What's a girl to do?!

Without a sewing machine, I have no choice but to do handwork and cut, cut, cut out lovely fabrics. (Cough, cough) Only one of these is a project that I've already listed. Two are new baby quilts for . . . well, babies that are going to be born. I don't have a stockpile of baby quilts, so I have to make new ones for upcoming baby showers. One is a quilt-along I had planned to start, and one is just because I ran across a lovely tutorial.

Riley Blake's wheels -- based off of this quilt. For a friend's upcoming baby boy.

One I designed and had already started. Made with Fig Tree's Whimsy.

Little Miss Shabby's Block of the Month -- Birdie Stitches. It's a Hoot by Momo -- baby girl quilt based on Amanda Jean's Flea Market Fancy Quilt.

More It's a Hoot by Momo. I had all these huge prints and didn't know what to do with them till I saw this. She has a link to her free tutorial. Okay. Now I need my sewing machine back so I can put all these together!

Giraffe Quilt

Some quilts I have no problem naming, and others are more difficult for me. And don't even ask me about labeling. I'm terrible at labeling them. =/

I pieced this quilt a good eight years ago. My SIL had gotten some of the giraffe fabric with pink, and I liked it in the green colorway. I let it sit so long before quilting it that I had a hard time matching the back to the front. And of course, I used every ever-loving piece of it to make the front, although, if there were any scraplets left, I wouldn't be able to find them anyway due to their advanced age. Anyway, so I quilted it last year, but I had the same problem with binding that I had with the backing -- the greens were not quite the right match -- all the ones I could track down. Admittedly, it wasn't a hard-fought search to find the perfect binding, but at the same time, even in my lackadaisical quest, I was unwilling to settle for a weird color for the binding. So I finally decided on brown -- I'm pretty sure it's Quilter's Only from Joann's -- that chocolatey brown color. And I think it's growing on me.

Diagonal crosshatch (which has ever been my go-to mode of quilting should ideas fail me). It doesn't make for as scrunchy of a quilt after washing, but at this point I'm going with, "Hey, it's done, and it's another boy quilt to add to my stack." And I really do still like the colors.

Spring to Finish

Jacquie is so wonderful to always keep us finishing our projects. I have been slacking lately -- largely because I have been working in my husband's business a lot more. Still, I have a lot of things to finish.

So here's my list of things I'd like to finish by May 31st. Stop me if I get too ambitious. That seems to be my hallmark.

1. Three bridesmaid dresses
2. Black Raspberry Mod Sampler
3. 49ers Quilt
4. Mod Zoo baby quilt
5. Guitar Supastar quilt
6. Secret baby girl quilt
7. Binding on giraffe quilt
8. Finish paintbox blocks
9. Nadia's block
10. Wendy's block
11. Amanda's block

Yep, I'm that behind on Common Threads. Of course, as you can see from my sidebar, there are many other projects to finish, but I'm going to have to stop there. I hope to get all these done since some of these babies are already born. Okay. So by May 10th, I have to have at least 5 of these babies done. That's the halfway point, even though I'm starting a little late. Feel free to join in and finish up some of your projects too.

If I finish my list, I will be rewarding myself with the Rural Jardins wovens FQ pack. I am IN LOVE with those. Wish me luck!

Two finishes and a start.

So I haven't been able to get on blogger for over a week now. It keeps telling me it cannot display the webpage. I was even unable to leave comments on other blogs and missed out on entering some giveaways as a result. =( I assumed it was because of my slow internet speed, but that hasn't been a problem before. Then I thought I might have a virus, so I updated my virus definitions and scanned. Nothing. The download took 5 hours (seriously). Maybe my virus hightailed it during that time, seeing the writing on the wall. Anyway, now I can blog. Whatever. I don't get it, but I'll take it.

This is an older line called Princess Boutique. The finished yet unbound quilt has been hanging around for quite some time. I finally bound it, and it will be going to one of my friends who is having a baby girl. Seriously, I know 7 or 8 pregnant people right now. These hangers-on are going to come in handy.

Close-up.

Back.

This I-Spy quilt was pieced by a girl that I have watched for the last four summers (minus the one where I had just had baby #7 and was trying to sell my house). We never had enough time to work on it since I always had 10 or so kids running around. I quilted it for her last summer, and it has sat unbound at my house since then. So now it's done and in her hands. She's 14 now, and this quilt is small, but she doesn't seem to care.

This is the back. Cool, no?

Now for the part where I hang my head. Old Red Barn Co.'s Dana is hosting a quilt-along. You all know I can't resist a quilt-along, so I joined. Yes, I did. It looks like a quick/easy quilt, and I'm using up some stash, another worthy cause (besides finishing stuff). I'm using a combination of Robyn Pandolph's Tickled Pink and some Provincial Garden (South Seas Imports, I wanna say).

So you can do the math. I finished two. I started one. I'm at 74. I HAVE been doing other stuff too, and I'm very close on a few more of those quilts that need binding. And I made a purse. And I had to alter 5 quincenera dresses. 4 more to go. Oh, and I made two sets of cards for card swap. And then there were field days, band concerts, choir concerts, awards assemblies, play practice (the actual play is tonight), a trip to NASA/Houston, end-of-the-year church activities -- I'm sure there's more, but my mind is blanking out on me. May is really busy around here to say the least. Hopefully blogger will continue to be my friend, and you can see what I've been up to. Now I'm off to clean my house before the card-swappers arrive. Have a fun day! (And by that I mean, "Get in your sewing room, girl!")

Updates on WIPs

Well, the cake for the baby shower was still in the oven, and I didn't feel like starting the icing for the birthday one yet, so I took some pictures.

This is what the red/green/khaki baby quilt looks like right now, but eventually it will look similar to the blue/yellow baby quilt (pictured below). All these plaids were precut squares given to me a while ago. I had sewn them all together, but the top wasn't big enough for anything, so I had planned to put borders on it to make it bigger. It has been in a bin for at least 4 years. I took it apart to make two quilts.

This is the block-of-the-month for my quilt group. It's just in strips that I haven't sewn together yet -- and it needs a border.

Blue and yellow baby -- for the baby shower tomorrow.

Ohio Stars and Bars -- I saw this quilt on Bonnie's website, and loving patriotic quilts the way I do, I had to do it. Unfortunately for me, I thought I needed 30 bars and 31 stars, but it was actually 40 and 41. Don't know what my problem is. I wrote it down correctly, but I just kept the wrong numbers in my head. Anyway, otherwise it would be done, but now I have to cut some more.

I did not take a picture of the blue pinwheel quilt, because it is seriously just a bunch of stacks of blue and white squares and even some strips that I haven't cut into squares yet. I think we have enough pictures like that here.

This quilt was inspired by Amanda Jean's aqua and red quilt. My husband wanted a quilt for our bed (so sad that none of ours are big enough -- it's king-sized) for Christmas, but he told me this about week before Christmas, and I don't have a machine that can quilt -- other than a walking foot. He was home sick so much that I couldn't lay it out and do a grid on it -- besides, I don't have an empty space in my house big enough to lay it out. Pinning it was a challenge. So that's the long version of saying, "It's not done yet." Field of brown is what I'm calling it for now.

I don't have a picture of the blue/burgundy applique, because, well, frankly, I forgot it was on the list, and now I don't want to go hunt it down and take a picture of it. I'll put it up another time.

Seaside Rose Hourglass -- still in its former state.

Simplicity Sawtooth -- still in its former state. This is the condition of my smoky mountain stars quilt -- also from Bonnie's website.

Blue and yellow ragged squares -- still in its former state. Future's so Bright

Lazy Gal Red

Applique Hearts needs a border. I'll show it when it's done.

Hand-quilted star is still being hand-quilted. Looks about the same.

Pink and green applique is almost done, so I'll give it its own post when it's complete.

City Girls -- needs a border

Pink and Brown Ohio Stars -- I have to make about 150 of these.

15 down . . . .