Lots of Steps Forward, A Few Steps Back

The wedding quilt has been making itself. Ten minutes while Sprite re-organizes my fabric, fifteen during her nap, twenty while she plays with Daddy... suddenly I have most of the blocks done in a week. Maybe its that awesome new sewing machine.


Unfortunately, the blocks were flying from my awesome machine so fast that I was near the end before I laid them out to take a look. The photo here is just a random layout, with minimal fussing, of the blocks I'd finished. I'm almost in love with it. But, the distance between almost and just right is pretty big. Everything is perfect except one fabric choice. The light blue that seemed to go so well when I stacked the fat quarters up doesn't work at all in the actual quilt. It reads as a white, and its actually alot more jarring in real life than in this photo. Aargh.

I've toyed with lots of ideas to fix it. I could embroider on those blocks - their names, their wedding date, hearts. Or maybe the right color quilting thread would make it work... But, in the end, I think I have to re-do those squares. Its too big a risk to take, finishing it and hoping the quilting will take care of it. And while I may do some embroidery on it, I really don't want to do that much. This is a wedding quilt, meant to celebrate the love of a very special friend. One that has made a quilt for all the other girls in our group as we married and for our kids as they've come along. Now its her turn, and this one has to be just right.

So, I'll be hitting the fabric stores and then spending some quality time with my seam ripper. Its a good thing I'm making such great progress. November is still a ways away, right? (Nobody remind me I still have to quilt this thing, please. I'm hanging on to the idea that I'm ahead of schedule.)

Back In The Saddle

It's been six months since I've done any substantial sewing. But recently, Sprite turned one, sporting a GrandmaMade dress and an attitude.

Huzzah!

And with her new independence (and my new role of stay at home mom), has come just a bit more freedom for Mama. She's content to let me do my own thing for chunks of time, as long as I'm willing to pause and make the appropriate animal sounds when she brings me her toy.

So this week, we picked out some pretty fabric and I made her a summer dress.


This is the same Reversible Sundress I made last summer, and so I already had the pattern prepared. With that head start, the dress took me less than three hours to make, even with the need to stop for play breaks and to admire her fabric choices. (She entertained herself in large part by pulling fabrics off the shelf and spreading them about. Occasionally, she'd find a favorite and bring it to me to admire. Or perhaps she was requesting the next dress?) It was simple and quick, a great chance to get to know my new sewing machine - the one I received for Christmas and hadn't even threaded yet. But, oh it felt good to sew something.

And Sprite is such an appreciative recipient. When I held it up to her to check the size, she hugged it to herself and then grinned down at it before grinning up at me. She happily wore it all day Friday, protesting when her grandmother took it off her before dinner. And as pretty as she clearly felt in it, I got that special glow from seeing my kid wear something I've made her. Something I not only actually managed to sew, but that I think she looks cute as a button in.

Emboldened by the success, I bought fabrics for a new quilt the very next day. Its intended for a November wedding, so lets hope I find the time to work on it. Saturday was the OMQG Sew Day, and I slipped away for a few hours and did the cutting. Tonight I set the machine up with a neutral thread and set out my first strips for piecing. Here's hoping tomorrow brings a few sewn seams!

Christmas, done right

This Christmas was perfectly balanced. We did everything that was important to me, but I resisted the urge to overschedule or overdo.

We visited the tree farm, and put up about half of our decorations. Enough that it felt like Christmas, but not so much I was overwhelmed. And I chose the ones that either wouldn't break or wouldn't break my heart, so that I didn't have to worry about quick little hands as we walked by.

We went to the mall once (and only once) to check out the decorations and find her Christmas outfits. (While there, we made the second out of three visits with Santa. We definitely covered that tradition this year.)

I made the munchkin's stocking, but left the embellishments for another year. I did line it with super soft corduroy from my local quilt shot. Even though she isn't nearly old enough to grasp the importance, she enjoyed pulling things out of it. It was also her only gift from us. We filled it with spoons, rice cereal, a teething toy and a new Dr. Seuss onesie. She cut her first tooth the week before and has been dying to eat solid food. So, the cereal was the best gift we could give her. At five months, she was not surprisingly more interested in eating the paper than in any of the gifts.

It was also the only handmade item given this year. Gifts were lovingly selected and carefully wrapped, but they came from a store. This wasn't the year for handmade for me, and the season was so much more fun because I recognized that. The same goes for baking. I wanted Christmas cookies, but I was fine with getting the dough from the grocery store and just decorating them.

But, we set aside a day for a special trip with Grandma and Aunt Megan. That was important enough for the extra effort.

By the evening of the 23rd, there was nothing left to do but watch The Grinch and drink hot chocolate. By the afternoon of the 25th, we were curled up together reading books. And every hour in between was spent enjoying my girl and her first Christmas.

I'm sure I'll miss it some years, but I sure hope we have many more Christmases with just this lovely mix of important traditions and quiet pleasure. I really feel like we got it right this year.