Four Finishes, I'm On A Roll!

Top Left:  Baby Whoo Shower Favors, Top Right: Baby Woodland Quilt,
 Botton Left: Homey Triangles, Bottom Right: Valentine, aka, Grandma Quilt

I had mentioned on my post last week that I thought that I was off to a slow start for the new year and happy to say that I feel like am on a productive pace now.  I completed two projects related to this week's baby shower; I finished my Country Thread's Sew-Along quilt and I unexpectedly machine quilted and bound a top which was made almost ten years ago.

Baby Whoo Shower Favors

I've purchased a Sizzix Owl Die early last year knowing that I would use it for a future baby shower once my son and his wife were going to start a family.  The announcement finally came in August so Owl planning have been put into motion.

My plan was to start making 36 owls in mid December so they would be done in time for this week's baby shower.  I am so glad that I planned ahead because you will see that the original pattern is nowhere near what I ended up making.  The first two owls are what I called an epic failure because they were too time consuming, hard to make and there was no way I was going to make 36 of them.  Thankfully, I did some searching on Pinterest for an alternative Owl and like what I came up with, big Yo-Yo eyes and no wings or feet, also time consuming but in an easier way.

I did use the die for the owl's body, the Clover Yo-Yo Maker for the eyes, found 40 pair of black buttons for the eyes, had brown felt in my stash for the beak and also had all the gray and yellow fabrics.  I think each owl took an hour to make and were assembled while binge watching Gilmore Girls.  While I was assembling these owls I thought something was missing and came up with putting a label on the back which I thought added a nice finishing touch.  These owls are appropriately named Baby Whoo because the expectant parents do not want to know the baby's gender until the delivery date.  The labels were the only additional expense for these owls and I ordered them from Best Wishes Boutique on Etsy.  I'm keeping one of these owls for myself and have named him Gilmore and although I think they turned out rather cute, I have no plans on making any more of these owls in the future, unless for my other son if he should ever remarry and start a family.

Baby Woodland Quilt

Last year when I was making quilts for my Church Blanket Ministry, I made two of these quilts since I knew I wanted one for my future grandchild since the nursery theme was going to be Owls.  I did not quilt mine until this past week and I really love how the machine quilting turned out, I did a tight meandering stitch which is the first time I every did this and  it made the quilt so soft and cuddly.  I've become quite adventurous on my Juki  2010Q thanks to its partnering with the Janome Walking Foot and will definitely do more quilting like this.

Homey Triangle Sew Along

This is the second sew along which Mary Etherington/Country Threads  has hosted for her recently published book Sew Charming http://country-threads-chicken-scratch.com/uncategorized/sew-along-and-giveaway/.  For my quilt, I used a Chrysalis charm pack and some fabric from the stash and it's always a good feeling when you can make a quilt with fabric you already have.  I also love the horizontal straight line quilting throughout the quilt which Mary did on her quilt.  I never quilted straight through the inner and outer border before and I really love how it looks.  I have other quilts that I am wanting to quilt like this.  The only negative about this quilt is I couldn't use my die-cutter because I needed so many HST and and not enough charm squares and had to say hello again to triangle paper.

The Valentine Quilt, aka, Grandmother Quilt

I just had to share how this quilt came to being completed this week after being an UFO for almost ten years and it not being on my list of 46 projects for 2017.   It happened because I was filing away the Sew Sampler Block recipe card #9 and while looking through the other blocks I noticed that Block #3 was the same pattern as the Love All Around Block which May Chappelle has started a sew along.  So I thought it was something that I could make a wall hanging with my Valentine fabric stash and I went to look through my Sandy Gervais fabric bin and noticed that I hardly had any which I knew I had.  I found the stash among the UFO pile and then realized I had more in another area where I had tops waiting to be quilted.  There I found the Valentine top which the main focus print is the ribbon fabric, one of the first pieces of fabric I purchased from Joann's when I started quilting in 1996.  There was a time I could remember where I purchased my fabric and those days are long gone.  But I can remember buying this and never being able to use it until I started accumulating Valentine fabric by Sandy Gervais and others.  I couldn't bear to cut up the ribbon fabric so I used WOF of it with squares and it measures 40"x60".  When I made the top, I thought it would be a sweet quilt to hold a future granddaughter with and at that time was a long ways away and what you call a gleam in my eye. I thought of this a lot probably because I had two boys and I made two other "granddaughter" tops which are also in my UFO pile.  Maybe with the upcoming baby shower,  my newly acquired machine quilting skills or Valentines Day is fast approaching, I just had to finally quilt it with meandering and straight line quilting and again I love how it turned out.  I plan on bringing this quilt with me when I go to the hospital for the impending delivery in the event I do have a granddaughter.  This thought has now has lead me to another unplanned project--a grandfather quilt using fabrics of my hubby's favorite hobbies--just in case we have a grandson and I plan on finishing it before the due date so we can take both quilts with us.  Which quilt will be in the first photographs of us holding our future grand  baby?  We can make a game of it while waiting in the delivery room with the others.

It was a very productive week for me which also included starting my first Smitten Block.

So far so good, I'm enjoying the hand piecing and definitely something I can sew while continuing to watch Gilmore Girls.  My son has set me up to watch all the seasons on Netflix and I could have sworn I watched all the episodes until maybe the last year, but after watching nine episodes of the first season, I realized maybe I didn't watch it that much.

This was a good, productive week and I was able to add  3.75 yards.

Minus 100 Yardage Challenge:  -14 yards

I was again sorely tempted this week, I'm talking five yards,  but am determined not buy any fabric at least for January so I can say I was good for one whole month.