Baby Quilt for Jack!

Going to try to get back into blogging again.  I've made quite a few things since the last time I blogged, but haven't taken many pictures.  Made myself a couple of tops, a button down shirt for my dad, a quilt (see below), pillows for my house, blanket pants (super warm and fuzzy pjs) for the Boyfriend's brother-in-law, and most recently a sweatsuit for my baby nephew.  I think I realize that I don't blog if I get held up with photographing a project.  I made my mom a beautiful pencil skirt last year and I still don't have pictures of it.  I have a hard time moving on, if I don't "complete" a project.  You won't see many UFOs in this house.  I've had a crap project or 2 which I won't go into because they make me sad. I hate sewing projects that don't pan out.  I've also been focusing on more craft projects for the house, rather than sewing all the time.  I work with clothes on a daily basis at work and going home and doing the same is too much sometimes.  

Well enough of the excuses.  Here's the quilt!

My sister had her first baby in October.  For the shower in August (yes I made this so long ago!!!) I made a baby quilt.  I had so many ideas to choose from thanks to Pinterest, but I landed on this triangle quilt.  I'm pretty happy how it turned out.  The binding could have been better, but my sister seems to like it. 

I used Kona Cottons for all the solid colors, which I purchased at Fabric.com.  The mini triangle fabric was also purchased at Fabric.com.  I bought the grey chevron fabric at a local discount fabric store.  

The quilt took a few days to make.  The Boyfriend helped with some of the sewing :) and the placement of triangles.  

I also made a little matching pillow with extra triangles and bunting to hang in the baby room. 

I stole this picture from my sister's facebook page.  The quilt and pillow are on the chair.  

For size reference, here is the quilt occupied by Pearl.  If I put anything on the floor, Pearl jumps right on.

I'll try to jump back on the blogging band-wagon.  If I don't, please forgive me.  :)

The finished QUILT!

I finished my quilt this weekend and the Boyfriend took pictures yesterday.  The blocks were cut during my first awful class, and assembled during my current class.  I designed it myself.  Here it is:

 And here is the back:

The quilting was awful to do.  My machine did not like it one bit, even with my walking foot.  I wish it wasn't so wrinkly.

It is stiffer than I expected it to be...(That's what she said!)  I chose cheap-o fabric because I didn't want to invest a lot of money in my first quilt.  And the batting is a low-loft 80%/20% cotton/poly blend.  Do you think the quilt is stiff because of the fabric?  The batting?

More pictures:

Noooo! Don't take my picture!

And Pearl with the finished pot-holders.  The pot-holders are in the mail now to my mom:

Despite my complaining, I do like the finished product.  Not bad for my first quilt.  I think if I ever make another one I'll hire out the quilting.  I do plan on making more pot-holders though!

An attempt at quilting...

I'm writing this post to take a break from QUILTING! Not just piecing, but QUILTING! (I'm also watching So You Think You Can Dance, my summertime t.v. guilty pleasure.

This past Fall I took a Beginner Quilting class at the Craft Center. I was really excited to learn some new sewing techniques that could possibly enhance my garment construction. I just wanted more practice really....plus

I had a butt-load of credit. Well, the teacher was the worst instructor I have ever had. She had nothing planned/prepared, and didn't know how even thread the machines. I could rant for days. I quit the class after 2 days.

This past quarter, I tried taking the class again with a different instructor and the class was great! A perfect introduction to piecing, quilting, and binding. The teacher was really patient and very nice. She had many resources available for us and was very prepared. My only dislike was that she was so nice and helpful that she let other beginning sewing students sew during our class and we had much less space to spread out with our large-ish quilt tops.

From my first nightmare of a class, I had cut out some pieces for what the crap teacher called a basic bento-box block (Hooray alliteration!) I am almost done quilting it. Here is what I had finished as of Sunday.

I also have been working on some pot-holders. I thought that would be a good start to learn how to quilt, and to take some of the blocks that the teacher taught and use them in something other than a sampler quilt.

And because I am terribly over-ambitious, I started the crazy-nine patch lattice quilt from Oh Fransson! I have the blocks pieced, but not squared. I think I'll leave them as is for a while. Another UFO....

There are 27 blocks there, all different! Not loving the color combo really anymore. Oh well.