Pop Flowers

My little brother's lovely wife is having her second baby next month - the first little girl in our family. She chose coral and mint for her nursery colors... yum! I did have to get over a little disappointment that I wouldn't be making a pink quilt, but as soon as I got my fabric in the mail, I was over the moon with this gorgeous color combination.

Deciding on a pattern has been agonizing. I have been scouring Pinterest and racking my brain to come up with the "perfect" quilt design. Although I have two nieces on my husband's side, this will be my parents' very first granddaughter - this is important! I had a vague idea of what I wanted but nothing seemed just right, until I found these adorable coasters. The moment I saw them, I knew. They are modern, sweet, girly, subdued, and not too frou-frou, which sums up how I see my SIL. I think there will be at least one other design element in the quilt, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I hardly ever have an entire quilt design worked out in my head before I start piecing. And yes, that often comes back to bite me in the backside.

I decided not to use Steam-a-Seam to attach the flowers as I wanted this quilt to be soft, so I chose this tutorial for turning under the edges of my shapes. As you can see in my first block on the left, I had some trouble getting the edges nice and round, even with clipping the curves. So I decided to try using pinking shears instead and that worked much better!

I start back to school in two days and I have so much I need to do to prepare... but I'm way too excited about this quilt to set it aside just yet! The boring stuff can wait.

A Quilt For Mom

 I managed to finish a couple more handmade Christmas gifts, including a quilt for my mom that I'd been working on for a few months. She loves blue and white and Delft pottery, so when I saw the Ravena line by Dear Stella I knew it was perfect for her.

Taking inspiration from the famous Delftware plates, I used this print with circular shapes for the block centers.

 

I didn't have to finish it until New Year's Eve, my mom's birthday, but I still barely got it done. I opted for easy cross-hatch quilting through the center of the 16" squares, but still only got that done at 2am the night before.

 

So the next morning, I got up and bound it using Amanda Jean's tutorial for machine binding. I was so pleased with how this turned out! I highly recommend this method for quick-but-neat binding. I had already bought my thread before I decided to go this route so it stands out a bit too much, but I was still happy with the results.

Since then, I've been on quite a sewing kick and I've completed one WIP, and I'm almost done with this little one with the scalloped edge. Don't let its sweet and innocent appearance fool you - it is from the darkest corner of hell and will steal your soul.

Today is my boys' first day back to school so my older son (who is homeschooled) and I decided to ease back into it. We watched Cast Away with Tom Hanks, then I googled some discussion questions and edited them to suit our needs. I was surprised at the abundance of supplemental materials for movies! It's a great time to be homeschooling, with all of the free resources just a click away. I was worried about starting my 6th grader back in August because I'm in nursing school full time, but with a bit of planning it has been quite easy - and he's doing SO much better academically. Next year his younger brother will join in and I just can't wait. There's nothing quite like having "class"while warm and cozy under a well-loved quilt. :)