WiP Wednesday: Getting Up to Date

I have had a very eventful past few weeks which accounts for my absence on the blog. First and foremost I had the baby!!! Ruby Anne was born on July 24th. I share pictures further down. My mom is also here visiting and in between all that excitement I've actually done a few projects that I haven't had the chance to blog about. This below represents the past three or so weeks of work. I'm linking up to WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced because heaven knows I have a bunch of works in progress.

First, the baby!

This is Ruby Anne and me the day of her birth. She was born July 24th and was 7# 6.5oz and 19 1/2" long.

Here's my now giant family. I didn't think five kids was that many until you see them all together. We love it!

This is my favorite picture of the two of us so far. I couldn't resist sharing it here.

Here's Ruby with her quilt made from the fabric line Ruby by Bonnie and Camille for Moda. For more on this quilt go here.

 I actually managed a few finishes in the last few weeks as well. Here they are...

I made these 32 hats for the NICU babies and made cute little tags for them. On the tags I wrote about why I made them and how they could contact me if they felt the need. They were pretty cute. I dropped them off when I went into the hospital to have the baby. I didn't have the time to add the little embellishments like the ones found in the pattern but I think they are still cute.

It occurred to me that I didn't make one for my baby. Also that I didn't know if the pattern for the newborns would actually fit a newborn. It seems like the easiest thing to do would be to whip one up for the baby and see how it fit. It was a perfect fit! I ran out of yarn so I change color differently than the pattern but it's the same size overall.  For the hat pattern go here.

For her birthday, which she will be celebrating while she's here, my mom wanted me to buy some yarn and teach her how to crochet.

Here we are just starting out. It was pretty easy going since she knew how to crochet at some point it had just been so long she forgot how. Working with that base made it quite easy to whip something up.

We made these cool wrap and button scarves. You can find the pattern here.

Here's my mom with hers. We finished the same night we started and she had a nice sense of victory. Looks pretty cute too!

Here are the scarves together without our cute faces to distract you. I love how my mom did so well that if you didn't know hers was green you couldn't tell.

I also updated with a ton of pictures my self-folding hot pad tutorial. I bought six little balls of cotton yarn to make some for myself and teach my mom how to make them too. We have one done so far. We'll see how it goes this week.

Finally here's what I'm trying to work on now in between caring for myself, the newborn, my family and house. It's slow going.

I've made quite a bit of progress on my little 1.5" hexies. They look so good coming together! This is a long-haul sort of project.

I also must be a glutton for punishment because I joined up with a quilt along. The fabulous Melissa from Happy Quilting has done it again, made a pattern I couldn't refuse. The Star Surround quilt-a-long started this month and should be finished in September.

I took my mom to my favorite local quilt shop in order to buy some fat quarters to make her a triple zip pouch. That's the fabric on the bottom right. She got so excited while she was there and was loving so much of the stuff it was cute. We also got this cool little tote pattern for organizing stuff. She planning on making two (one of each size) and I will make one with the fabric on the top right. It should be fun!

 I am trying to keep my goals small and realistic. I hope to cut out the rest of the fabric for the quilt along. I only have the white left. Maybe do a few HST for that too. I also want to make more hot pads and cut out the fabric for my little tote. Maybe that's over-reaching, we'll see. Thanks for stopping by!

WiP Wednesday: Changin' It Up

 This week has presented so many challenges in the way of craftiness.  I tried a few new things and failed at some of them while I exceeded my expectations at others.  I am about ready to throw in the towel on one project as it ignites my fury every time I work on it.  Thus, I decided to change it up.  I worked on many different things this week as you will see from the post.

I crocheted this octopus for my mother.  Isn't it awesome!  I love the little button eyes!  I found the free pattern here.  It was mostly easy although I didn't understand why she was having us do the legs the way she did and I changed it up not disconnecting the yarn as I was told.

So my mom has a tree that she keeps up in her house all year and changes the decor for the season/month.  For her birthday she asked me to crochet things to go on this tree.  I had a blast trying out all these new patterns and I was amazed how easily they came to me.  I'm sure getting to be an expert!  All of these patterns were free and the links are here... fish, octopus, starfish, butterfly, and swimsuits.

As part of the Mario Brother QAL I'm making a Luigi block.  I decided to use Quilter's Grid and I was pretty excited about how easy it was going together.  Of all the squares I ironed on to it only four needed to be pinned.  These two only fell off after I caught them with my fingernail and pulled accidentally.

Here it is after I sewed all the vertical lines.  I was in love.  It was so fast and easy and all of my lines were really straight.  It was at this point that I emailed a lot of people my opinions on the quilter's grid and its use in this quilt.  Little did I know that will all change...

Here's the final Luigi block.  Now the picture really doesn't do justice to how horrible it is in real life.  The whole block is 1.5" too small.  The seams are HORRIBLY wavy and the 1" squares are more like rectangles.  This stuff was impossible to sew the other direction.  It was so slippery and kept shifting all over the place.  My seams kept getting horribly off and the "lines" somehow completely disappeared when I needed them even though they were very difficult to see in the first place now they are non-existent.  I'm ready to quit the whole Quilt Along and just throw in the towel!  I know I can sew a straight line!  I have made 38 quilts in my 29 years of life and I'm pretty confident in my abilities but this is just the biggest source of my stress right now.  Should I give up?  Should I just cut the squares down to size and forget the original plan?  Should I take a break and come back to it later?  Should I keep going but work at my own pace and not try to keep up with everyone else?  I just don't know.  The problem is this is a quilt for my little man and he's so excited about it but I'm so frustrated!  Advice or help please!

Now for the progress on my Tetris QAL.  LOVE!!  Seriously I worked on this after the Luigi debacle and it totally restored my faith in my sewing ability.  The seams lined up like a dream and it was so fast and easy!  To see this week's full post click here.

I've also been doing a bit of scrapbooking.  I miss this!  I've been so busy quilting that I haven't taken much time for my other crafty loves lately and I think I should.  I made five two-page layouts from pictures back in 2010.  I feel horribly behind but a lot of people say two years isn't that bad in the scrapbooking world.

Here's more crocheted hats for NICU babies.  I've been having so much fun with this!  They are so cute and fast and easy.  Plus, they make me feel good that my craftiness is going to a good cause.  The tan ones on the top need edging and accents but the bottom ones are all finished.

I'm linking up all this hard work to the WiP Wednesday Posts at Freshly Pieced and Ambassador Crochet.

WiP Wednesday: Progress, Finally!

 It's WiP Wednesday again over at Freshly Pieced where Katie from Katie's Korner is the host this week.  She's got an amazing project list that has some really fun ideas.  I got a bunch of fun things done this week.  A few of them are birthday presents but they are crocheted and I noticed the WiP Wednesday crowd are more of a fabric bunch so I guess that's alright anyway.  I finished my Mario block for the Mario Quilt Along hosted by Angela from Cut to Pieces.  I'm so thankful that's over with and I'm trying a different method with Luigi so we'll see how that works out.  I also finished week three for the Tetris Quilt-A-Long hosted by Melissa from Happy Quilting.  Here's my photogenic progress...

Last week I chain pieced the rest of the rows together.  You can see the start of this block here.  Once I got all the rows together I was ready to sew up the cracks between them.  I really wish I would have taken a picture before this stage but I was just so happy to get it together.  You can see the bottom three rows still need to be sewn here.

I went to show my hubby the finished product and disaster happened.  He was painting our dining room and managed to touch the quilt block while handing me something.  I was freaking out and sent Mario into the sink for a little swim.  With some dish soap and a scrub brush the paint came out quickly but it was a seriously panic moment.

Here's the finished Mario, thankfully without any paint!  There are a few seams that are off but this was much harder than I expected.  With so many seams it was easy to get off.

I finished week three of the Tetris Quilt-A-Long yesterday and added it to my growing collection.  It's on the bottom right.  See the full post here.

I told my friend and fellow quilter how I was going about the Mario block and she shuddered then donated this to my cause.  It's called Quilter's Grid by Pellon and it's iron on interfacing with a grid printed right on it.  You iron the squares on and then fold it over and sew up the lines.  She just had it in her sewing room left over from a quilt she made many moons ago.  I'm excited to give it a try for Luigi.

I laid out Luigi and ironed him on to the Quilter's Grid.  A few of the squares wanted to fall off but with a little more iron pressure they were stuck solid.  I haven't gotten around to sewing any seams yet but I hope to this week and I can compare the two experiences. 

Not Pictured:
- Crochet birthday present
- Crochet preemie hats (I've made the bases for seven more this week that need to be finished and five other ones completed)
- Crochet Fusion Blanket - I have top stitched about a third of them but they look more or less the same so I just opted no thank you on the picture.

No Progress:
- Nana Papillon quilt (too many Mario/Luigi squares on the cut table)
- Never-Ending Afghan (seriously high 90's with no A/C and only a small window unit is WAY to hot to be working on a blanket)

Here's to more progress and lower temperatures this week!  Thanks for stopping by!

Mario Brothers QAL!

Angela from Cut to Pieces mentioned a few weeks ago that she had interest in doing a Mario Brothers QAL and asked if anyone had interest.  She said if enough people wanted to she'd do it.  I quickly replied with an enthusiastic, YES!  Apparently enough other people did too because the quilt along is now in the works.  I'm so excited I can't stand it!

I have made or am in the process of making quilts for my two girls.  I also want to make twin quilts for my boys but had a difficult time finding inspiration.  Now I know what I'm going to do for my oldest.  He loves Mario and video games and it seems like this is something that could grow with him easily.  I can't wait to get started!