WIP Wednesday: Shopping Cart Cover

It’s still Wednesday! It counts. 🙂

I got this shopping cart cover pattern from Daydreams of Quilts for Christmas, knowing that with two babies in the family it would come in useful. I decided to make one for my cousin’s baby. I’d read through the pattern a couple of times, but not very attentively. I haven’t had a ton of sewing time lately and there were days where I had free time, but not the energy necessary to get down to sewing. As a result, I started this on a Wednesday evening, when it needed to be done Sunday. Not a good idea.  That’s why this is still a work in  progress…

I knew I wanted to use the Connecting Threads Lousy in Springtime fabric collection. It fit well in the colors my cousin and her husband like – blue and green – and he used to study Japanese, plus you know I love Japanese-inspired fabrics. I think they’re so pretty. I thought darker prints would be better, since the shopping cart cover will likely get dirty, which ruled out a bunch of the prints. I had a whole yard of this crane print and fat quarters of the rest. I settled on the crane print for the front, supplemented by Kona Teal, and for the back I used the dragonflies and blue and green leaves with more of the Kona. I think I should have used the Kona for the whole back, to speed things up, but I had wanted to use more of the collection. 

My center piece between the leg holes doesn’t seem very centered. Obviously I didn’t measure properly. The instructions call for a patchwork top with 5.5″ squares, which would certainly make it easier to center that piece. Oh well.

I have started quilting it and I gifted it, as is, and then took it back to finish it.  I still need to finish quilting it, put the elastic and seat belt/buckle in, and bind it… Hopefully soon!

Pillows for my sister

I wanted to make my sister a pillow for her birthday and we discussed design options and colors. Her sorority’s symbol is the quatrefoil, and during last year’s Bee Hive quilt block series, I’d made note of the quatrefoil block. My sister liked it, and we agreed on orange, teal, and blue. 

I’d just bought Pearl Bracelets in orange and Metro Living tiles in orange, and I thought both would be perfect. I pulled out a teal, leftover from my friend M’s wedding quilt, as well as a Kona – possibly jade? It was the octopus in the baby quilt I made last year. Lastly I had some royal blue fabrics. I think one was a kona (no idea what shade, but also for the octopus baby quilt) and one might have been from Michaels. I think I used it for the Love in Shades of Blue quilt. 

The shades of orange, teal, and blue had slightly different values, and I decided to make two pillows, one with the darker values and one with the lighter values (except I think one royal blue ended up in both pillows because I didn’t have quite enough).

I changed the design slightly. I made the corner pieces in the center orange because I thought that made the shape more like a quatrefoil.

I decided to make the pillows two sizes because I had extra of the teal from the teal and grey wedding quilt. So I added a border to that one to bring it up to 16″. It has a solid back in the teal.

The other pillow has a pieced back using up more of the jade and the Royal blue. My math was wrong the first time and the back didn’t cover the 12″ pillow, so I had to go back and add more blue.

Finished pillows:

Coasters

I made some coasters for my aunt. She likes neutrals and earth tones. I picked a Japanese print in lovely colors, muted but beautiful.  I used a cream print on the back.  (Can you see the one where I accidentally sewed the wrong sides together? When I figured it out, I decided it was too late to change it.)  I hand stitched around the edges

My grandmother

My Hungarian grandmother died recently. It wasn’t sudden. She had Parkinson’s and a weak heart. The last two years had been a steadily decline.  Z and I saw her a lot in January, and last time I blogged I was making her a free motion quilted tray mat. I finished it, the second tray mat I’ve made her, and I gave it to her in mid-January.

My aunt, with whom my grandmother lived for the last seven years of her life, commented how useful the tray mats are, so I made another three, all in pink. I think she liked them.

It’s strange to think that I’ll never make anything else for her. I know she appreciated all the gifts I’ve made her, as did my aunt.

Sunday stash

I got my Sunday stash post up! I have bought a lot of fabric the last couple of months.

Atrium – I love it and I can’t wait to use it

 

Paperie – I was thinking I’d use this to make a wedding quilt for Z and myself at some point.

Metro Living extra wide quatrefoil in black and grey

Pearl bracelets in orange and Metro Living tiles in orange

I also bought a bunch of different Kona fabrics and the Kona Cotton Colord Card and more. I’ve been busy!

 

 

 

 

 

Back to blogging

Dear habibis,

I know I’ve been gone for well over two months. There are a lot of reasons for that. Z and I are both going through some job-related upheaval, in the middle of our wedding planning. I lost access to my computer for weeks, and my grandmother passed away. Life has felt chaotic since New Year’s. 

I think we’re starting to get back to some semblance of normal, and returning to the blog is part of that. I have actually been sewing through this period, although not as much as I would have liked. Going forward, I’ll try to have more posts scheduled in advance – had I done so after New Year’s, I would have been in a better position, blogging-wise. 

It feels appropriate to come back to my blog today, on National Quilting Day. I hope to spend much of the day doing some quilting, as I work to finish up some birthday presents and some projects for us.  Tomorrow I’m going to have an epic Sunday stash – fabric acquisition is one area where I haven’t slacked – and starting on Tuesday I’ll go back to my regular posting schedule.

Sincerely, Rozsamaria