Just dropping in to include a few photos of all the things that have been happening over the last few weeks. Hopefully later this week I’ll be adding a post or two about some stuff that’s been going on in my head, but no guarantees. :)

We added a pool fence to keep the boy out… Now he can run around the backyard without one of us chasing him constantly!

Fence

The garden is producing! This is our very first harvest of beans, but we’re wondering if anymore are coming. The bean plants don’t look so hot. But the tomatoes are taking off! I can hardly wait for them to ripen.

Beans

April’s Do. Good Stitches block. Lindsay chose the knee socks block but using colorful solids and prints. I can’t wait to see the quilt!

do. Good Stitches - April 2012

And this:
do. Good Stitches - March 2012 (everyone's blocks)

Became this:
do. Good Stitches -- March 2012 (Dream circle)

March was my month to be the quilter for Do. Good Stitches, and I chose Ashley’s String block. Though, I also chose to lay them out in more of a herringbone pattern. I have the whole thing quilted now, but I am stuck on the binding. If anyone has suggestions, I’m open!

And stay tuned… I have a bit of my Mendocino Madness planned for Sew Mama Sew’s May 2012 Give Away Day!

It seems like I’ve made a thousand and one posts (ok, maybe only four) about this particular quilt, but I’ve finally come to the last post about it.

Alexis is nine and a half, and has never been the recipient of one of my quilts. They are always gifted (usually baby gifts) to other people’s kids. So this summer I finally swore to her that the next quilt would be hers. Well, the next big quilt anyway (as I snuck in several mini’s and a tree skirt).

So she picked some colors and I headed to the LQS for some solids. At the store, somehow a Moda Sugar Pop charm pack snuck in.

I thought I was only going to tie this quilt, which is something I’ve never done, but in the end it is partly machine quilted (4 horizontal lines on the ditch between each row of blocks) and hand quilted using the “big stitch” technique and 3 different shades of variegated cotton perle floss.

When I started the hand quilting, I thought I would only do every other “row” of white squares, but ended up hating that and didn’t really think it was enough quilting anyway, so all the other white squares were outlined as well. Unfortunately that still didn’t seem adequate as the centers of each windmill block were still completely unquilted, so I added small “x”s to the center of each block.

The back is also from the Moda Sugar Pop line. I had considered adding a border to the finished top, but there was just enough of the backing fabric to cover it as is, so no border. Which means this quilt is a little shy of a twin size at about 80 x 60ish. But that’s ok as Alexis’ bed is a loft style bed, and it doesn’t need to hang over the edges when made.

The binding is yet another Sugar Pop print. I love the binding. It’s not quite polka dotted, but close enough to make me smile when I see it. And the turquoise is Alexis’ favorite color at the moment.

This is also the first time I’ve added a hand embroidered label to a quilt, but I knew that the occasion screamed for it. So I included a simple message to remind us how long she actually waited for this quilt. She loves the label more than you could imagine. Go figure.

Originally I had hoped to give it to her for her birthday at the end of the summer, but that didn’t happen, obviously. Around Thanksgiving I decided that come hell or high water, she would get it for Christmas. I know she thought it would never get done because the squares would sit untouched for weeks on end. I know she was really surprised when she went up to watch TV in the loft one day and found a basted quilt folded in my spot.

I was wondering how I was going to pull off “surprising” her when she already knew what state the quilt was in at any given moment. On the 23rd of December I took the finished quilt down to our room and wrapped it up. I thought for sure she was going to notice it missing from my chair upstairs before we left for my aunt’s the next day.

I gave it to her Christmas Eve night, and as you can see, she was so excited when she finally figured out what it was. She was fighting with the tape on the box so hard for so long trying to get it out.

I’m so glad it was so well received. I know she will treasure for years to come… even when she hits those teenage years and wants a room entirely shrouded in black.

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

Nothing more than a quick update on Alexis’ quilt. Gads and Gads of 4.5″ HSTs. And still no idea how I’m going to lay them out. Anyone have any suggestions?

Pretty girl…

… and silly boy.

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