Beds and Pillowcases

Yesterday was Niecelet's third birthday, which was a good way to fill up the afternoon for two little boys who didn't have school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Mummy, OTOH, got to fill up her morning and evening with four loads of laundry.  In part because Jazzy woke up half an hour before the alarm, very unhappy, because he had soaked himself and his bed.  So beds got remade as well, and I thought I'd show them to y'all.

This is Squiddle's bed.  It used to be mine, from when I was maybe 12 up until I got married.  When we were upgrading him to a big boy bed after moving here, he had the choice between converting his crib to a double bed, or using this bed.  He chose this one.  Currently it's actually got two quilts on it, both blue.  The upper Galaxy quilt is Jazzy's, but I wanted one with a flannel backing for warmth when I was changing Squiddle's bed last weekend after the vomiting incident, and this came to hand.

This is Jazzy's castle bed, which after two moves is showing a bit of structural damage, but it's sound enough to last until he gets upgraded to a big boy bed in a couple years.  The Dinosaur Crossings quilt on it is, I think, actually Squiddle's.  We live in a sea of shared quilts.

This is one of the pillows on Squiddle's bed, and is actually his Christmas pillowcase from this year, which I sewed up while in England.  I use the Roll It Up pattern and just insert a 1.5" width-of-fabric strip, pressed in half the long way, between the layers for a flange.  The alphabet fabric, chosen because Squiddle is learning to read and write this year, was actually printed slightly askew, so I had to twist and nudge it a bit to get it to line up. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Jazzy got a Christmas pillowcase too, but as his bed is still using toddler pillows, neither of these are it.  Though I did make them; two of the sets of these pillows are matched, where this particular set is only matched in that they're both "star" pillows.

January Guild Meeting

Yay, guild meeting last night!  I dropped a large bag of stuff (fabric, books) on the freebie table and most of it got taken.  I took a few new-to-me back issues of magazines to peruse.  I also turned in round two of the Round Robin project, and picked up my third round.

Here's what I turned in:

Apologies for the wonkiness of the picture - it was breezy this morning.

The center appliqued block was what was turned in.  Last month one of my guildmates added the blue and green diamonds border.  I flailed about until I found the pale grey marble remnant in my stash, then I machine-appliqued the scrolling bias vines, and pulled the leaves out of a bag of leaves and hand-appliqued those.  Looking at this picture now, I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's out of my hands and I have another to work on this month.

I did take in Jazzy's Galaxy Quilt and Squiddle's Tinkerbell quilt for Sew'N'Tell.  Good thing, too; the walls were pretty bare this month.  I guess most quilts that my guildmates might have made for Christmas presents probably left their houses....

A Galactic Finish

I finally got some pictures taken of Jazzy's Christmas quilt!  But, alas, I've hit a snag on Squiddle's - I'm one 2" width-of-fabric strip short of the purple fabric!  So I need to see what I can get that will be a match.  It was a remnant when I bought it, so I'm not holding out much hope of finding the actual fabric.

But, in the meantime, here are the beauty shots!

The sunlight shot, to show off the colors to their truest.  It's a simple design, but I like it.

I kept the quilting very simple.  Diagonal lines making an X across each block, and vertical and horizontal lines in the sashing.  Combined, they make a star in the stars. For simple quilts like this, this is my favorite easy quilting pattern.

And my silly little detail that makes me feel clever.  I did three lines of straight-line quilting in the border.  Then I stitched the black binding to the back, flipped it over to the front, and top-stitched it down with the same thread, so it looks like another line of quilting.

Sicky Baby...

No photos today.  Jazzy spent most of yesterday feeling poorly.  A still not yet talking 2-year-old with diarrhea and a consequent rash is a pitiful thing to behold.  I even got thrown up on twice!  Fortunately, I had a sense the second volley was coming, so I got the two of us into the shower in time, making cleanup much easier.

Yeah, fun.

But at least he's been docile while sick rather than screaming or combative.  Still, I hope this passes quickly and he feels better soon.

And despite being a cuddle object most of the day, I did manage to get his Christmas quilt done!  Now I switch to Block of the Month and Round Robin mode for the weekend, and as soon as those two projects are done, I move on to Squiddle's Christmas quilt.

One other bright note, I finally did manage to order Bonnie Hunter's new book, String Frenzy, this morning!  And, as it came with a free download of her Hunter's Star variation, I got to read through that as well.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Jazzy's quilt is about done - five more minutes of quilting should finish it, and then binding, the label, and a wash.  Yay!

And Squiddle and I made some sugar cookies this afternoon during Jazzy's nap!

Also, remember that probably 1950s quilt top I got for free at the Orange Grove Quilt Guild meeting last month?  I finished its soak in Oxyclean, rinsed it several times, and hung it to dry in the shower while the rain poured outside:

The Oxyclean did what I hoped it would.  The age stains disappeared, and the more egregious marks also for the most part vanished.  For example, this stain:

Was reduced to this:

Miraculous, no?  However, there was one loss.  This block:

Well, all the color vanished from the fabric, and all that's left is this:

I'm trying to tell myself that it would have happened during washing of the finished quilt anyway.  No other blocks were affected.  This was a free quilt top.  It's not museum quality by any means.

But I need to decide is I'm going to leave it as is now, or find a suitable fabric and replace the block.  Thoughts?

Stars In Their Eyes

Everything Squiddle has been saying lately makes me think I'd best rethink my planned borders for his Tinkerbell quilt.  He wants something that's "blue in the middle and pink on the sides."  And a bedroom that is all pink, even the floor.  (My mother's response to that was that she had already done one pink bedroom, for us girls.  I remember that bedroom.  The strawberry pink we picked out was very... virulent.)  He also wants to be an old train engine, like Thomas, except pink all over.

Right.  Much more pink needed on that quilt....

But for today I got a bit more work done on Jazzy's quilt!

I got it all basted during Jazzy's (enforced) nap.  And clearly my math was off somewhere because I had no room to spare on the length of the backing and batting.  Still, it works, however barely!

I also got to do a bit more hand-stitching on the binding for Autumn Colors.  I'm on the last side!  I'm hoping I can get it finished tomorrow morning during Jazzy's speech therapy.  That way I could show it off at guild this week and next...

Seeing Stars

Ugh.  We had to be gone too early and for too long today because of three house viewings.  The timing threw off our groove and plans.  But at least we did get down to the Christmas event hosted by our realtor's company.  Squiddle got his picture taken with Santa Claus.  Jazzy flatly refused to have anything to do with it and would not come down from my or Wonderful Husband's arms.  How strange in some ways that a child who likes to run so free, is so mistrustful of strangers.

But this afternoon and evening I persevered!  While chili simmered on the stove for supper, I sewed and sewed and sewed.  And I got Jazzy's Galaxy quilt top done!

And after dinner, I got the rotary cutting supplies and flannel from the garage, and pieced together the back.  Tomorrow, if I'm lucky, I'll get to bring in the batting and make a quilt sandwich....

One down, three to go!

Sorry no post yesterday.  I was up late finishing Niecelet's Mermaid Quilt.  Which is now done, lock stock and barrel!  But I have no pictures.  And probably will not until Wonderful Husband is home during daylight hours to hold it for me to photograph.

So then I continued on to the Galaxy Quilt.  Which has stars in the sashing.  One hundred and ninety-six 1.5" squares to sew diagonally across, trim, and press.  But I got them all done, hallelujah!

And I got the six sashing rows sewn together, and a start on the seven rows of galaxy blocks.  But I discovered I cut two of the galaxy fabric pieces a tad short - not enough to notice by eye, but enough to bollocks up the piecing.  So I frogged them and now need to cut two more squares.  Fortunately, I have some extra fabric.

Recovered!

Thanksgiving happened, it was awesome, nothing went wrong except the whipped cream half deflating at the end.  Que sera sera.  This year was a rather small crowd - myself, Wonderful Husband, Squiddle, Jazzy, my parents, my two cousins on my mom's side, and one cousin's boyfriend.  We put the leaf in the dining table, hauled in the long wood card table, tableclothed 'em both, set them slanty and put all the food on the kitchen counters buffet style.

There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, succotash, green beans, carrots, corn bread, both chunky and smooth cranberry sauces, mahi mahi for the ovo-pescatarian cousin (and vegetarian versions of the stuffing, succotash, and gravy for her as well), and pumpkin and apple pies for dessert with whipped cream and ice cream to go with.

I almost needed bigger counters.

But that utterly wiped me out.  It took a day to recover - a day during which I donated blood, and picked up fabric for Squiddle's Christmas present quilt.  And today I took advantage of continuing post-Thanksgiving sales and picked up a 20 yard roll of batting, which I will need to make any of the Christmas quilts!

Also today, I cut out the pieces for Jazzy's Christmas quilt:

And I maaaaay have also started cutting the pieces (not pictured above) for Wonderful Husband's Christmas quilt while he was out.  Shhhh!  Top secret!

(Egads, four quilts to do in four weeks.  Better get cracking!  At least Niecelet's quilt top is done.)

This evening, whilst Wonderful Husband entertained the boys by playing a bit of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I made registration marks and finished the last bit of quilting on the Autumn Colors quilt, and sewed the binding on.  And found out I'd mismeasured the (fortunately scrappy) binding by a whole side.  I went out to the garage, dug out the bag of bindings, found two pieces that were in the right colorway, stitched them on, and had like two inches left over.  Score!

And I did a tiny bit of holiday decorating.  I hung my Christmas Landing quilt just inside the front door:

Wonderful Husband was far more productive, and put up the outdoor lights as well as the string around the crown moulding in the boys' room.