Work in Progress

Here is the new baby quilt I have been working on! My friend, Angela, commissioned me to make this for one of her friends who is having a girl and the baby shower is on July 27th. I met her at the fabric store on Thursday to select fabrics. The nursery is aqua and coral, so I suggested some Bonnie and Camille fabrics. We picked out several fat quarters in aqua and a couple of quarter yards of fabrics she liked. I also dug into my scrap bins for some more variety. 

Angela had picked the design from this book she had...The block uses up an entire charm square and with no waste!

Here is the quilt shown in the book. The blocks finish 3 x 4 inches, so we thought 100 blocks would make a decent size baby quilt. Before quilting and washing, it is 37.5 x 41.5 inches. 

We liked the buttons shown on the quilt in the book, but with them being a choking hazard I just fused circles of fabric and used a buttonhole stitch on my Pfaff to secure them. I appliquéd the circles prior to putting all the blocks together.  I hope to get this quilt pinned after this afternoon's World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Germany.

We are having leftover stuffed zucchini boats for dinner, so I may even be able to get it machine quilted this evening. We are starting to harvest more than just lettuce from our garden! We have zucchini, carrots, radishes, raspberries, mint (I am going to pick up everything to make some mojitos!),  and sugar snap peas, no tomatoes or peppers yet, but hopefully soon. 

I also finally caved in and bought all the supplies to work on Little Miss Shabby's "Quilty Stitches." I have resisted making this for months, but my will power completely wavered.  You can find all the information and the free patterns here http://www.littlemissshabby.com/quilty-stitches/  I used to cross stitch when I was growing up and until I started quilting after I got married 20 years ago. I dug into my embroidery floss and had some of the colors, but I picked up the rest yesterday along with the Aida cloth. I think this will look adorable framed in my sewing room. This project is relatively compact and will be my new traveling handwork.

I also will be joining Val for her Second Annual Piggy Bank Challenge. You can find out more information about it here http://myplvl.blogspot.com/2014/07/2nd-annual-piggy-back-challenge-money.html We recently cashed in a large jar of coins we kept for our daughter from the time she was born and until she was about 7 years old and it was about $650! Every penny counts and I will be even better about pinching my pennies with the money going to buy me more fabric next summer.   

Well now that Germany is already up by 5 goals within the first 30 minutes of the game, I will get my pinning tables set up and go baste that baby quilt since I don't have to watch this soccer game closely anymore! What are you up to?