Quilt 1 of 2010

I was beginning to feel like my stack of unfinished quilts would stay that way forever! I made 9 quilts in 2009, my first year of quilting, and while I had at least 7 in progress for this year, I knew I’d never catch up if I didn’t get moving. The problem was that all of my basting pins were tied up in this quilt (and have been for most of the year), and it would have been cheating to just go out and buy another set of pins. Well, going with the saying that finished is better than perfect, it’s finally done. The free motion quilting leaves something to be desired, but practice makes perfect and I’m sure the next one will be an improvement (besides being a long ways away – my other strategy for getting quilts done is to use lots of straight(ish) lines). My frustration with the quilting turned out not to be the needles falling out of my machine as much as it was that when I pushed the quilt away my stitches were fine, but I skipped stitches every time I pulled the quilt towards me, no matter how steady I thought I was in my motion. Side to side wasn’t as big of a deal, either. Hopefully it’s just an issue that practicing moving the quilt around and keeping my foot steady on the pedal would solve, and not a weird issue with the machine. From a distance, it does have a nice crinkly effect, though.

That being said, I do love the design of this quilt! I had a charm pack of Tula Pink Neptune that I used for the center of these squares, and pieces other little bits of them into the frames. The struggle I have with designing quilts is that I’m drawn to simple, modern, designs, but they aren’t challenging to make, the tops can be completed almost too quickly to be fun, and I don’t want to stay in the beginner place forever. However, all it takes is looking at Denyse Schmidt quilts like this one and this one that I love and I’m reminded that it’s worth it to make quilts that I love instead of making them to show off in some way. Plus, if I’m bored, there’s always free motion quilting to throw me for a loop! So I used lots of solids here, I think this is Kona khaki, which I bought a whole bunch of for a gender-neutral project last year that went a different direction.

The binding is a Japanese polka dot print (from superbuzzy, I think) and the backing is just two prints that I can’t see working into a top anytime soon. The finished project measures about 44″x65″, so it’s a snuggle on the couch quilt.

There’s a baby-sized companion quilt in the works for this one, that might be the next to get quilted (besides the three already quilted just waiting for their binding) if I can figure out how I want to back it. It feels good to be getting a stack of finished objects – I buy plenty of fabric that I need to actually use it sometimes, too!

Butterick 5363

I’ve been tracking my pregnancy clothes and belly size over on my other blog (why am I keeping them separate again? oh well), but for things that I make it seems like I should keep them here, on the “crafty” blog. I would have no idea how much my belly is growing if I wasn’t taking these pictures- when I look at myself from the front or look down at the belly the growth isn’t this obvious!

This dress isn’t a maternity pattern, per se, but I bought it on a 99 cent sale because it looked easy and I liked the kind-of-racerback that it had. Plus, my sister would say that I have a thing for jumpers, which I deny, but it does have the potential for layering in a multitude of ways which I love. That and finding a couple of yards at Hancock on the same day that matched the style of the pattern (even though I have plenty in my stash to make it over and over) and I was sold.

My secret for making this big enough for the growing belly was from Anna Maria Horner’s book Handmade Beginnings – if you read the Mariposa tunic/dress pattern, the only thing that’s different from the maternity version to the non-maternity version is a bigger square for the bottom of the front. So I made my normal size for the top and back, and then extended out to the biggest size that I could fit on the fabric for the front skirt portion. It didn’t work entirely smoothly for the way the pattern was constructed- the gathering is only supposed to happen from the tie, but I had to gather the larger skirt before I attached it to the bodice and so the casing for the tie isn’t completely smooth, but it worked well enough and produced a functional garment that I’m not ashamed to wear. Technically I made the tunic length – I just made it as long as I could on the length of fabric I had, so I think the dress would have been an awkward below knee kind of thing. I feel like the color washes me out, but it was far too hot on Saturday to think about putting a pair of capris on underneath the dress.

Every time I decide to improvise with a clothing pattern it takes a little longer than I think it will, but at least in this case it worked out well enough in the end.