Finish it Up Friday 3

Hello there bloggy friends!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth.

There are probably a few disappointed folks out there in the world. ;)

It's just been a  busy busy week here!

I've been working crazy hours (it's a good and temporary thing) and trying to squeeze my life in, in between. So, this week the blog was neglected.

Plus a lot of rain made it difficult to take pictures. (Not that I'm complaining. Please say a prayer for those out west experiencing wildfires and that crazy heatwave.)

Nonetheless, I am back to finish out the week. 

I hope that my American friends had a lovely Independence day. If you are/were a service member, military brat, or military spouse, I would like to thank you for your service and sacrifices. (Family members give up a lot, too.)

If you are not an American, I hope that your July 4th was a nice day. ;)

So.....onto the FINISH!

Yay!!  That baby quilt is finally done!

About time, too. I got her first birthday invite in the mail last week.

Whoops!  

At least she's not 18, right? ;)

It did give me a lot of time to pray for baby and family, which is kind of the point.

So, while y'all have really only seen pictures of this quilt coming along for about a month (and I'm sure y'all were saying to yourselves, is she going to do anything else already?), this quilt was a good year (?) or so in the making.

Yes. I know. Ridiculous.

Let me explain a little.

I am a super newbie quilter.

This is my SECOND QUILT EVER (huzzah!).  (First one can be seen here.)

I do have finished a couple of other quilt tops that are just patiently waiting for some other items to be completed first.

So....about a year ago (yeah, since she's almost one), I started this quilt. Buying the fabric, deciding on how the pattern would go, so on and so forth.

I learned how to do a half square triangle (HST).

Let me stop there. 

HSTs really aren't so hard. But they do require some degree of precision. And, well, I didn't really have that then (for a lot of reasons...crappy sewing machine, impatience, and I now own a quarter inch foot, which is a-MAH-zing).

So, I sewed a bunch of HSTs and they looked like crap.

This is not my usual...oh, I wish they looked better.

No, these would have looked terrible in the quilt. Quite literally (and that is not the figurative use of the word literal, which is kind of a weird phenomenon in our culture, but I digress...).

So, I set them aside and worked on some other items. Many of which are still WiPs.

Someday. Someday.

And I broke up with my sewing machine.

The backside of the quilt. It's just a preference thing, but I like the backside to look complete, too, and not haphazard.  If you like haphazard backsides, more power to you. :)

 So after I finished the first baby quilt, I looked at these HSTs again and started ripping them apart.

Which took this side of forever.

 (By the way, I think these two babies already have an arranged marriage. Just kidding, kind of. Their moms would LOVE that. ;) )

Then, I re-sewed them, squared them up and just kept going.

Mr. Gardener helped me with the placement of all of the blocks. He's a sweetie, isn't he? (I learned some good lessons about value in this quilt, but I think I will save that for another day because this post is getting kind of long. Thanks for hanging in there!)

Here's some of the quilting, which happily improved as I went along (yay for skills progress!). I just did a very simple cross-hatch, but I think it works well with the design.

As a result of this ripping, squaring up, etc. business, the blocks were much smaller than I originally intended. In fact, I originally intended for the pinwheels to be the whole quilt!

So, I pulled my Michael Miller Dinky Dots in Grey from my stash (I LOVE this print. Why? I don't know. Just do.) and made a big ol' border. And I quite like it.

I also made a square quilt instead of a rectangular one. (Well, technically a square is a rectangle - though not all rectangles are squares - but you know what I mean.) 

More quilting. You can see a little meandering and so on, but I'm pretty proud of myself overall.

 But, I must say, that by happy accident, I think I like how it came out better than the original design.

The binding is a scrappy mixture of fabrics left from the pinwheels.

Mr. Gardener helped take pictures.

Then he got weird and said I couldn't take pictures of him.

So, naturally, I just had to. Muahahaha.

Isn't he cute?  

I think so.

************

So...Quilty Stats!!

Fabric: 

-Stained Glass in Light Pink by Dear Stella

-Savannah in Blossom from the Karavan Collection by Valori Wells

-Jenean Morrison Silent Cinema Iris in Pink for Free Spirit Fabrics

-Vintage Ironwork in Khaki from Secret Garden by Sandi Henderson

-Garden Pindot Blossom by Michael Miller Fabrics

-Mod Vine in Rose from Modernology by Art Gallery Fabrics

-Art Gallery Hyperreal Garden Radient Bouquet in Ruby

-Art Gallery Coquette Flirt in Power Grey

-Too Muchery Damask in Steel by Helen Dardik

-Circles in Light Greys from Downtown by P&B Textiles

-Nancy Mims Pick a Bunch Organic Flower Burst in Orchid

-Mingle Polka Dot in Hot Pink 

-Michael Miller Dinky Dots in Grey

-Random Pinks from Joann's

Pause: I will never use just random fabric ever again. It turned out okay, but it just didn't play as nice as the other fabrics. Turns out there is a significant quality difference. Unpause.

Quilting:

-Grey Guttermann thread

Binding:

Scrappy leftovers of the above-mentioned fabrics

Size:

I think it's 55" by 55", but I need to measure to make sure.

Then it will be wash, iron, and off to the postman!

Thanks for sticking through that long post!! :)

Linking up with Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Also linking up with Molly and Carly.

Works in Progress Wednesday 4

Here we are at Works in Progress Wednesday again.

And, look! No baby quilt this week!

You know what that means...

Tune in on Friday for the final reveal. (Mr. Gardener has been commissioned to help take pictures tonight.)

Now onto the next....

So, there actually is a baby quilt this week, but this is a different one.

I'm finally back to my Bloom Bloom Pow this week. 

The color choices are a little different for me and I'm pretty nervous about them. I hope it all ends up looking good together. There's a story behind them, but I can't share it yet. While I'm sure the mama-to-be has probably figured out that this is her quilt, there's still a chance for a surprise.

I've made four of the...well, I'm not sure what to call them. They're not the actually finished block, but the first step of the block, then I'll cut it, rearrange the pieces, and sew them back together.

Sound confusing enough? 

I guess I'll call them starter blocks? 

Well, either way, I've finished four of them. I have 10 full-sized ones left and 4 half-sized ones.

They sew up real nice and easy. 

I've actually almost completed six more. One last step.

Which really only leaves four more full-sized blocks and four half-sized blocks!

This one might be finished before this baby arrives. :)

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In other news, I have a request of y'all.

Our friend, Todd, was in a very serious car accident yesterday. Thanks be to God, he is alive, but there is concern, that he may be paralyzed. Can y'all be in prayer for him, please? And for his family? He has a wife and a daughter and they are obviously under a lot of stress. They could all really use your prayer.

Because our God still works miracles today.

Sometimes in ways we can't or don't see and sometimes in ways we do. 

He is in this and every situation until He says it's finished.

God is good. All the time.

I really appreciate your prayers.

****

Linking up with Freshly Pieced 

for 

Mess

Just a quickie that I had to share.  Plus a lighten up after my last post. :)

I have a new job.  Yay!  I do hearing screenings in a hospital.

On Wednesday, I was still training, so I was going with this other girl that works there and one of the babies kept spitting up during the test, so to prevent choking and calm him down, I wound up holding the baby, who spat up on me multiple times.  The girl that I work with kept saying that she was so sorry that it happened and poor me, etc.

To which I responded, no big deal, that's why we wear scrubs and I've had worse happen.  (Which I have, I've had projectile vomit and there were lots and lots of potty accidents my first year of teaching, which I have stepped in more than once.)  This was no big deal, but look on her face was pretty funny when I said that I've had worse.

But my mother, who keeps reminding me that not everyone appreciates the topic of lice at the dinner table, would be happy to note that I did not elaborate to this poor girl.