How Can You Tell I'm a Quilter?

With my return to work imminent I've been quilting up a storm and I've been trying to get the house in order. We still have no nanny, but the house is almost ready for a new person to be trying to get around. Seriously, why is it so hard to hire a nanny? We aren't crazy people. Maybe a little odd or uncoventional, but not crazy.

I digress.

One morning last week Smilosaurus and I were playing in her room while Hubby worked in the living room. While she was happily crawling around and exploring I started taking a few photos for my colour study (see the right sidebar there). I was struck by a grouping of books on her shelf. As I took a photo I also noticed the pile of books sitting on the floor, pulled off by the little one. It is my anal nature to want to organize things alphabetically. Alas, the girls aren't quite old enough to shelve things this way. Sing the Alphabet Song, but not put things in alphabetical order. What's an anal quilting mom to do? Organize by colour, obviously!

I tried this once with all of my own books and hated it. I was used to the conventional way and suddenly couldn't find anything. In the girl's room, however, I thought it would be perfect. And now I walk in and honestly I feel calmer. Order is nice, colour is even better. I did show my stash, right?

As you can see, we have a lot of books! There are some hand-me-downs and some books from Hubby and his sister's childhood. There are a lot of new books because I always ask for books as gifts when questioned. Plus I'm a sucker for sales on books and will buy more for us when I go in to buy for gifts. I should point out that there is also a pile on the nightstand and a basket in the living room where we rotate seasonally appropriate titles.

Could I pick a favourite? Aside from Curious George and The Three Little Pigs, The Monster is in love with this book.

I must admit, I am too. Rhythmic, urban, and unique it is fun to read. The book is Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler and R. Gregory Christie.

Share your favourite book with the Children's Book Parade over at 6 O'Clock Stitch.

Thirty and Three

Those new babies sure mess with your schedule.  I had every intention of posting this quilt in time for Amy's Quilt Festival, but I missed the deadline while busy cuddling my new nephew. So I'm out of the prize running, but still happy to share this quilt.

I actually finished this quilt a few months ago.  And I started it almost 4 years ago.  The second I finished the binding it was cuddled under.  In fact, I think Hubby is under it nearly every night after I head to bed.  And my mother-in-law spent a rough couple of nights on the couch and snuggled under over Easter weekend, but she would kill me if I shared that photo.

The design for this quilt came to me like many of my designs - when I'm bored at work.  My notebook for work is filled with doodles and sketches of quilt ideas.  I sat on this design, however, until I had a machine that could do the circles with machine applique.  Hubby bought that machine for me for my 30th birthday.  This was the first quilt I started with that machine (but not the first one finished)!  The colours were chosen to match our living room, which is orange and cerulean blue.

The quilt was professional quilted because a) it is king-sized and b) I really wanted circles and my skills are not good enough for that.  She did an amazing job on it with circles and concentric circles sprinkled across the quilt. 

On the back I added a few more circles, including the label.  The square in square fabric is Robert Kauffman.  I pieced the back because, well, I like a pieced back.  Rather than mimic the front I did some large square in square blocks.

Oh, and I should explain the name, Thirty and Three.  Thirty because that's what birthday it was when Hubby gave me the machine that allowed the quilt.  Three because it took a little more than three years to finish it.

Key Limes

The latest addition to our family arrived on Wednesday.  My sister had her first baby, a chubby little boy named Cain.  I am so behind on the quilt!  This is the start of it.  The browns and yellows on the left are the start of the triangle blocks that will be the background.  I started off thinking I would make a whole bunch of half-square triangles, but it didn't seem right.  When your quilt is inspired by key lime pie the half-square triangles seemed odd.  So I cut them into rectangles to make narrow, right-angle triangles.  And the greens will become... wait for it... appliqued circles.  Hey, it's for the key limes!

Yup, quilts inspired by food.  It was only a matter of time.

In truth, it is also a reminder of a time as a family in Mexico at Christmas.  My sister and I rekindled our relationship there and I thought this quilt would serve as a sweet reminder of us putting the past behind us and focusing on the future.  Oh, and the baby's room is yellow.  

Happy Anniversary

Some days you just need to stay in bed.  Preferably snuggled under a quilt not attacked by a dog.  Today is one of those days.  Hubby was up all night in the bathroom, thus keeping me up. But gone are the days when we could just wallow in sickness and tiredness - toddlers and babies just don't get that.  So Hubby is wallowing in bed, trying to sip ginger ale and the girls and I are having a pajama day.  Oh, did I mention that it was our wedding anniversary?

Thankfully the damage on the quilt was not also done today.  It was actually attacked by one of the dogs a little over 5 years ago, on a day far worse.  I'd been reamed out at work, we were awaiting word from Hubby's parents about his dad's cancer surgery, it was the coldest day of the year, and the desk we picked up for my brother was damaged.  You know, one of those days where just one more thing going wrong will make you cry tears that you fear will never end?

We were pulling up to the house and I asked Hubby where the dogs were.  At the time they were generally outside dogs and couldn't fully be trusted in the house for long periods of time alone.  He assured me that he cleaned our room, closed the closets, and left them on their beds sleeping.  But I knew, I just knew, as I asked him, "But what about the quilt?"  I raced in the house and at first glance everything seemed fine - dogs were spazzing at our arrival and everything appeared intact.  Then Hubby found a crumple of wet batting in the dog bed, the intact dog bed.  Sure enough, a quick investigation found a chunk missing from our quilt. Commence Cheryl losing it.  I screamed, I punched the walls, I cried, and it took a few shots of vodka to settle my nerves.

When we arrived at the hospital the next morning we had a few more misadventures to share with my father-in-law.  He was more than an optimist, he always chose to not let things get to him and he had the ability to get everyone around him do the same thing.  Here we were whining about our ridiculous string of bad luck to a man diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was making us laugh.  And then he told me to just make the chewed section part of the quilt's history.  It wasn't ruined, this is just what happened one crappy day.

It's taken me over 5 years to fix this quilt, partially out of laziness, partially out of uncertainty on just how to do it, and partially because it serves as a vivid reminder of those precious days five years ago.  Our anniversary was looming and the quilt was in desperate need of a wash, so it seemed time to tackle it.  

Thankfully it was only this one section along the edge of the quilt that was chewed.  I decided that it was small enough (about 8 inches total) that it wouldn't wreck the remaining edge of the quilt (it's a king-size).  So I merely cut around the total chewed section in a relatively gradual curve, cut some bias binding, ripped out stitches of the old binding, and did my best to attach it all together.  I don't generally use bias bindings, and never continuous bindings, so it was quite the challenge for me.   It came out okay.  I'm not proud of the final connection of the new and existing binding, but overall it looks decent.

The next step is to actually put another label on the quilt, identifying the history.  This quilt was pieced together with blocks I got in a block shower from a whole bunch of on-line friends. At the time of our wedding I was heavily involved with the World Wide Quilting Page.  They got together and sent us blocks to make a wedding quilt.  Even Morgan enjoyed receiving all the blocks.  And this quilt has always been our summer quilt ever since.  One of these days the weather will warm up and we can retire the duvet for the summer and snuggle under this quilt again.  Happy Anniversary.