Baby schtuff

I went to a friend's baby shower last Sunday, and finally handed over some super cute projects I'd been working on. The quilt was down-to-the-wire, finished the night before. Procrastinator style. I wanted to take pictures of it before it got marked with spit-up and other less pleasant bodily fluids, but the morning of the shower it was RAINING outside (whoa!) and I couldn't get good lighting. I will by no effin' means complain about that sorely needed rain, but I will say that my pictures are extremely lacking and unsatisfying because I had to use the flash. But still, here they are.

Stacked coins quilt

This project taught me many things, and also reminded me of one fact I seem to always forget:

1. Quilts are always freaking harder to make than they look, especially when you don't have a rotary cutter or mat or other essential accouterments that make things easier and you have to do things the old fashioned (less accurate) way. I think these things work like childbirth. Supposedly your brain just glosses over the pain of labor when you see your complete and fully formed baby. Same with quilts, I think. I'm ready to do more! 

2. If you are going to do any quilting AT ALL EVER, you need to invest in a walking foot for your sewing machine. When I first started quilting the vertical lines to tack down my quilting layers together with my regular presser foot, I was having a heck of a time keeping the layers from shifting. Even after peppering the thing with a zillion pins. In desperation I appealed to my local fabric store and they hooked me up with the most angelic device known to man: the lowly walking foot. After attaching the thing to my machine, the quilting portion sailed by and required a ton less pinning. Best $40 I ever spent.

3. Measuring and cutting fabric is what I'll be doing in Hell, so I better be good. I'm pretty sure this aspect will lessen if I had more accurate measuring devices. No matter how straight you think you're going to cut out a cardboard template, it's always going to turn out a little off. When you trace around your cardboard template with pen, it's going to get a little more off. When you cut that out, and then just fold your fabric square in half and cut across the crease things just might get a little wonky. The "it looks straight enough" philosophy is not terribly effective in quilting.

4. Binding is funner, but slower than it looks. Enough said. I was always afraid of separate binding before. I would always just cut the backing a little bigger than the quilt top and then fold the backing over the top. I actually quite like the look of separate binding, but it takes longer because you have to hand-sew the fold in the back with an invisible stitch all the way around. It's peaceful work.

5. Always search the internet before beginning to find the easier more effective way to cut and sew your particular pattern. Really enough said. This mostly pertains to my half square triangles quilt that is waiting in the wings.

All that said, I also present the lowly matching baby hat:

I hope these things and Baby Evan will be very happy together!

unrelated note: It is 5 AM. Shit.