I love the Rick Rack edges, and the big buttons on the handles.  :)

For the other side of this totally reversible car seat cover, I went with this traffic signs print.  If you know my family at all, you know this is perfect for us - Hubby is a Transportation Engineer.   

Now I think we are ready for baby to get here!  Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer!


I finished early this month!  This was my goal for April's ALYOF link up (I was #111).  Linking up HERE:


This was also goal #1 for the Quarter 2 Finish Along (original list here).  Linking up HERE:

It's time to set new goal (er, roll over old goals) for Quarter 2 of the Finish Along!

This should be an interesting quarter.  I'm due to have a baby in three weeks or less, and I really have no idea how having a third child is going to affect my productivity.  Also, last quarter there were lots of changes to my sewing priorities from the start of the quarter to the end.  Korina's quilt never even made it onto my original goal list because Garrett didn't propose until just after the list was made!  Anyway, the list has evolved a little bit.  I know I won't get all of these done this quarter, but here are the sewing projects I've got in mind at the moment:

1.  Car Seat Cover.  This one is actually almost done.  And a good thing it is, too!  Did I mention we are three weeks away from meeting our new little guy?

Here's a quick IG photo of my progress.  I didn't want to buy yardage when I had cute precuts on hand, so I pieced the top...

To keep things simple for myself, the car seat cover is going to be my April goal for ALYOF.  
Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

2.  Lots of baby bibs.  For my little guy, and for the shop.  I've got some cute jungle fabric set aside to make a bunch of boy bibs, and a layer cake of this cute line to make some girl bibs:
Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

3.  Blocks from the Past Quilt-Along.  This one ends in June.  I'd like to have a quilt top finished in time, but we'll have to see...


4.  King Diamond Ripple Quilt.  This is the one I plan to make for our bed someday.  It's my "back-burner" project, but I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with it!


5. Giggles Puff Quilt.  This one just needs backing and binding!

Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

6.  One more puff quilt.  I've closed my shop to all pre-orders while I'm on "maternity leave" and I'm hoping that will open up a little time to make some more "pre-made" items for my shop.  I've been dying to make another puff quilt for awhile and I've got tons of charm packs saved up.  I might start with this one:



7.  Do.Good Stitches May Quilt.  I'm in charge of blocks again for May, which means I should have received them all sometime in June and might have time to finish the quilt before the quarter is over.  I have a fun plan for this one!

8.  Clamshell Pillow.  I wanted to make roughly one pillow per month and the next one on my list is a spring themed clamshell pillow.  Again, we'll see...
Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

9-11.  More Rummy Mat samples for my shop.

12-?.  More Quiet book samples for my shop.

Edit:  Finished one book!  Posted HERE.

I know this is a pretty comprehensive list, but I had to put them all there so I wouldn't forget anything!  I better go get to work!





Linking Up:

It's finished and I love it! 

I present to you:  Korina's Radio Way Wedding Quilt (don't knock the creative title, okay?) I finished it (quite literally) just in time for her bridal shower.  I wanted to give it to her then rather than at the wedding for purely selfish reasons.  :)  I loved seeing her reaction and having her tell me it looks "just like the picture" and that "the colors are perfect."  WHEW!

It's a large Queen/small King.  That's me and my brother attempting to hold it up.

Here's the story.  As soon as my sister-in-laws fiance (finally) proposed, I was super excited to get started right away on her wedding quilt.  I love a good excuse to make a big new quilt!
So I sent her a link to my (rather extensive) pinterest boards and she chose a few designs that she liked.  Luckily for me, she seemed drawn to the more simple but modern designs.  I went for this design by Julie Herman called "Radio Way" - genius pattern by the way.   She said she wanted something with light green and black, but no yellows.  And that she trusted my instincts (Wahoo!). 
SO.  I just so happens that I had an old Joann's jelly roll in my stash with lots of lime green, aqua, and gray.  From there I found a bundle of the gorgeous Up Parasol line in greens/aquas and paired it with another jelly roll (from Etsy) in blacks and whites.  I also threw in a few extra Amy Butler prints from my LQS (they were on sale!!)  I even found a jelly roll with a white tone-on-tone print to use for the sashing.  I really love the colors in this quilt.
And it worked up SUPER fast!  I'm pretty sure (nope, I'm positive) that the quilting took longer than the piecing.  I LOVE working with precuts!
 
For the back, I used up some leftover yardage I had on hand, plus my three extra blocks.  I love being able to use every bit of fabric with no waste.  :)  Oh yeah, the solid is a sheet from Walmart.  I couldn't bring myself to buy 8 yards of quilting fabric.  I also couldn't bring myself to buy a king sheet just so that I could avoid piecing a back.  Pieced backs aren't really that fun for me to make, but I LOVE the end result!

For the quilting, I knew I wanted something slightly custom (no overall meandering here!), but simple.  In the end I was inspired to do some Angela Walters inspired "curved" dot-to-dot quilting mixed with a little bit of Leah Day sashing designs.   It took a lot of time, and made my wrist sore (have I mentioned yet that this quilt is a small KING size?), and I had TONS of tension issues (who says Aurifil is the best thread out there?  Cuz it sure broke a lot for me) but I really love how it turned out.  Even though those long curved lines are mostly pretty wonky.  Ah well.  Do you want to know the secret to quilting a King sized quilt on your home machine?  Excellent basting and stitching in the ditch around all the blocks before you do any FMQ.  My quilt is virtually free of puckers!  YAY!

You can see the quilting really well on the back of the quilt, which is awesome:

Here's a close up:

And a shot of the front:

I also remembered to add a label!  I kept it simple, but this time I used my printer, rather than my own handwriting.  :)  The label was actually a big hit once one of the girls discovered it at Korina's bridal shower.  Everyone thought it was so sweet that their wedding date was on the back.  I guess it's all in the simple things!

A big thanks to a bunch of my guild friends for helping me choose this binding!  It's from the Reunion line by Sweetwater.  It was just the right shade of gray and I love the little pops of green and blue.  I cut it on the bias, of course - because it looks amazing that way.  :)  And it's hand sewn to the back, of course.  I was sitting on the couch binding it minutes before I left for the shower...

And there you have it!  Now.  Who's getting married next?