Quilting

Over winter break, I took up quilting.  Mom taught me how to sew when I was young, and I had an operating sewing machine until I burned it up sewing a new ceiling for the SGA Homecoming dance in 2007.  With several babies close to my heart set to arrive this winter, I thought it would be fun to try to make them some baby quilts.  I asked Billy to get me a new sewing machine as my (early) Christmas gift, so once I passed my exam, I began working.  I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make the designs I dreamed up in my head, searching etsy for patterns, and cruising the craft stores to find fabrics and figure out which tools would help me most.  It is always hard for me to transition from hyper-efficient academic mode into the more relaxed pace of semester breaks, so having the crafts to work on also gave me something to do in the evenings that was less stressful than schoolwork.

The first thing I set out to make was a baby quilt for my friend Anne-Marie, whose shower was in mid December and whose baby is due any day now!  She loves William Carlos Williams, so I found an excerpt from a WCW poem that reminded me of what it felt like to fall more in love with Nora as I watched her take in the world.  I had fun embroidering the words onto the fabric, piecing the quilt together, and learning that binding the quilt is definitely the most time consuming part.  Overall, I was pleased with how the quilt turned out, though when I took this picture I realized that the lettering was much harder to read than I thought.

Once I finished that quilt, I began making a play mat for Everett.  I found this pattern on etsy for a play mat with a drawstring around the outside that turns it into a bag.  The idea is to throw the toys in the middle, cinch up the straps, and carry it as a bag when you're taking the baby somewhere outside the house where you plan to set them on the floor.  I knew that if I had ever shown up to new mom's support group with this dual-purpose blanket, I would have been the envy of everyone, so I hoped Ashley would find it useful for Everett.

It's tough to be an inexperienced quilter and a perfectionist, I learned.  I managed to get the corners to line up perfectly on Anne-Marie's quilt, but I just had to let go of my irritation about the strips not lining up on Everett's play mat.  Maybe if I make this again for someone else I'll do a better job.  I did award myself bonus points, however, for choosing an animal print backing that makes it look pretty trendy when it is in bag-mode.

Ashley is really good about sharing photos of Everett with us, so here is one in which he is doing a VERY careful inspection of the ribbons I sewed into the seams.  If he shares his cousin Nora's love of tags, he will be even more fascinated by these when he gains the use of his arms and fingers.

I also made a birth stats wall quilt for Everett, but I forgot to take a picture of it.  Thankfully, I learned my lesson about low-contrast lettering before making something that my colorblind brother would want to read.  Instead of stitching the birth stats into the fabric, I used felt lettering.  I also made some fabric headbands in cute patterns for Vickie, since she now has to wear plain navy blue scrubs to work every day.

My newly acquired quilting skills are back on hiatus during the semester, but when I have time again, I'm planning to begin working on a twin sized literary-inspired quilt for Nora.  And if I can get my emotions together someday I would like to do something with the bags of Dad's t-shirts I have stored away.