I did it!

One of my main goals was to finish my dad's quilt before our baby arrived. Thankfully, I was able to have all but a few feet of binding left to stitch when I went into labor. Hooray! I was able to finish the rest up that following week and threw it in the wash on Christmas Eve to wrap and give my father on Christmas day - exactly one year late. It worked out perfectly actually since his actual gift for this year arrived in early December.

When my dad opened the box and saw that it was his quilt he was so excited and surprised. It was great! It felt so good to be done with it and to see him to happy to receive it. He proceeded to use it for the rest of the afternoon! According to my mother, he had been using it as often as possible since Christmas and does not let anyone else touch it!

All in all, this is one of the most time consuming quilts I have made. The finished size is roughly 70" x 90". That means there are 63 of those square in square blocks that required a lot of cutting, sewing, pressing and trimming. I'm quite happy with the look but I'm not sure I'll be making one of those again in the near future. If I do, I might consider being less anal retentive and forgo the trimming after each ring. I think the quilting looks perfect for the quilt. I don't have a photo to show it so you're going to have to trust me on this one! I did straight lines running 1/4" off the outside seam of each block and then one line diagonally through each block in both directions. It is minimal so it let's the pattern show and keeps it cozy. I initially wanted to stick to only horizontal and vertical lines, but I know that, even with all that trimming, the inner seams world never line up enough to make the quilting look straight(ish).

The blocks are made with various varieties of four different color combinations to represent my dad's favorite Detroit/Michigan sports teams: the Detroit Lions, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Pistons, and the Michigan Wolverines.

For the back I used licensed prints of all of the teams except the Tigers. Surprisingly, quilting cotton for the Tigers is not available. As expected, my father liked the back more than the front. Figures!

All in all, I'd say this quilt was a success! As many are aware, I was highly skeptical when I embarked on this endeavor. I'm glad it worked out that both me and my father were happy with the result.

2011: What Happened to You?

2011 was clearly not a great year for this blog. I barely had any posts and, overall, that was pretty representative of the amount of quilting and sewing I accomplished. I did, however, accomplish one major thing that really has been the reason for such a huge lull.

This is the reason: I became a mom!

I found out I was pregnant in April and almost immediately was stricken with fatigue that barely let up my entire pregnancy. I had absolutely zero motivation to sew (or to do much else).

Towards the end of my pregnancy I began working pretty heavily on my father's quilt and I think the noise of my sewing machine was so noisy and startling to the baby the he kicked and squirmed almost the entire time I was sewing for the first couple times. Sad, right?

My son, Gavin, was born on December 17 and is now already 3 weeks old! Things have been going well and I feel so much better now that I am no longer pregnant! I have motivation to be crafty again- which is super exciting! I'm looking forward to settling into a routine with Gavin so I can start being creative again.

I did manage to accomplish a few things- like actually finish my dad's quilt! I'll be sharing those things with you here shortly. But in the meantime, here is some more cuteness.