Baby blanket

Phew! After a few nights and afternoons, I've knocked another item off of my to-do list. Baby blanket #2 is finished! This was the tougher of the two. The first blanket I did was just a simple piece of fleece with a satin binding sewn on. Blanket #2 is a patchwork quilt.

Naturally, I had to first decide on a pattern. So I spent a few hours browsing some free quilt pattern websites before I found one that would be easy and work well with the fabrics I already had. Then, the cutting began. Thank goodness for the rotary cutter, board and ruler that Jesse gave me for Christmas! This job took a couple hours, with breaks, compared to the couple days it would have taken to mark out lines with measuring tape, and then cut each line with scissors. Here's my progress at the end of the evening: The barnyard print, cut into 32 6x6 squares, and 3 coordinating colors sewed into 31 6x6 squares.














The next afternoon, I ironed all the seams on the color-coordinating blocks. And after the kids were in bed, I sewed all the blocks into their appropriate rows.
That part was a little unpleasant. The pattern assumed a multi- directional print (which mine is not - everything has a "right side up"), and I didn't pay close enough attention - which resulted in me having to unpick 2 rows and reverse the barnyard print so that the whole quilt would have the prints facing the same direction. It wasn't awful, just annoying.

The next day was Saturday, so I went ahead and worked some more while Jesse was home. I sewed the rows together to make the quilt top. This is the nicest it looks, here. Everything all nice and flat and perfectly pressed. Once you wash it, since my fabrics were flannel, things get all pilly and a bit puckered, which is endearing, and how a loved flannel blanket should end up looking.... but it just doesn't look as crisp.

After I had finished the top, my plans changed a little. I had been thinking, up till then, that I would just sew the top and a backing together, and skip the batting for a lighter blanket. But, I ended up deciding it didn't look "puffy" enough, and wanted to do some backing. It was already 10:30 pm, though, and I had no batting. I called JoAnn's to see if they were still open so I could run over, but nobody ever answered. And I really hated the idea of leaving the project untouched until Monday when I could go shopping, so I compromised. I dug around in my closet, and came up with a piece of (leftover) white polar fleece big enough to serve as batting. And since polar fleece is also fluffy and very warm, I decided it would work perfectly. So the rest of my Saturday evening was spent cutting the fleece and pinning all the 3 layers together.

Sunday afternoon I treated myself to finishing the blanket. (I do love a good completed project!!!) I ironed and pinned the backing to form the binding, sewed it up, and bam! Things looked complete, and very nice to my eye. But, of course, I needed to quilt all three layers together. This is where I still need a lot more practice. My three layers were just uneven enough to make for a bit more puckering issues, which I kind of expected. So I skipped the pattern suggestion of quilting diagonally across the quilt (ultimately, criss-crossed like x's), and decided to quilt in squares around the "outlined" looking barnyard blocks. The spacing would end up right, that way, and the shape of a square would leave more room for error than trying to do a straight line all the way across a somewhat loose layer of flannel (which I've tried in the past, and only ended up creating huge folds and puckers in several different spots, yuck!). Anyway, I think it ended up working out pretty well. When it was all finished, I threw it in the washer and dryer so I could see the real finished blanket. And here it is:
























The quilted squares on back (poor picture taking on my part, sorry):














And, just because, here's a picture of my hand next to the barnyard print, for an idea of scale. It's a standard "crib" sized quilt.















So my to-do list is now down to these items:

1. Wash Ergo carrier and Ring Sling.
2. Wash car seat cover.
3. Clean out the fridge/freezer. (We were supposed to that yesterday, but ran out of time - next week, I guess!)
4. Sew Boppy slip cover.
5. Sew DIAPERS!!
6. Sew at least 1 pair of baby moc's (est time: 2 hours tops).
7. Review Bradley Method techniques with Jesse. (Not to mention- put myself back into a mental and emotional state of being prepared to go through labor again without panicking!)
   
8. Pull out the co-sleeper set it up next to the bed. (Heck, I could wait till I'm in labor to do that part!)
   

All in all, very doable at this point. Well, the diaper sewing might end up being a bit overwhelming, just for the amount of time involved, but again, it's not something that absolutely has to be done.

And if you read everything this far (hope I didn't bore you to death!), I'll share a bit more: Today, in Primary, the Relief Society folder was passed around, and it included a sign-up sheet for Enrichment night this month, which is, of course, the Relief Society dinner and birthday celebration. It's on the 18th- just about a week before my due date. I went ahead and signed up to bring my Potato Soup. I grinned inwardly, thinking how clever I am: Either I will have one of my most favorite soups to enjoy that night, or I just jinxed myself by signing up for something so close to my due date, and end up having a baby instead. A win-win situation, no matter how you look at it. :)