I’m too tired to slap you; bash your face against my palm.

Howdy do, y’alls!

So, here is a look at the project I’ve been working on lately- a quilt for my very dear friend’s new baby. I’m not always great at putting colors together.

Luckily, I’ve got a LSH who has lots of practice, as he grew up with a crafty mother. He does good work. My friend had initially thought they may use this adorable veggie themed bedroom stuff from ikea, so on a trip there with Hubs, I took a photo to try to color match.

I got the pattern for this quilt out of the premier (I think) issue of Quilty, which is a pretty new quilting mag with modern designs. It’s the only one I’ve purchased so far, but I enjoyed it.

As you can see, it’s essentially made up of these little pyramids (a little hard to see in the photo above). Arranging them how I wanted took FOREVER- I must’ve done it, took a photo, and rearranged it like 12 times. Finally, I got it how I wanted.

Sewing all those darn strips together

The pieces were sewn together and then a strip of white put in between each row.

Final layout

All put together , waiting to be quilted! This is the part I’m still learning to do well. I’m definitely not there yet. I still have problems using the walking foot to its full advantage- sometimes I rush it along, and the stitches are small and close, sometimes they’re longer and nicer looking. GAH. I can’t figure it out. I did try to look up some tips this time, so I quilted a little differently than I did on Nugget’s quilt. I rolled it up and did only straight lines.

I started on the same side, so the tension was always pulling in the same direction, except…

for one row that I must’ve picked up after a break or something- I went in the other direction, and it made some ripples (seen in the border row between the blue and orange pyramids.) I had to unpick, and then re-do it.

It helped a little- it’s better, but not perfect. Oh well!

I also made bias tape for the first time for this project. I used up all my scrappie bits from each of the pyramids. I used this tutorial from No Big Dill.

I’m not gonna lie- it took quite awhile, maybe a whole evening. There was a lot of cutting and sewing of little pieces- one continuous piece would’ve been faster. THEN I got to use the little doo-dad that my MIL gave me because she never used it.

SO. MUCH. FUN.

After all this was done, I was left with this.

Yeah, it was only a SMALL MOUNTAIN. I needed a way to store it until I could attach it, so I just wrapped it on an empty toilet paper roll.

SO CLASSY.

In between all of this quilting, LSH and I had WILDLIFE in our backyard.

I’ve always lived in either a small-ish city with no yard, or in an apartment with no yard. The house we bought last August is on about one acre and is a little bit out of town, so there are NAMINALS, you guys. LADY DEER. Another night, a few weeks ago, they were eating from our bird-feeder. I may or may not have opened a window and yelled, “Hey deer! Get away from there!…Keep walking, asshole!” I’m not entirely sure, though.

Anywho, back on track.

This is the backing fabric- I thought it was pretty adorable, with its baby deer and “love” and “baby” and all that jazz. It was, unfortunately, a little bit smaller than the front, so my bias tape was a little too small. LSH suggested I sew some more tape to the already on-there tape, if that makes sense, so there’d be enough to wrap around the quilt and cover the raw edges. It took awhile, but it worked.

It makes a lurvely little rainbow. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it on here before, but I LOOOOOOVE things arranged it rainbows- they draw me like a magpie to shiny things. It’s why I love fabric, yarn, and bead stores. EVERYTHING IS RAINBOWS.

Anyhoodle (AGAIN), this is the completed quilt:

I’m pretty please with how it turned out- nice bright colors good for babies. I got to give it to my friend and her bebeh on my recent vacation to Los Angeles. My friend moved to California for residency- BOO. She’s still on maternity leave, so it was not too much of a problem to get to see her and the lil Nugget. She’s adorbs, of course. Hopefully when she’s a little older and using the quilt for tummy time, I can get a photo of Baby with blanket. Getting to give them the blanket meant that I was FINALLY able to put up this post! Woot! (But mostly I was psyched to see my friend, her hubs, and the baby, because duh.)

In other news, my #SewDollyClackett dress is plodding along. I’m on my THIRD(!!) muslin for the bodice (you may have seen me bitch about it on twitter.) I can’t seem to get it right- maybe because I have no waist and I’m using a vintage pattern. Grumble! This third one seems the closest so far, but it’s not finished yet so I’ll have to see. It’s getting rather disheartening!

Grumbly Mr. Bojangles agrees. Look at those backwards ears!