like crazy and I finally just did little tiny button shaped stitching to tie it off. It was bunchy and puckery and was a true mess. Cozy and soft. But a mess.

One perk to the backing was the pre-embroidered design, that I think is just so sweet. Live and Learn, stretchy velour = mess.

Since I can hardly get the laundry done these days I showed a quilt I made for hubby for Valentines day of *ahm* 2009. Which I have never shown blog land because, well…  it is very far from being done.  Pebbling is harder than I thought. And I am kind of stumped on the binding. And well, I don’t know- once I missed the deadline I lost steam.

The applique boats were drawn by my husband to the very specific shapes. One is his, one is is brother’s, one is his dad’s. They build boats, I make quilts about their boats.

Pebbling? Hard for anyone else? break lots of needles like me? I love the result, but it makes me want to tear my hair out. And don’t you think I should add some fluffy clouds to the top on the front? hummmm….

I am trying to make a baby quilt in a hurry for an old friend and her darling baby who we are seeing on vacation next week. It is fun revisiting some of these fabrics, I have had some of these scrap triangles for ten years, just waiting for the right project. It felt like I had pulled out millions of triangles, but when I laid out this pieced top  I was  disappointed in the smallness. In my mind’s eye this was going to be big enough for a toddler bed but it is currently too small to be a baby quilt. Even though the triangles were mostly half of a 5.5″ square the finished squares ended up being 4″ . I think I have to add at least 2 rows to the long side. And a ginormous border. Of red? of white? of a rainbow polka-dot?

I loved doing this pattern with Lauren’s quilt, but those triangles were bigger and maybe more forgiving? I am having a hard time making clean points with such small triangles. Such is the nature of slightly wonky scraps.

****update*** finished quilt here

And a picture of the darling baby.  She learned how to roll from her back to her front this weekend. And then when she gets there- cries in frustration that she is stuck on her belly. It must be tough to be a baby

I was inspired by the paintbox quilt by Oh, Fransson. She is a little more measured and specific in her sewing but I love the result. I am a little more haphazard, maybe another green square, make the yellow ones bigger. I have plenty of plans for it, but sewing is one thing you can’t do while cradling a baby. Small sacrifice…

I have spent a long time on this quilt, partly because my big belly makes sewing a little tougher, but partly because I wanted it to be awesome.  I think it ended up pretty awesome.

I used some scraps for the back, not really what I had imagined in the beginning, but I am pretty pleased with it. The minty green stripes are minkee, I think maybe I should have made the whole back minkee, but the pinwheel squares were too hard to resist.

Anyway- I finished the pinwheel quilt last night. This darn quilt has been in process for way too long. I think I made the pinwheel squares more than 8 months ago. But the flip side of this is I am finishing all the stuff that has been stacked on top of my fabric stash- preventing me from making new stuff.

I hung it upside down for this picture, the fat white border is actually at the top…

I tried a little applique on the back side, which I love;

I was inspired by a McCalls quilting magazine that had a template for the flower petals. It also had vines and leaves but who can be bothered with that?  I hurried a little and didn’t do a yellow flower like I planned, I miss it a little. But not enough to put it on now. Only 2 more WIP’s to do …

I have never made one for myself, but I think that will be coming soon. I am having trouble giving this one away. But I did tell the bride it was coming, so I don’t have much choice. I was trying to keep it a secret, but the wedding is tomorrow so the chances she is checking my wee website today are pretty slim.

I am so relieved to have this quilt done! So many projects to get working on, family arriving soon and  our annual huge July 4th party next weekend. July 5th I will be hiding out for a while to prepare for my “Artist of the Week” table at the Lansdowne Farmers Market, July 25th. I am planning to relax in August!

I need a lot more practice to even up the stitches and squiggles but I can’t believe I waited so long to try it! I also love the flop ear on the bunny, but I wish I had done his face a little different, not my favorite quilt, but pretty good for a first try of applique…

My sister-in-law unwittingly sabotaged my sewing. She gave me the book Twilight for Christmas. I didn’t pick it up until last week, and then I couldn’t put it down, and just happened to go out and get the other 3 books in the series and have spent all my spare time reading the whole series, and then watching a few of the Twilight movie clips on YouTube. I have since hooked my best friend on the books too, which somehow makes the addiction okay. Paul went to Montreal for a week, I had a girls night with a friend, weekend errands and now, 10 days later, I am finally back to making some quilts.

On my to-do list; I cut out over 300 blocks for a scrap quilt which has reduced my scrap bag to practically nothing (!!!!).  I have the white baby quilt ready for “stippling” (I just learned that word, but grateful to have it because”quilting” means so much more) . I have the pinwheel quilt top almost done, I have an old tee shirt quilt top waiting in the wings, I found an old baby quilt top that I added a minkee bunny applique to but it needs some eyes and a nose…

And there is a June wedding quilt that I should start thinking about. Geesh!