Avoiding

There's this quilt I'm working on ... and I'm not totally wild about it. About 50 percent of the time I love it, and the rest of the time I think it's awful.

I've dealt with it by avoiding it, until today. The recipient of the quilt will be here in two weeks, so it's time to get busy.

But for the last half month or so, I've done other stuff. I think I get most of my sewing done when I've avoiding some other project.

Another pair of Henry pants!





This.



Finally bound these pillows. The blue one is also done, but not washed. And since they spent a month on the couch with the dogs, they need a good washing before I'll show them publicly.







Also, a trout.





And then two bags lined with ripstop nylon. First, an insulated bag. Or a wet bag. Whatever you need it for.



The guts are Insul-Bright. The outside is cotton ticking from JoAnn. The tutorial I used is here.

And then came the toiletries bag.



And two little bean bags/fabric weights from the snipped corners.



There's also been lotso baking! This, in particular.



I don't think it needs frosting. But I added it here because I made this cake for work, but ate the whole top off when it came out of the oven and needed to hide that.

Chowder did a bit better at the dog park last Sunday.



And, finally, Echo came!



I went up to the sewing room at 10 a.m. to start work on the quilt I'm dreading. And I forced myself to clean up in there. When I was almost done, our mail carrier knocked on the door to drop off this wonderful package! What a reward for being all responsible and adult-ish and stuff.

Sewplosion

I got back from vacation last night and unleashed four days' worth of saved-up sewing.

Henry pants!



See?

They're for Henry, the most adorable baby in the universe. Ever. His parents were nice enough to let me stay with them Sunday night and took me along to a delicious dinner/pumpkin-carving/dog-petting/Muppets-watching evening.

I borrowed a pair of Henry's pants with the plan of drafting a pattern, but then remembered the simple pants pattern in the Simple Sewing for Baby book I have.

The pants from the book turned out the same size as Henry's, except the length -- they were about 3 inches shorter. So maybe he'll have capris. I got the hanger at Bitters Co. in Seattle for $12. It's from Paraguay.

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I also powered through this last night.

Potholder! I stopped in Bozeman on my drive home and got some Insul-Bright. Every store in Billings has been sold out of it for the last year, so I was glad to find some at Main Street Quilting Company. It was only $3 a yard!

I didn't follow a pattern, but I did get my idea for the back from Oh, Fransson!



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It was nice to be able to sew up pants and a quilted potholder in an evening. I bound it this morning, but still. A year ago, I would have no idea how to do any of that stuff. And six months ago, it would have taken me a weekend.

The first big thing I sewed/quilted was actually a quilt for Henry when he was born last February. Now, more than 10 months later, the list of sewing stuff I don't know how to do is still longer than the skills I've acquired, but I've got most of the basics down. If I was graded on a elementary school report card, I'd be "fully performing" in all the essential areas.

The coolest thing I've learned is how to hand-bind. Before my mom taught me, I never thought I'd like it. Now it's one of my favorite parts of quilting. It has a cool rhythm and it seems like the part of the process you have the most control over, I think because of the slow speed. Plus the final quilt looks so perfect and it gives me an excuse to watch dumb movies.

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And now it's back to a quilting project I started before I left... More on that later...