Work in Progress: Fandango Quilt

The boys have given me a few days of good naps lately, so I have been sewing again!   Yay!   They seem to each take at least one long nap every day and if I'm lucky they will be at the same time.  ;)  Here's to hoping they can keep it up!

I finished making the blocks for the Fandango quilt I am making for my in-laws. 

This is what I started with (I cut these out back in, what - July?):

It's been fun to watch the blocks grow.  They went through a couple of phases.  You know.  Like kids.  They go through phases.  And they grow.  Okay.  Moving on.

Phase 1:

Phase 2:

And phase 3.  These are the final blocks:

They are huge!  16 inches square.  The finished quilt will have 20 of these.  Now I just need to sew them together with sashing and figure out how to quilt it.  I pretty much have no idea how to quilt it.  Any suggestions?

 This is a first for me... I'm linking up!  I want to be better at recording my progress (it's usually pretty slow, so I may not be able to link up every week), rather than just all my finished projects.  So I'm jumping on the WIP Wednesday bandwagon!  Yay!  I'm the kind of person that likes to see a project all the way to completion before starting a new one (for the most part - mostly it's my husband who encourages this habit).  So I don't really have any other WIPs or stats to report.  I did work on a quickie project this week, though.  I don't have pictures loaded up yet, but I'll post about that soon.

Check out all of the other WIPs at Freshly Pieced. 

Improvising

A couple of weeks ago, we set up a second crib for the boys.  They were starting to bump into each other in the one crib they were sharing.  I really like the new crib, but I felt like it was missing something.  I decided it at least needed a bumper.  The bumper I made for the first crib was an old hand-me-down that I covered with cute Ann Kelle fabric.  Unfortunately, I didn't think it would be economical to buy a brand new bumper for the new crib, just to cover it up with more fabric.  But I wanted it to kind of match.
SO.  I improvised.  I had a little bit of fabric left over from the first bumper, but not enough.  So I cut about 6 inches off the crib skirt I made for the first crib (it was a little too long anyway), and paired it with a solid fabric that I bought once to bring my fabric total just high enough to get free shipping. :)  It turned out that I had JUST enough fabric for a new bumper - with almost no leftovers!

I just made the bumper the same way I would make a quilt - using some extra batting I had on hand.  I quilted it with a meandering stitch, hoping to keep it stiff enough to stand up, and I even outlined some of the cars and planes, but you can't really see it in any of the pictures.
The ties were leftover from the cute diaper bears my friend made for one of my baby showers.
All in all, the whole thing cost NOTHING to make!  Wahoo!

Then I decided to remake the crib skirt I had on the first crib.  See - I was originally too cheap (or perhaps, lazy) to make the crib skirt with a center panel the way most bed skirts are made.  I just sort of taped it down and hoped it would stay.  Well, it sort of worked, but it was pretty ghetto.
Unfortunately, I didn't want to go out and buy a big piece of fabric that no one would ever see, and I surely didn't want to waste any of my stash on it.  But then, as I was cleaning my bathroom one day, I had a revelation.  A standard bath towel is about the same size as a crib mattress!  And we have TONS of old towels just taking up space under our sink right now.  Perfect!  So I sewed the crib skirt pieces to an old, ugly towel.  I didn't even have to trim the towel or anything.  It's not perfect, but it definitely works. 

And here they are!  The cribs don't match, but at least the bedding does!  Kind of.  I don't think the babies will care.   In fact, I think they really like the helicopters.  They pretty much stared at them the whole time I wrote this post.  :)

Insert Clever Title Here

I'm a little embarrassed - everyone else finished posting their Christmas stuff months ago.  Maybe I should just consider myself 10 months early instead of 2 months late.
I have been able to get in little snippets of sewing time during those rare moments when both boys are sleeping at the same time and the dishes/laundry are all done.
Here are their finished stockings!

A couple notes for myself to remember next time:
-Quilting the pieces before cutting out the stocking shape is a good idea - just make sure to quilt far enough past the outside edges of the stocking shape.
-Make the cuffs a little wider so they have room to fold over.
-DON'T FORGET THE HOOK NEXT TIME!  Sheesh!  You'd think I'd figure that one out the third time.