Quilt Musings

The kids and I stayed in our pyjamas today until 1 pm.  When my Mom called to drop something by at 11, I had to warn her of our state.  She sounded a little shocked, given I have been pretty on top of my goal of always getting ready before the kids get up.  When I opened the door for her, Grace was dressed up in a princess gown, wearing a collapsible toy bucket on her head.  Mom laughed and then she saw Aidan dressed up as Tinkerbell.  Where was my strange get up she asked?  Aren't my pyjamas at noon enough I laughed back?

See last night, I was up until midnight working on Aidan's quilt.  I was thankful the kids slept this morning til 8 am.  Colleen (the longarm quilter) is scheduled to come pick it up on Friday.  And I've been quilting like a mad woman trying to get it ready.  And I've realized, that sometimes the simplest things are perhaps the hardest.  I knew I wanted some specific fabric for his quilt, but it was quite busy.  Not wanting to mix busy fabric with a busy pattern, I landed on making him an improvised coin quilt.  Oh but for the life of me I couldn't get it to square up last night.  The sashing (neutral strips that join the coin stacks) were twisting the entire quilt top to the right.  Absolutely no idea why.  So I cut and sliced and almost cried.  Then I laid it out in our front room so I could see it fresh in the morning and went to bed.

 Most of the fabric is Robert Kauffman, the Remix series.

Taken yesterday mid morning when I was still piecing it together.

This morning, it did look better.  And I cut myself a break.  It's truly my second large(r) quilt.  I'm no expert.  I'm learning.  My kids are wee.  When I look back at this quilt, if I make more, in years to come I will see where I started from.  And I know that that will make me smile.  When Grace was still under one, I took a course at a local yarn studio on how to knit a baby blanket, multiple colours, from the centre out.  When I went to wash it, I didn't realize that a stitch (ok a few stitches) had dropped, and the blanket unravelled.  Still not experienced enough to know how to handle it, I did a botch job of trying to sew it back together with weaving the yarn in.  It's not pretty.  I could unravel it (just as I could undo the quilt top), but I kept the blanket and put it in Grace's closet.  When I come across it, I smile and look at my beginning, and it makes me see how far I've come.  There is something great about that.  I just have the back of the quilt to piece together and it will be on it's way.  Hopefully back home to me around the holidays, and ready for Aidan's birthday in January.