Finish Report! Baby Claridge 1.0 - Boomerangs for Olivia and her Boy

Can you believe it? A finish report coming out of me this year?  ;D  They will be very few between my thesis work and my MONSTER "25th, Baby!" king-size double wedding ring quilting that I'm trying hard to finish in time for our anniversary in August. But I do have two posts that need to be put up.

 

 

This is "Baby Claridge 1.0"

It's made for my cousin's daughter, who just had a precious little boy. On Mother's Day. How awesome is that?

 

 

 

I used mostly stash with a couple of fat quarters (Sesame Street! and a yellow), using Emily Herrick's Crazy Old Ladies pattern, "Boomerang".  I just made fewer boomerangs, and after I had them assembled I trimmed the top and bottom straight across. Here's the original on the pattern:

 

 

 

 

I quilted this entirely on the walking foot. Wanting to highlight the boomerangs, I simply outline-stitched each one about 1/16" outside in a thread that matched the background, then I used a wavy stitch to sew two lines on the insides with whatever thread matched best, and using a couple different guide points on my foot for that. 

 

 

 

Wanting to minimize the seams between the boomerangs, I found a fun decorative stitch on the machine and put that between the sides. I was thinking they looked kinda-sorta like lines of baseballs - perfect for a little boy! 

 

 

 

 

And, yep - I went for the start-and-stop  approach with each one rather than sew them through the boomerangs above and below. It wasn't that big a deal to sit down in front of a movie to tie and tuck all my ends from each 'rang and divider line.

 

 I have tons of yardage of this fun hot air balloon fabric, which was perfect for the backing on this.

 

 

 

And that led to a fun idea for the label.  (Which I had to redo - thank you! - due to misspelling the little guy's name despite frequent checking on that.)

 

 

 

 

It has a lightweight poly batting, which makes a nice puffiness without being stiff that will be highly washable. 

 

LOVED working with this pattern. The design is perky and the instructions are easy to follow. In fact, I have another one in a different colorway for myself that I'd started back in April or so. I'll probably get back to it in August after the MONSTER's quilting is finished.

 

 

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Linking up at

Fabric Tuesday

TGIFF is at Quokka Quilts this week

(main site here)
   

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

March Reports

Here is my March wrap-up:

Something Old/Something New -

This category of my goals took a big hit this month.  I did not learn how to beautifully repair the tiny nip I made in my double wedding ring quilt, so I didn't gain any new skills. I'll need to do that this month!

 

My something old - quilting still more rings in that quilt - went well for the first week or so of the month until my quilting foot broke.  Still haven't been able to get to the store down in the city for a new one, so that's on a standstill at the moment. 

 

My April something old will be getting the quilting going again on this quilt, and making labels for both of my Dragonfly Party quilts before they need to go off for the various shows that they'll be in this year!   My something new - - - learning how to repair that snip in a gorgeous way. . .

 

Thanks to Lynne for coordinating this link-up!

 

 

NewFO Report for March

[here is the link to this party]

 

Whoa!!  My normal piecing machine is still broken and waiting to be taken to the shop, so the first half of the month I spent any non-DWR time washing/pressing stuff and cutting out the pieces from long-untouched kits in my storage. I got three of them processed!!

 

We have "Simply Fun," a batik set that's going to be a pretty queen size quilt one day, that I bought back in 2008:

 

 

 

I always - ALWAYS - have at least one young feline visitor when working at this table. Also, these are all kits from storage that get initial processing, then they are carefully boxed up with the pattern and notes to be re-stored for future sewing attention.

 

 

 

 

 

"Sunshine" was also cut out- another bed-sized quilt.  I loved working with the spring-like colors, and it came in a super cool fabric tote bag that makes for great continued storage:

 

 

 

 

 

"Anna's Mountains" will be a nice throw quilt some time - I do love toile prints:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And!!!  Something brand new - a couple of months ago I won Emily's "Boomerang" pattern from her blog giveaway away at Crazy Old Ladies Quilt, and I've been really wanting to work it up. I didn't have any fabric on hand for the background, so I had to get that, and bought several fat quarters to use with it. I filled out the requirements from my stash and got everything cut out despite all the "help" from the kittens.

 

 

 

Such sweeties "helping" with the cutting out of the background fabric. They made sure nothing blew away on me.  ;D

 

 

 

 

And then I found out my cousin's daughter is pregnant with a boy. I really wanted to make her a quilt, so I shopped my stash again to make another quilt from the same Boomerang pattern. I loved the idea of using some of my hot-air balloon fabric for the backing, and found a great blue for background fabric, then pulled several quarters and scraps that coordinated with the colors of the backing. I had broken down my quilting machine to piece one of my BOMs together, so I went ahead and pieced the Boomerang baby quilt.

 

 

 

 It made such a nice cheery quilt top, and I love the pattern in this dark background as well as the white that captured my fancy in the first place.  I got the top sandwiched, so this is ready to go as soon as I can quilt again.

 

 

 

Lots of NewFOs added to the list between the stale kits and the new pattern!! Thank you to Barbara for hosting this fun link-up every month. I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

Let's Book It!  Report - 
 

[Here is the link for this party]

 

Still deep in thesis work - two or three weeks left of intense archive digging - so my book attention remains limited to my Affairs of the Heart work. But I do love this project despite the trickiness sometimes of looking at fine hand-applique detail on the black background.  I made some decent progress on block 6. I have these 3 out of the 28 tricky little pieces left to stitch, then I can do the accent embroidery:

 

 

 

Thanks to Sharon for coordinating this link up! It keeps me forging ahead on this long term project that would otherwise be easily set aside indefinitely!