Baby #3 Car Seat Cover

SO baby #3 will be here in two weeks or less!  And even though I already have two boy car seat covers, I really wanted boy #3 to have a new one.  I guess I got a little tired of the first two.  So, against my husband's better judgement, I made a new one.  :)  Isn't that what you would do?

First I went through some of my yardage and found one piece that I wanted to use, but wasn't sold on any of my other pieces for the other side.  So I decided to use some of my beloved Mixed Bag layer cake to piece together the top!  I cut the layer cake in half because I'm planning to turn the other half into charm squares for a puff quilt.  Then I mocked up a whole bunch of design ideas in Excel and posted them on IG for my IG friends to weigh in.  Unfortunately, there wasn't really a clear winner - everybody seemed to like a different design.  SO I let Jaxson and Bronx be the tie breaker and this is the design I ended up with (tutorial over at Happy Quilting):

 

Then I mostly followed THIS tutorial to make a car seat with a slit in the front.  What do you guys think?  Do you like your car seat covers with the slit or without it?  I'm hoping that I don't regret making it this way - I think it will be nice to be able to quickly peek at my baby to see if he's awake or asleep.

 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:

Goal Setting (Quarter 2)

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:

Do.Good Stitches: Star Cluster Nine Patch

I have another Do.Good Stitches quilt to share with you!  Our January quilter ended up leaving the group, so I offered to take over her month.  I didn't have a lot of time to choose a block, but I've been dying to try this cluster star block for awhile so I went with it.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to test it out before posting it for all my bee mates to make and it ended up being a little bit harder than I expected.  Mostly because there are lots of tiny HSTs.  But everyone did such a great job, even though I know this block probably wasn't their most favorite to make.  At least the second block I requested from them was easy!
ANYWAY.  The tutorial for the star cluster block can be found HERE.  We made the 12 inch version, so I recommend the 16 inch version.  :)
I asked my bee mates to make their blocks in whatever colors they consider girly.  Since I'm having my third boy in a month or two, I figured it would be fun to play with girl fabrics for once.  :)  The blocks turned out amazing and they go together really well!  Here is the finished quilt:

I used a purple flower print for the back, but it's pretty busy so you can't really tell.

Of course I had to make a label:

For the binding I decided to go quick and easy and just folded the backing over onto the front.  Whew!

And now I want to talk about the quilting.  I decided that this quilt would be a perfect one for practicing lots of different FMQ designs.  I also knew that I wanted a good mix of straight and curvy lines, plus a good mix of large scale and small scale designs.  So I took Angela Walters' Dot to Dot Quilting class on Craftsy and used her designs for about half my blocks.  It was fun coming up with something different for each block, and I definitely got some good practice in!  It's also a good thing this a charity quilt and not a show quilt.  I know the recipient will love it either way.  :)
I used Aurifil 50 wt thread in white and it blended in REALLY well.  A little too well in some spots - you can't really see the quilting designs.  But sometimes that's a good thing, right?  (I'm well aware that my quilting is NOT perfect!)  I quilted a pebble/bead design in all the sashing and now I know that white quilting on white fabric shows up better than anything else.  :)  But I kind of love the effect.
NOW.  For documentation purposes (I will be boxing this quilt up tomorrow and will never see it again), here are photos of every single block.  I'll spare you the commentary.  ;)

And a few more photos just for fun.  The back is so busy that you really can't see the quilting on the back at all. 

I have really awesome bee mates.  They did such a great job and I loved seeing the different fabrics they used for their own personal interpretation of "girly."

This quilt will be donated to a Juniors House to benefit children who have been victims of abuse or neglect.  I hope some little girl loves it!

Until next time!

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2015

Finished: March 13, 2015

Fabrics: Various

Batting:  Pellon Nature's Choice 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approx. 45" x 60"

Recipient: Junior's House

Methods used:  Piecing, Free Motion Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding: Backing folded over and machine stitched to the front

P.S. this was my March goal for ALYOF (#106), so I will be linking up HERE:

This was also goal #2 on my Finish Along Quarter 1 List.   I'll be linking up HERE:

March

I made another pillow!  I'm liking this trend and I already have a pillow design in mind for April.  :)

I've been seeing lots and lots of plus quilts around lately, have you?  I decided to try my hand at one in pillow form.  And of course, in honor of St. Patties day in March, I made it all green.  Lots of scraps went into this one.  Wahoo! 
For the quilting, I considered doing some matchstick quilting (have you heard?  Matchstick quilting is THE thing lately).  But in the end, I went with simple straight line quilting because I know that's what hubby likes best.  He's so spoiled.  :)

For the backing, I really wanted to use up the rest of those clover-like leaves, but it turns out I didn't have much left.  Not quite enough to properly overlap in the back.  So I added this little button to my envelope closure to keep everything from falling out.  Also, I've been following Amy's Pillow Collective blog hop over at Amy's Creative Side.  Many of her guest bloggers added binding to their pillows for a nice finished look, so I decided to give it a try and I LOVE it!  It's so easy too.  Win win!

Next up - Clamshells! 

p.s. I need to link up my March goal with Shanna and Melissa over at ALYOF.  I have a lot of projects to finish before the baby comes (T-minus 8 weeks!), but I'm choosing to finish my latest Do.Good Stitches quilt for my March goal.  It's all basted and ditch quilted.  I'm going to practice lots and lots of fun FMQ designs on this one.  Wish me luck!