In which "pregnancy brain" wins again

I spend way too much time at the fabric store. Part of the reason for this is sheer stupidity on my part. Like, yesterday I went in to buy supplies for the mug rug goodie swap and walked around the store for thirty minutes with an index card with the words "embroidery thread, interfacing, fiberfill" scrawled on it. What did I walk out with?

I would say "Ignore my messy sewing space" but the mess just proves that I AM working on stuff, so meh. 

Embroidery thread, interfacing, buttons. Buttons? Well, the button racks are near the cutting table where I got my interfacing cut, and I got totally distracted by the bee buttons, which I thought were adorable because I love bees, too, and then there was a rack of 30% off buttons so I went through those for a while, then paid for everything and left.  In my mind I knew I had three types of items on my list and I left the store with three types of items, so, satisfied, I drove home.

Cue a few hours later after I'd made dinner and sewed for a while, I got to the part of my project that instructed me to start stuffing it, and I looked around and wondered what I was going to stuff it with. My eyes fell on my buttons and OH YEAH, I was WALKING towards the batting section of the store earlier, but never actually reached it because of CUTE BEE BUTTONS. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that I forgot my fiberfill, because I set aside my sewing earlier than usual and went to bed before midnight, so I actually got some decent sleep. Still, I felt dumb pulling up to the fabric store for the second day in a row after work today, and forced myself to bypass all the buttons and fabric and go STRAIGHT to the batting section at the back of the store.

Then my pregnancy bladder called, so I ran to the bathroom and got distracted by felt on the way back to the batting section, thus I nearly walked out the door without my fiberfill AGAIN, but by some miracle remembered at the last second, and actually managed to pay for it and bring it home. See? I even took a picture to prove it.

I don't know how some people manage to do like 3 quilt-alongs and 2 fabric/goodie swaps and their own personal projects and raise kids and cook dinner and stuff all at the same time. I mean, I apparently can't even manage to buy what's on the three-item list I'm carrying around the store with me, though I'm sure the fabric store employees get some amusement out of me. They probably refer to me as the absent-minded pregnant girl since a few weeks ago I left my car keys sitting on top of a shelf of autumn fabrics and ran back through the store in a panic after paying for my purchase, retracing my steps to find them. One person's forgetfulness is another person's amusement, I guess!

As a bonus, have an Orange Kitty Story of the Day:  When the cat heard me get out my camera to take a picture, he ran in the room and shoved his face in the lens because he's vain like that. I pushed him out of the way and he apparently went, "Screw this, if you ain't taking a picture of me, you ain't getting a picture of what you want" and shoved his tail directly in my line of sight as I snapped the photo. He is such a brat.

In which I intentionally make a baby quilt for someone else

Well, that was a busy weekend. Let me sum it up:

Wednesday Night

Me: Hey, since we can't make it to southern Oregon for Nephew's birthday next week, why don't we just bring him his present this weekend when we drive to your parent's house in Portland?
Husband: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But I don't know what to get a 1 year old at all.
Me (busy sewing away on a kitty quilt): Hmmmmm.
Husband: Hmmmmm.
Me (sews for another 10 minutes): OH WAIT I CAN MAKE HIM A QUILT!
Husband (glances uselessly at calendar, which is still set to July): Can you make one by Saturday?

Was that a challenge? Because oh yes, I can! 

And thus, Thursday after work I dashed off to the fabric store and scoured their remnant table for fabric suitable for a 1 year old. I was totally inspired by Amy's On the Road Again quilt, because I love the primary colors she used, which really could be for either gender. I didn't want to use transportation fabric, though, because I have the same issue with CARS ARE FOR BOYS that I do with HORSES ARE FOR GIRLS or whatnot, and also I absolutely love dinosaurs and I wanted to sneak some dinosaur fabric in there because I'm self-serving like that.

Anyway, Thursday night was full of cut cut cut sew sew sew baste baste baste, and then Friday night was full of quilt quilt quilt bind bind bind. Before quilting, I hesitated for several minutes, trying to decide if I wanted to stipple the quilt or do a straight line grid. I like stippling, but in the end I figured a grid pattern would be faster and less hard on my pregnancy-shot wrists, and I finished sometime around midnight.

Woo, look at how nicely most of those corners match up! And it bears repeating that I really LOVE my walking foot. 

I must say, I LOVE THIS QUILT. I wish I could've kept it for myself, because even though the fabric trends towards "boy," I'd totally be thrilled if someone gifted this to me for my baby girl (side note: If anyone recognizes a fabric line in my quilt, feel free to let me know what it is since most of this came off an unmarked fabric table or my stash, and I've GOT to get better with keeping track of what fabrics I use). My piecing has gotten way better--there were still a couple of seams that were off, but far more corners met up than didn't, and that makes me really happy. Also, the binding! The binding!

MY (mostly) BEAUTIFUL BINDING! 

It probably took me twice as long to bind as it should have, but after my last binding failure, I was determined to make this one WORK (especially since it was a gift). I only bound one edge at a time and I wish I had stopped to take a picture because it looked absolutely ridiculous with the amount of pins and clips attached to it. The front was crisp and straight, and the back looked as well as you can expect a machine binding to look. I am stupidly happy with how well it came out and it was totally worth stabbing myself a million times with the millions of pins poking out all over the place. 

My couch is ugly and green. This is not my couch. 

The last part of this quilt I'm proud of is the backing. It's my first pieced backing ever--completely unintentional, because I had figured I had enough red fabric for the back, but after I cut up the red for the binding, there was hardly any left, so I settled on the yellow I used for the border, but surprise! I was barely short of yellow, as well! I had a few squares left over from piecing the front, so I sewed those together and slapped yellow on either side and was pleased with the result. I'm not sure why I was terrified of pieced backings before this--probably because I'm lazy and it seemed like a lot of work--but I like the look and I'll definitely have to do more.

And I think this quilt will look even better once it's been washed a couple more times and gets all crinkly. I didn't have time to wash it between the time I finished it and when we drove to Portland on Saturday, and then my sister-in-law and nephew showed up shortly after we did so I couldn't sneak it into the wash without anyone seeing. Luckily, everyone except my husband and I had left the house on Sunday morning when I woke up, so I ran downstairs, spritzed the quilt with water, and threw it into the dryer for 25 minutes, and had time enough to pull it out and quickly take pictures of it in their living room before everyone came back. It got crinkly enough to look "quilty," but I'm kind of hoping our nephew pukes on it a couple of times so it gets washed a lot. Happy Birthday, nephew, please vomit on my present to you.

Now I kind of want to make a slightly more "girly" dinosaur quilt for our kid, even though I still have the unintentional baby quilt to finish. I like primary and fall colors a lot though, so "girly" for me would be throwing in a couple of purple squares or something. I have a ton of other things to work on right now though (hello, mug rug goodie swap, hey look it's already September 6th and I haven't sewn anything for it yet even though I have a million ideas in my head), so we'll see. There's always time AFTER the baby is born, right? (Already-Parents: Go ahead and laugh at my naivety. Or tell me "Oh yeah, the baby will sleep 20 hours a day like a cat and you will have tons of free time on your hands." That'd be cool., too.)

Uh, the top isn't actually as uneven as it looks in this picture. It's straight, I swear. 

In which this preview is approved for all ages

Wow, thanks to everyone who found my blog thanks to the Small Blog Meet Up--I haven't had a chance to respond to everyone's comments, so don't think I flippantly dismissed you and your blog as unworthy of my regal attention, like my cats regularly dismiss me, if I didn't get back to you yet. I'm pregnant, ok? (A co-worker told me today that I don't use that excuse enough, so I'm using it now, even though I'm really just lazy.)

Actually, one of the reasons I haven't had time to reply is because I've been working on another last-minute project that I promise will get its own entry within the next couple of days, but for now, here's a preview:

And with that, I'm out for the weekend. Hooray for three day weekends and barbecues!

In which I am a small blog

It's Fresh Sewing and Small Blog Meet-Up day over at Lily's Quilts again, and this time I can jump on the link train! I may post something for Fresh Sewing Day when I get back from work, but for now here's my Small Blog intro:

Hi, I'm Natalie. I've always loved crafty stuff--I was a graphic design major, but my strengths have always been in working with my hands, not creating things on a computer, so I wish I'd done more crafty things like painting and pottery in college. No matter, I'm making it up now by learning to quilt and sew! I currently live in Seattle with my husband, two cats, and an active little girl kicking around wildly in my uterus. This blogging/quilting/mom thing is completely new to me--I can build a computer from scratch in two hours, but it took me thirty minutes to figure out how to assemble a 6-piece baby bouncer, and then I managed to assemble part of it upside down--so I hope you find some amusement as I blog about figuring all this stuff out.

In which I add another thing to my "To Do" list

I saw this over at Missy Mac Creations and love the idea--who doesn't like getting random gifts in the mail throughout the year? So, here we go:

Rules:

1.  I will make a little something for the first 3 people that comment on this post.  It will be a surprise and may arrive at any time in the next 365 days (yes, a year).

2.  To sign up to receive a gift from me you must play along too.  Share the giving love on your blog by promising to send a handmade goodie to the first three people that comment on your blog post.

3.  You must have a blog.

4. After commenting on my post, you have to post this (or similar) on your blog to spread the love.

I don't know if three people will even get around to commenting on this, but I will say that if you find this post 6 months from now and only 2 people have bothered to comment, you can still be commenter #3 and get a random goodie from me! When you comment, I'll email you and get your address and then you should get something from me sometime before next August. Woo! 

In which pregnancy hormones take over all sense of logic and time

Even though it's still August, I suddenly needed to make an autumn fall hanging. Like, now. I don't know if this is a result of pregnancy hormones making me "nest" since I'm now in my third trimester, or if I'm just nuts, but I stopped working on all my other projects and sat down on Friday afternoon to finish rapidly churn out my autumn quilt.

You know, I was really disappointed with how much of this came out. I love the pattern and I love the fabrics, but I'm not sure if it's because I was rushing because Oh Crap It's Going To Be Autumn In A Month And By God, My Kid Needs to Have An Autumn Quilt On The Wall Before She Is Born In November.

This was my first time using spray basting. I read that you didn't have to use a lot, but I don't think I used enough--the fabric still moved around and puckered a bit, though far less than I expected it to. It's most obvious in the upper right corner--actually, before binding, the top edge was quite warped and I almost cried since I figured the only way to fix it was to rip out all the quilting and smooth out the fabric again. Luckily, some creative trimming and the binding completely hides the warped edge.

This is really the only spot you can see where my nice straight seams curved on me during quilting. Boooooo!  At least, overall it's not TOO obvious...

Second, the quilt doesn't lie flat. I have no idea how that happened since the puckering really isn't that bad at all. This would bother me far less if it wasn't going to hang on the wall, though I think, again, with some creative use of tacks and such, it will end up being pretty flat on the wall. It's still annoying since I am assuming this all stems from the batting and quilt top not being completely flat during basting, which I actually spent a lot of time on. 

Gaps in the green binding. You can see where it just suddenly decided not to be sewn down and the batting pokes right through. Also, a certain orange kitty tried really hard to be part of this picture. 

And then there's the binding. From the front, it looks fine. The back looks HORRIBLE. I've had this problem with every quilt I've bound so far and I'm not sure how to fix it. The binding on the back likes to curve up as I sew from the front, and then I end up with whole bits of binding that completely missed being sewn, as you can see in my picture. I use both pins and clips to keep the binding down, so I'm thinking that the fabric is flipping up as I remove the pins and clips while sewing, and then of course I don't notice since I'm machine binding from the front and can't see the back binding getting all flippy. Do I need more pins? More clips? Different pins? I'll have to experiment and see. 

Now that I've spent half a post complaining, what did I LIKE about this quilt? Well, like I said before, I love the fabric and the easy pattern. I had begun quilting with white thread, but a few minutes into it, stopped and ripped out every stitch, then hopped in my car and drove to the fabric store. I initially meant to buy cream colored thread to quilt, but my eyes fell on a mid-tone brown and I wondered if that would work better, so I bought that instead. I am SO happy I went with the brown--it was my first time quilting with anything but white thread and I think it really complemented the fabric colors, rather than overtaking them, like I felt the white was doing. This was also my first time free-motion quilting something larger than a kitty block, and overall I do like how it turned out. I quilted it all in one three-hour stretch, after which I realized that it was 1am, my wrists were screaming in pain, and the faint smell of burned rubber was coming from my sewing machine, but I'm happy, overall, with my quilt--just disappointed that I didn't catch fixable problems until it was too late to fix them. Which may have been related to me dead-set on finishing the quilt immediately, even if it was 1am, because my unborn baby needs an autumn wall decoration in August, logic be damned!

The GOTTA MAKE NOW quilt sitting in the first baby gift we received this weekend...little baby girl, the pain over this autumn quilt was all for you. Also, Orange Kitty literally has to stick his butt in every picture possible. 

And anyway, I rationalize that the only way to overcome my disappointment and get better at quilting is to make more quilts. So everyone wins! (except maybe my bank account...)

In which string quilting begins to slowly take over my bedroom floor

I initially bought all those scraps off of etsy to help out with my postage stamp quilt. Obviously, I ended up with WAY more fabric than I was really expecting, so I began to work on a string quilt as well. The string quilt has very quickly taken over my sewing life. It goes fast--a single block takes me about 10 minutes to sew, assuming I don't get sidetracked by running out of bobbin thread or having a cat step on my foot pedal or having the senile old lady from upstairs banging on our door, confusingly asking why we live in her apartment, or whatnot. It's also something I can do while watching my husband play a video game or something, because pulling a random strip out of a box and sewing it in a straight line to a piece of paper is really quite mindless. Before I know it, not even an hour has passed and I've got 4 or 5 completely pieced and pressed blocks sitting next to me. 

I just don't know how big I want this thing to be. Since the blocks are so easy to make, I'm inclined to keep making more, but I also can't decide on a layout. There's always the traditional string-quilt layout of little diamonds.

This layout covers about 95% of the walkable space on our bedroom floor. The quilt may end up being this wide, at least, because I won't be able to lay it out flat anywhere else without some major rearranging of furniture. Which, come to think of it, has never stopped me before. 

The diamonds are really defined in the picture, but I feel like in person, it looks like someone just threw up a bunch of random fabric strips on the floor. Then again, maybe that's just what happens when I crouch on the floor for half an hour, rearranging each block and noticing all the mistakes that seem to scream "AHAHA LOOK AT THIS BEGINNER" but aren't even perceptible once you get more than three inches away. Anyways, then there's the large diamond layout.

Some bad kitty came in and flipped up the bottom right corner block while I was turned around. I'm way too lazy to get back on my chair and take another picture with the corned flipped back down.

I like this layout too, but I also don't think I want a square quilt and I'll have to see what a single large diamond looks like as a rectangle (boy, this sentence would make my high school geometry teacher wince). I guess I'll just be playing around with layouts and making string blocks forever since I can't decide.