Time to Slow Down!

So.  November and December were CRAZY busy for me!  I had this big old to-do list to begin with, and then my Etsy shop sort of exploded.  Things in the shop had been pretty quiet for awhile, but once Christmas shopping season started, I had all sorts of things lined up to make for others.  Mostly stockings and Rummy mats (that's another post, I think) and one huge quiet book.  I barely managed to finish it all and now that things have slowed down I'm going to do a big old photo dump right here on the blog over the next few posts.  ;)

Oh yeah.  One more thing.  We're having a baby!  Yay!  It's another boy and he'll be here in early May.  Does anyone have any good ideas for boy names?  We are stumped, since we already used our first two ideas...
Of course, we are super excited for baby #3, but I must admit that I didn't feel too great for most of September and October, so there was a bit of a decrease in production/blogging around here for awhile.  Let me just say that the 2nd trimester has been awesome.  I LOVE not being sick all the time.  :)

Alright.  Lets get to it.  Here are all of the things I have finished since my last post in October:

First of all, my Mom had a birthday back at the end of October.  She just had back surgery and I found out that she's been taking my sister's pillow with her to church every week to sit on and decided she definitely needed her own!  She really liked the cathedral windows block I made for my Something New Sampler quilt, so I that's what I went with.
Here is the finished Cathedral Windows block:   I loved going through my scraps to choose fun warm/cool prints.

And here are a couple of crappy phone pictures taken right before I delivered the pillow:

I even used some of my hoarded Simply Color Ogee print for the envelope back.  I don't have a lot of purples, but I love this one.

(This pillow was #9 on my Finish Along list)

Next up, baby Braden!  My Sister-in-Law had a baby in November and Braden's Grandma ordered a growth chart for him to match his older brother's.  They wanted to stick to the BYU theme.  These are kind of fun to make.  :)

(This was finish #2 on my Finish Along List)

We are lucky that our new baby will have a cousin his age on BOTH sides.  My sister is due with her first baby any day now, and requested a puff quilt for her baby shower.  She's going to name the little girl Avonlea, isn't that cute?  I actually made two puff quilts with the intention to list the other in the shop.  As soon as the second one is bound, I'll get some better pictures.  :)  This puff quilt was a big hit at the baby shower - it even inspired one of my aunts to make one of her own! 

(This is finish #4 on my Finish Along List)

Of course, I snuck in a few bee blocks during all this madness.  Vickey asked for Churn Dash blocks for November.  The first few I made turned out pretty washed out because of the one really busy print I used, so I made her a few extras to make up for it.  I love the pinwheel one.  :)

Amazingly, someone ordered one of my ABC quiet books, which was awesome.  All 28 pages.  The whole thing took me 22 hours to make!  I actually went and bumped up the price for this book after making the second one because WHEW!  That was a lot of work!  I also updated some of the pages with bigger and better images, which I was happy to have a chance to do.

I even got to make a couple customized name books.  These short names were a breeze to work with and I updated the cover to add a few extra details.

I made a new M page, since Emily's book already came with a mailbox for M.  Luckily, my boys were able to tell it was a monkey and not a bear...

And lastly, I whipped up this tablecloth in those final days before Christmas.  This was a gift to my mother-in-law from all the siblings.  Our family is getting bigger and we no longer fit around a normal table, so she usually sets us up at the ping pong table.  :)  Unfortunately, she can never find a tablecloth big enough to fit the ping pong table so she always has to layer two or three tablecloths on top of each other.  Now she has one that is custom made to fit (which is totally DOES - I am SO relieved)!  AND it's double sided.  The first side is for when her friends (who don't spill) come over and is made with regular quilting cotton.

And the second side is for when we (the spillers) come over and is made from vinyl. 

(This is #8 on my Finish Along List)

And I lets not forget the quilts I made for my twins' birthday at the beginning of December.  They are waiting for a proper photo shoot so they can have their own post.  But in the meantime, here is proof that I finished them!

(These are finishes #6 and #7 on my Finish Along List)

Most of these projects were part of my Quarter 4 Finish Along list (YAY!), so I will be linking up here:

Quilted Tablecloth

I finally finished my "Kitchen Windows" tablecloth!  

It took FOREVER!!  I wanted to quilt it really closely so that it wouldn't have too many bumpy spots.  Or something like that.  I was a little surprised when I completely ran out of thread (started with a brand new spool) when I still had two more sections left to quilt!  But alas, it is finished. 

I decided to use flannel for backing, but skipped the batting.  So this tablecloth only has two layers but the back is nice and soft.  Which, I'm sure will be useful for when we are eating dinner on it...  If I decide to allow that...

I tried a couple of different quilting styles.  I started with swirls in the sashing:

I did a couple of sections with pebbles.  I thought this heavy quilting design would make the thing stiffer, and even though this particular section IS stiffer, it is also particularly bumpy.  But it's in the middle.  I think it looks good.

I got tired of pebbles (they are SO time consuming), and did a couple of sections with a simple tight meandering.  NOW I understand why most people just use this design on their quilts.  So much easier and faster!

Then I got the great idea to try a couple of straight line sections.  These sections lie the flattest and have the least amount of bumps.  If I were to do another tablecloth (hey - Mom just said she wants one!  Christmas will be easy this year), I will definitely do the whole thing with straight lines.  It is also quite time consuming, but if I did a more overall design, it would be okay.  Plus, it just looks/lies SO much better for a tablecloth!

And there you have it!  It looks a little retro, but I think I like it.  Plus, the browns and greens kind of match some of the decorations in my kitchen!  And I TOTALLY LOVE how it actually fits our little table!  No more folding tablecloths on one side for us!

One Week!

A week ago, I decided I wanted to take on Amy's One Thing, One Week challenge.

I finished quilting my purple and green quilt on Sunday night and had ALMOST enough fabric to do the binding but not quite.  I know I should have made finishing the binding a top priority, but I didn't.  Instead, I got this hairbrained idea that I wanted to make a new tablecloth for our table.  Our table is square and it has always driven me nuts that all of our table cloths are NOT square.  We always have to fold one side under to get it to fit and I hate it.  SO I am making a quilted tablecloth - since that is the only thing I know how to do...

I decided right away that I wanted to do Elizabeth Hartman's Kitchen Window quilt.  I LOVE this quilt!
At first, I wasn't sure what colors to do it in and almost decided to go shopping, but then I figured I better shop my stash first.  I put together a bunch of different color schemes and this is the one the Hubby picked.  I think he picked this group because it was the mellowest of the bunch.

I'm glad he picked these too.  These fabrics are all part of the giveaway I won from Quilty Pleasures and it's nice to know that I found a place for them! 

My goal was to finish the top by today.  I made a lot of progress cutting and even sewing last Sunday and Monday.  Things were going great - I got to do lots of chain piecing, which sure helped things move quickly!  But then Tuesday came.  And Wednesday, and Thursday.  Things were kinda stressful at work this week.  I started to get nervous that I wasn't going to make it.  But then my husband got offered a super cheap ski pass.  We couldn't get another one for me and I decided that (even though I love skiing) it wasn't justified to spend 80 bucks to get me one.  Plus, the hubby likes skiing more than I do... so he went skiing all day and I stayed home, cleaned the entire house, and finished the topper - just barely.  I have about an inch and a half of the brown fabric left over - and that's AFTER piecing together small pieces.  But I made it!

Even with the little glitch of forgetting seam allowances when I sewed on the cream sashing and having to add another inch...

Yay!

Now I just need to quilt it.  I'm thinking of trying my hand at quilting pebbles to keep the quilting nice and tight.  I hope it doesn't end up too bumpy.  I put it on the table and it doesn't seem too bad.  I think I will either back it with flannel and NOT use batting, or use the flannel for batting and add a layer of backing.  What do you think?