Gregory

Introducing Gregory Ryan born Oct 9 at 9.5 lbs, 22.5" long. I thought I would miss sewing when this little one came along, but I am too busy to miss it and I am loving being a mom. I am not abandoning my hobby by any means, but it definitely has a backseat to other demands right now. Stay tuned though, I will be posting more soon enough.

Manhattan Bag...

When my SIL sees this, she might be confused. I made this exact bag for her last Christmas and recently decided to make one for myself with the exact same fabrics. I did this all in one day on Oct 6- trying to keep busy waiting for this baby to come. It's my last pre-baby project- I promise!

New Quilt

Here's the last sewing project I did (at least as of this writing) while waiting for the baby to come. I also had this quilt long-armed and managed to make the binding as well as machine and hand sew the binding onto the quilt when I received it on Oct 1. I have to say that I am really happy with how it came out and I am mesmerized by all the colors. When I first finished the top, I was actually not really in love with it- way too busy. But the quilting, border, and even the binding and backing made it into a nice ensemble. But next time I make a big quilt like this for the bedroom, I am going to opt for something a little more subdued and less rainbow.

Baby Quilt

Well, this child, will not be cold this winter with all the blankets it has waiting for him or her. I forgot to take a picture of a really simple receiving blanket I made last week- just two pieces of flannel sewed together..... But anyway, here's the baby blanket that barely got quilted by the long-arm quilter. I know it might be pathetic for all you machine quilters out there to think that I paid to have this little thing long-armed, but it was so worth the $20 to not have the hassle, especially considering I have never quilted anything on my machine yet....

So I made this blanket because I wanted to have something smaller to use with the baby considering the other quilts I have made are quite large. The fabrics are all from the Sock monkey series and perfectly gender neutral in my opinion. (Which reminds me, I cannot tell you how many people were/are shocked and appalled that we chose not to find out the gender of our baby- will my child really be okay if it's room is not painted pink or blue? I think it will be just fine.) I sewed the binding on in record time, telling myself the baby cannot come until this is completed!

This pattern was EXTREMELY easy bytheway, I probably did the whole top in less than 2 hours. You can find how I did it here.

Just Kidding

Well, the baby is late and my last day of work was Sept 30, so I have had some time and suprisingly, some extra energy to be able to do some last minute sewing projects. So I guess I was wrong when I said that I wouldn't be posting much more..... I will schedule 2 more posts after this to show what I have been up to while I wait for this baby to come!

Last Monday was the first Chelmsford quilt guild meeting of the year and they are doing the box exchange. I really want to participate again, so I hurried and gathered this collection of fabrics from my stash to include in my swap. I am really pleased with what I put together- especially considering that I tend to rely on a certain "line" or "collection" from a particular designer rather than pick and choose in combining prints.

So this is my "sample block"- a double nine patch. Pretty easy, comes out to be 13 1/2 square. I am just asking those that receive my box to make more with the different fabrics I have included. I don't think I will make it to the October meeting but I have a friend who kindly offered to bring my box as well as retrieve the box/block I will be working on.