WIP Wednesday: A Baby on the Way (Not Mine!)

I adore this print, it's hilarious! Lol.

Howdy y'all and Happy Hump Day! Like my title says, there is a baby on the way in my life, but it isn't mine. A coworker of mine is expecting to have a little girl in the beginning of November and her baby shower is fast approaching. This is the first time I've been around somebody who is pregnant from the very beginning. Her and her husband had been trying since around the time I started working with her; our entire workplace was cheering her on and consoling her as test after test was negative. We kept her light on her feet and smiling through the hard times until the day she finally got the positive test. :) We've ridden a roller coaster of pregnancy with her and it's been something else. Our part time doctor used his ultrasound machine and it was the first time I had seen anything like it...a baby, an ACTUAL BABY! Moving and dancing around on the screen!

I swear this picture wasn't blurry when I took it. :P

I knew from the start that I wanted to make her a quilt for her baby. She had admired a quilt I made for a Christmas swap and I didn't forget it. :) Her and her husband are big-time outdoors people, so I knew I wanted to go with that theme. What I discovered is that those types of fabrics are predominantly 'boy' themed. I did find some flowers to add though, so it still passes as girly, right? Hahaha.

A first for this quilt is that my husband actually helped me pick out some of the fabric. We were in a rush and stopped at Jo Ann's (which I hate having to do, rushing makes me anxious). It surprised me that he helped pull some fabric and seemed to enjoy it! After we got home though, I realized that we had nothing but busy patterns! I forgot solids or blender fabrics! I did manage to find a light gray in my stash and a dark grey polka dot fat quarter that seemed to fit the bill.

I found this pattern on Pinterest and figured it would be good to show off those bigger prints. It's a bit busy, but I kind of like baby quilts to be busy; it gives those little eyes so much to look at! The baby shower is at the end of August, so I needed something fairly easy to put together, but still fun and cute. :)

Circumstances

The last thing I need to be doing is starting a new quilt, but certain circumstances are a cause for exceptions, right? My City Blocks top is sitting on my design wall still, barely any progress being made since my last post. And yet, I didn't want to sit at my machine and work on it. Instead, I had the urge to just sit in the floor with my rotary cutter and mat, cutting out simple squares. So that's exactly what I did.

I've rewritten this post I don't know how many times, trying to figure how I want to say what I want. I try to not get too personal or ramble too much because this is a quilt blog and, let's face it, you're here to see the quilting. But life happens. You blink and it's been nearly a week since your last post and you've done next to nothing. All the craziness and curveballs of life just keep piling up until you're not quite sure which was is up and you feel guilty for not covering all your bases, both in real life and in blog land. It took me until this morning to realize something though. It's okay.

These fabrics are not my cup of tea at all. When they were donated to me, I actually cringed a little where I'm so engrossed with happy, bright, modern fabrics right now. But I know somebody who matches these fabrics perfectly. Our relationship has been rocky but circumstances have called for a truce (at least on my side). Changes in their health have scared me and confused me for more than a year...enough to drive me to actually want to sit in the floor and cut fabric (second only to basting on my least favorite sewing steps right now.) And with all of this fear and confusion, I did the only thing I really know to do: I started planning a quilt. I'm hoping to pick up some neutrals this week and get started on it soon. 

I tried to keep this as short as possible, so thank you for bearing with me. I'm planning on working on City Blocks for at least a little while today, so hopefully there will be some fun progress to share soon. Have a wonderful Tuesday y'all, thanks for stoppin' by.

WIP Wednesday: Progress, Progress, Progress!

Happy Hump Day y'all, hope your day is going well! Today is the first day in forever that it hasn't rained (yet!), so I'm loving this sunshine even if I'm stuck inside at work all day. I've made some serious progress over the last week that I'm so excited to share!

First up is my newest quilt start. I've been toying with a name, which is always the hardest part for me to decide. I think these blocks look like a street map of a downtown area, so I was toying with something like 'City Blocks'. Any suggestions for names are welcome, leave them in the comments below! :)

Also, I managed to save the embarrassing block that was my first attempt at this new technique. It's far from perfect, like all the others, but I think it looks so much better than what it was. I'm so glad all the effort wasn't wasted!

There are four smaller blocks to each bigger block and I have two bigger blocks done so far. Just chuggin' along... :)

Next up is scrap vortex blocks! I worked on these a couple days this week and manage to get some bigger slabs put together! I've said it before, but these are such a blast to work on, I love it. I dug even further into my fabric and came up with some more cute novelty prints (that octopus had to be included at least once!).

Overall, I've had a blast sewing this week. I've barely used my seam ripper and I've been getting off work early enough to actually get settled in and sew before it's time to head to bed. Hopefully the rest of the week keeps playing the same tune!

Linking up with NTT after I get off work this evening!

WIP Wednesday: Starting Something New!

Happy Hump Day y'all! I am back to good health after a crummy weekend, thank the good Lord! I managed to get most of my materials cut for my new quilt even while sick, though it seemed to take forever. I only cut one or two bits at a time though, so that might be why. Lol.

I started out stoked to make some progress on this quilt and learn a new technique. And all that excitement led me here:

I was so embarrassed by this, I almost didn't share it!

Yeah. Rather than the gorgeous block demonstrated in the guidelines, I had a skewed tic-tac-toe board. I just sort of stared at it for a minute and thought, "What on earth am I doing?" After a quick breath, I looked back at the instructions and just studied the blocks on the quilt. I'm not one to pick up on patterns easy, but somehow I was able to visualize things a little better after just looking with intent.

So I started again, being more deliberate and focusing a bit harder on different aspects before. I managed to get one done and trimmed before heading to bed. I will say, I'm more proud of this one than my demented practice block! Hahahaha

Still not quite what I want, but soooooooo much better than the first try. Lol.

I'm hoping to save my practice block and match some seams a bit better as I move forward. Like usual, I'm on the fence about whether or not I can pull this off. I always have this self doubt with each quilt I make, it's hard to be confident with these things for some reason!

Also, I made a little more progress with my scrap vortex. I'm hoping to get some more blocks done this coming week so I can see some 'real' progress up on my design wall!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday! Have a good week y'all!

Driving the Struggle Bus This Week

Hey y'all. As dramatic as it sounds, I'm surprised I made it to Friday. Work has been absolute madness with being understaffed and completely booked up and life in general has been crazy. But enough about life, let's talk about quilting. On Thursday, I was able to run to Jo Ann's and get fabric for my next project, which meant I had to actually decide what I was making. I really liked the Snowball quilt that I showed in my last post, but I had to be realistic; I needed more time and more money to be able to gather all the fabrics it called for. Maybe in the future I'll get to do it, but not this time. My second favorite was the Fresh Cut quilt, the last in my post that didn't make it into Quilting Modern.

Check out Sew Katie Did for a look at all her awesome quilts!

Rather than go with the original colors, I swapped out for a more vibrant blue (Kona turquoise, I think?) and a bold red (Kona, but I can't remember what sadly.) I stuck with Kona white for the neutral. My Jo Ann's is a little sparse with stocking Kona's, but I'm happy with the colors I got. I also snagged some red and blue thread for quilting, a first for me! Before now, I've always quilted in white or gray. It's time to branch out and try new things though.

I've already started cutting some, but progress will be slow for a day or so. I woke up sick this morning, so I'm wrapped up in the Supernova and praying for the ickies to get the heck out of my body. Speaking of slow progress, I got some more work done on my Scrap Vortex block. I put them up on my design wall in hopes that they would brighten things up (and my orange peels kept falling off, so I retired them to my fabric bookcase for now).

 So my only finish this week was deciding on my next project and buying supplies. Not much, but beggars can't be choosers, right? I hope everybody has a fun, healthy weekend, thanks for stoppin' by y'all.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.