January Catch Up

Another blogger termed her recent hiatus from blogging as a, "Christmas hibernation."  That's how I feel too.  I had a fair amount of company over until just a few days ago and my husband had quite a bit of time off from work.  I tried hard to stay focused on my family instead of being glued to the computer or constantly sewing.  It was a nice break and I was sad to say goodbye to my family who visited.

I did sneak a little bit of sewing in.  There were a few days when we had no guests and Nick was back to work.  That is when I put together all of my "Girlfriends" blocks and put this massive border on it:

I am pretty happy with this top, I just wished I planned to make it a smaller size instead of being so focused on using up all of the solid I had ordered for the project.

It's so big, I definitely want to long-arm this.  I am not sure when I will get to it, but it's not like my daughter is urgently needing this just yet.

I did a little quilt math and made a swoon black without so many half square triangles.  This was an idea that was focused on at a FRMQG meeting over the summer by Kari of Craft Happy.  Her demo was about making quilt blocks differently than the given directions, where desired.  The major point of doing the swoon block like this, is that the yellow print in the four corners is just one piece and not cut into four pieces (via half square triangles).  I love it and I am sure that my piecing was more accurate with so many less seams.

I had so much fun with the Swoon block, I decided to do it again for the "Creatures Mini Quilt Swap" that the FRMQG is hosting.  My partner had super easy guidelines for me, "Elephants, cool colors, and clean lines."  All of the fabrics were from my stash: it was so easy!  I am so happy I knew about making the swoon black differently, because there was no way I would've done this block if I had had to cut up those elephants!

The first swoon block is an addition to my ever-growing DYO Sampler quilt.  My next plan is to do a row of "Pow-Wow" chevrons/triangles.  If anyone has any suggestions of modern-ish blocks to add to this, I would love to hear it!  I am running out of ideas.

Finally, while my mom was here for a visit, I decided to finally make a maternity shirt with the "Waterfall blouse" pattern.  I had had the fabric on had for a while- it was just intimidating to make clothes other than pajama pants for myself.  I am very happy with how it came out- I've worn it four times already.  My mom helped me a bit- she doesn't sew too often but she always is helpful if I get stuck.  The fabrics include a Japanese black double gauze and a RK London Calling print purchased in MA almost two years ago.

This picture was taken today, I am 22 weeks along.  I tried to act all laid back about what I want to accomplish before baby comes in this post, but now I am panicking a bit!  There is so much I want to do and it's hard to feel like I will never sew another stitch once I have 3 children under the age of five.

Linking up to Finish it up Friday.