The quilt that made me late to the hospital to give birth

I'm going to be transferring a few of the posts I had made on my Facebook page over here so that they can all be in one place again - to catch up...

Here's a post of the quilt I made up to the last minute as I left for the hospital to have baby Dax.

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Here is the last quilt I finished before going into the hospital to give birth... It started off a few years ago as 4 leftover blocks from the quilt I made for our foster baby as he left our home... Then I made it into a small (too small) top.  For years I would pull it out and try different borders onto it to try and make it bigger, but none of them worked.  I finally pulled it out recently and found some fabrics I liked for it. I decided to hand quilt it, since it had been a while since I had hand quilted a project, and then when it was getting close to done, I couldn't imagine parting with it... So it had to be finished before baby came home.
I "may have" actually (read: I DID) delayed our departure to the hospital by 15-20 minutes as I begged Jay to understand that I needed to finish this binding before we left.
In the end, I could have brought it with me and worked on it for the next 24 hours before I finally had my c-section to get this little guy out...

a little bit of sewing

so you know me.... when the going gets tough, the tough get sewing.

and i needed some therapy this week so for the past 3 days, I caught up on my bees, worked on my samplers from the bees, and tried to fit in my collage for church that I need to do for the lenten season.... (more on that later... after 3+ hours invested in it, I ruined it and have to re-do it... so as my dad says, "moron that later")
Here's what my fingers and gears have been up to:
 This first one is a wonky square in square design that I did for Seams Perfect Bee - which is my all scraps bee... I love the color scheme that LeeAnn picked out.  Really not my typical shades and I loved working in it - very refreshing... like a summer swim...

 

Then I had to catch up on Yolanda's pineapple blocks for Bee Happy - Which were really hard work, but I think she's going to end up with an awesome quilt. Click here to see what is happening as she's putting the blocks together!

After that, it was the 12th and final month for Bee Happy's 1st year - and Janice requested scrappy styled wonky houses. These were SO much fun to make and I even busted out some of my long savored fabrics to add in there, because they were just what the blocks needed. She'd sent us a few pieces as inspiration and requested (in my block) that the mermaids and the goldfish ended up in the blocks somewhere. As I sewed, I had a lot of fun imagining a little world where the mermaids and goldfish were neighbors. We may need to be revisiting this idea for a certain little fairy freak we've got here in the house - I know her imagination would run wild with a wonky house fairy quilt... (if I just typed that, do I have to make it now?)

After all that happy sewing... I had a table filled with the most LOVELY scrap pile I'd seen in a while. So... well, I needed to sew up a few quilted bags, right? and I've never tried a mugrug (quilty coaster), so here's the first of three of those...

I literally was piecing tiny tiny pieces together and then making a piece, cutting that up and re-sewing it back together to get some fun results. ... you can see the tiny little scrap houses that ended up in my Coke rug...

I forgot to take photos (how could I?) of last weeks two quilts that went out for some dear little daughters to friends of mine - one as yet unborn (mommy is in the hospital on urgent bedrest at 27 weeks) and the other for a favorite neighborhood 2year old as she had her birthday. (I've also made G a little play quilt... it's nothing special, but since it's for him, he deserves his own post)

Oh yeah! and (last ones) ... here are some of the side projects for the bees... Each month in my bees, as I make a square to send off to someone else - I also make a "practice" square for myself - so that I can end the year with a sampler that represents my journey and learnings in the bee. Please don't ask me what I am going to do with all these quilts. I have no idea. So my Seams Perfect Bee Sampler is in red and white... which is fun... and my Bee Happy sampler -well, let's just say that I started with this "cool" idea that I was going to use the ugliest most hated fabrics in my collection... and see what I could come up with. Well... it's pretty ugly. I'm not going to show that one until I post about it later. Still, it was a fun experience, and a major creative challenge.
So here are my Seams Perfect red and white squares, along with a blue and white one that I made for a bee buddy who is assembling a quilt for charity for an auction.

yes. The answer is, I HAVE NEEDED TO DO THIS. As I always say, "My sewing machine is the ONLY thing in my life that I have control over." and so far, I think it's still cheaper than therapy... though that may be up for debate.

Wonky frenzy

The design director has caught the bug. "momma, let's sew!" (could I imagine happier words?) Today we made another quilt for her dollies. Again she impressed me with her sense of color and confident design direction. And how cute is she at the machine?

Quilting kids

Tonight my kids asked if they could sew. (um okay!) They loved last night's wonky square project that i did ad showed them and asked if they could make their own. I stood next to the machine, did the pedal, and let them not only make the design decisions, but work the presserfoot on the machine and guide the fabric through it. I loved watching them do it. Ze artiste even lasted way longer than I thought he would (thus the smaller square)... The design director could have done it with me all night. This is totally my love language... Making things with people. I've bonded with so many people over a sewing machine - how happy was I to do it tonight with two of my biggest prodigies/critics/challenges/joys.
They go to bed tonight with mommy's heart happy.
And yes, the rockin' scrap box strikes again.

Feeling wonky

Tonight my quilters group met and instead of just comparing squares, we all tried a new pattern... Wonky squares... (as described by "quilt dad's" blog)... Here's mine.

Couch Love

It's done! Couch #2 finally has happy patchworked cushion covers to match it's counterpart.

It was hanging over my head forever, and I am happy to say I am done. (My mom said, "well, now you can work on the main framework" NOT YET! I have to work up more nerve!)

Anyhow - these cushions turned out so much nicer than the first two. I'm really pleased.

I finished the final touches on them tonight while J was taking Zuma on a walk before bed. When he came in, he found me with his camera - attempting to get a decent photo. (not easy at night) He set me straight, helped me get these, which make me super happy and as we were messing with the flash, we started playing with his iPhone and got this last shot. (Ignore my hideous fleece pants, I love them)

i'm a little behind...

I really want to post the tutorial that I made for you all on how to make the tiered skirts... but I made it in a pdf form and don't know how to post those available for your download... can anyone wiser than me give me some help????