Baby Quilts

Wow, I'm behind in publishing the pictures of my latest two quilts.  I have several friends that I do playdates with on a regular basis and I've decided to make quilts for their kids, or kids to be as the case may be.

I started with a charm pack (40-ish 5x5-inch squared) and the same number of white squares and sewed them together  to make 1/2 square triangles.

I then sewed the 1/2 square triangles together to create pinwheels.

After deciding on how to lay out the pinwheels and adding borders I was able to quilt.  I love this part of quilting.   For me it's very calming.  You can see the stippling that has been done and the plain fabric in front of the needle that has yet to be done.  These two quilts quilted up quickly - almost too fast for my taste.  (That was a lot of "q" words in one sentence.)

The right quilt is for Aria - daughter of my friend Annie.  She received her quilt for her 2nd birthday.  The left quilt is for Piper, daughter to be of the same friend.  Annie received Piper's quilt at her surprise baby sprinkle a few weeks ago.

This is the back of Aria's quilt.  I like to get "artsy-fartsy" and add fun things to the back of my quilts every so often.  Hubby and Bug both say that it looks like I've run out of material and had to add something extra to make up for it.  Silly people.

Here's the back of Piper's.  I like that you can really see where I did and didn't quilt. 

I really like the effect I achieved on the corners of Aria's quilt.  I had a vision in my head of what I wanted it to look like and it turned out just right!

I also played and played with the blocks before I ended up doing a diagonal color stripe design.  That was lots of fun. It took up several days worth of nap times for me to make my final decision.

As you can see, the borders of Piper's quilt aren't quite so fancy.  However, since I figured all babies love tags of sorts her quilt is framed with prairie points.  I love the effect, and it really wasn't too difficult to do either.



Here's a semi-close up of the prairie points.

I'm also pretty proud of their names.  I appliqued them.  I attempted applique several years ago and it was a complete disaster and I swore I'd never do it again.  Ha!  Never say never.  I took my time and, though they're by no means the best applique I've ever seen, it's my best and far far from my worst.

I went to a quilt shop a few weeks ago and they had charm packs on sale for quite reasonable prices, so I stocked up.  These quilts were my first time using charm packs, and I must say I really enjoyed them.  Needless to say, I have bunches more to make more quilts with.  I wonder if anyone would buy one?

Looking forward to completing my next project - a rope bag!  The next baby quilt for play date friend doesn't need to be done til September, so I have time to play with other projects for a while.

Whatever

We had a freak snowstorm today. We made it all winter without any snow days. And today, the beginning of the 4th week in April we had one. I was super happy to hang out here in the house and not step outside at all. Thus, only Bug went out to play in the snow. Probably not a great parenting moment, but definitely not my worst of the day either. It's still snowing, so I'll probably get a do over tomorrow, if I so choose.




"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9

In many situations I really feel like saying "whatever".  Not the whatever that Paul is speaking of in Philippians, but the whatever of the modern culture that says, I don't care - do what you want.  That is not the attitude I should be projecting in front of my daughters.  I'm afraid that I did a lot of "whatever-ing" today.  The second full day of hubby's TDY and Bug had her first snow day of the year, so the 2 day weekend turned into a 3 day weekend and I was on edge.  I was snippy and raised my voice at both girls - like Baby Pie has any idea why momma was yelling at her.  Yes, I yelled at Baby Pie and the look of confusion and pain that I got from her hurts in my heart.  Yet, it made me feel guilty, which added to the snippiness and resulted in even more raised voices and misunderstanding.  Looking back, yes, I should have just walked away for 2 minutes, closed my eyes, said a prayer, looked for an appropriate quote and calmed and centered myself.  I've seen the quote that children are not an inconvenience - unfortunately today - I admit - I felt that my girls were. 

That takes me back to Paul's "whatever".  True.  Honorable. Just. Pure. Pleasing. Commendable. Excellent.  Worthy of Praise.  What better words to describe what it means to be a mother.  Or maybe I should say what better words to describe the goals of being a good mother.  To be a mother that my girls will remember, not for always yelling, but for being there, playing, supporting and listening.  A mother that provides consistency.  Thankfully - we have forgiveness and tomorrow.  I know Bug has forgiven me - we talked and seem to be on the same page.  Baby Pie is another story.  I can only assume that she's either forgiven me or forgotten because she was her happy normal self before bed.  At a few days short of 18 months, she has yet to say mama. I am dada.  She has words for a few object and our cat and dog.  But she knows what we're saying and can follow pretty complex directions.  Yes, that was off topic. 

The other thing I've done these last few days was a lot of stippling on Aria's quilt.  A lot of stippling.  Let me see.  Quilting night on Thursday was 3 hours - ok, make that 2 1/2 giving time for set up and tear down.  Then 2 hours on Saturday, 2 hours on Sunday and 3 hours today.  So that's 7 1/2 hours stippling.  Phew.  I love how it looks.  Love.  Love.  Love.  I need to decide if I'm going to do a traditional binding or a quicker machine sewn binding.  Then I need to trim the sides and bind it.  I also need to work on getting Pipers quilt done.

So - whatever - Paul's "whatever" - ". . .think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9