Scrappy Stars for my little Peach

This is my first entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side. I always mean to enter but end up missing the dates. 

The first quilt I am entering is the quilt I made for my new baby Mirabelle. It is an homage to the Spring Cleaning Quilt featured in Fat Quarterly. I blogged about it here.

I have to work on better quilt photography. Here are a couple pictures of the quilt in use.

The best thing I've ever made.....

This project has been a long time in the making. My husband and I tried to start our family when we got married in 2009. We struggled to get pregnant but were able to in early 2014. That pregnancy ended in miscarriage and I had about given up hope that we would be able to have a child of our own. A few months passed and Thanksgiving day 2014 we found out that we were expecting again. I was hesitant to get excited until after we saw the doctor. The pregnancy progressed smoothly and we were planning for the baby to arrive in early August, Two weeks before I was due I was admitted to the hospital due to complications. Mirabelle made her way into the world on July 23rd. She is by far the cutest thing I have ever made!

Now that she is 8 weeks old and I am getting a little more sleep I have started sewing again. The best part is that if I bring her sleeper into my craft room the sound of my sewing machine soothes her right to sleep. If she isn't sleeping then she "talks" to me while I sew. Since Mirabelle was born I have finally gotten this quilt done for her. I have a few more in the works for her but they are behind a few more urgent projects.

This quilt originally started with inspiration from a quilt I had seen on the cover of Quilt Magazine called Spring Cleaning. You can find the original here. It started as a quilt I was making for our master bedroom and a way to work away at my scrap bin. In the end I changed gears and changed it to a smaller quilt for the baby. And although I used a lot of scraps I still have a mountain left.



I finished the top at the end of April. I had some trouble finding a backing I liked. It was one of the few times I was willing to pay full price for fabric but couldn't find anything I liked. I came across this fabric in Allegan MI. It was an end of the bolt clearance and they barely had enough to back the quilt. I love the storks and babies. I couldn't be happier with the fabric just got lucky and got it for a steal.

I think I auditioned every fabric I owned for the binding. I settled on blue with

white stars. 

I even broke out the manual and figured out how to do more than a straight stitch on my fancy machine to make a tag with her name and birthday. Pictures of the baby on the quilt coming soon. Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts.

Laundry list of excuses......

I could go through a lot of reasons why it took me so long to finish this quilt....

* Pregnant - and it's hard to quilt while you are sleeping

* Millions of drs appointments - See Pregnant Above

*Broke Machine - Now twice, and I have put it in the corner to think about what it's done

*Vacation - Went to Boston and New England - I was busy eating chowda

Home Renovation - My kitchen is a hole where a kitchen used to be

Now that you have pictured your favorite excuse here is the quilt

This is the March quilt for the Nurture Circle of Do.Good.Stitches

It should have been done by the middle of May

Little late, but it's done!!!!!

And once I finished quilting it I had to beat off a horde of mosquitos to get the picture.

The rain has been something else and now our backyard is a breeding ground for pests and mud.

And just to top off the list of things to do right before you have a baby I am thinking about getting an English Springer Spaniel puppy to go with the one I have. They will be a matched set!

Linking up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Going through withdrawl....

My machine is on the mend. It is at the shop getting fixed and tuned up. Before I broke it I was able to finish up these two tops. 

This is the top for the March Nurture Circle of do.Good.Stitches, Triple Irish Chain pattern is an old but a goody. I love how it turned out.

Here is the top again outside in the spring sunshine.

I finished up this baby quilt top for the newest little peach. I couldn't get it to lay flat. It may not be as square as I had hoped. I figure the quilting will smooth it out. 

Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Growing and growing.....

I'm growing, the baby is growing and this baby quilt is growing. One of several baby quilts in process. Hopefully I will get these done before the baby gets here!

Linking it up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

In like a lion, out like a lamb.....

I didn't post much of anything this month. In my defense I have been busy. We went on vacation to St. Louis, Memphis, and Nashville. We were able to do all sorts of touristy things like go into the St. Louis arch. (So scary!!!). It so high and so dumb. Save your ten dollars, there is no need to go to the top. Just a terrifying 4 minutes in a confined space. I would say I sound old but my mother doesn't whine about stuff like this. Other than being scared of heights St. Louis was so awesome, we may have to move there some day.

From St. Louis we headed south to Memphis. We enjoyed Memphis less but did go see Graceland and eat lots of BBQ. 

We finished up our trip in Nashville and headed to the Grand Ole Opry for my husbands birthday. By this point in the trip I guess I stopped feeling like a tourist and didn't take any pictures. So I will have to use stock footage to complete the photo journey.

We saw lots of entertainers at the Opry including Trisha Yearwood who is our favorite! This inspired my husband to listen to blue grass music for the 13 hours we were in the car taking our sweet time getting home. After a week away I was very glad to sleep in my own bed. Travel sure makes you realize home is where the heart is.

While my husband was driving I was able to do some hand sewing and make some flowers for Eleni. More details can be found here. I have been following Rachel's blog for sometime and have been participating in do.good.stitches for almost a year, My thoughts go out to her family and many prayers for little Eleni.

On a personal note Aaron and I are expecting a baby of our own in August. They believe it to be a girl. She says hello! I have been organizing my craft room and sewing like crazy. I will post pictures of baby quilts soon.

Finally my April blocks for the Nurture circle of do.good.stitches. The instructions were here. We has pretty free rein which was a blessing and a curse. I find that I will take so much longer to decide what I want to do. In the end I came up with these two diamond blocks.

I feel like the first block ended up looking a little like corn in the pictures.

This one I kept fiddling with to the point of madness and it is not how I imagined it in my mind but fits what was asked for. They will be going in the mail in the morning before they get lost in my craft room.

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric Studio
Link-A-Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Can I Get A Whoop Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday