Whew! Just in The Nick of Time!

DD#2 had her baby on Tuesday evening - 2 & 1/2 weeks before her due date. Tyce is three now & loves his new sister - Nora Mae. She has long slender fingers and toes - and quite a bit of dark hair.

I was in a bit of a panic when she was born because her quilt wasn't ready for her! I stayed up late on Tuesday night to finish the quilting and binding, and then threw it into the washer & dryer the next morning. It was all finished by the time she came home from the hospital - whew! Here's how it looked before I washed it.

 And this is the after.

Lately, I have been seeing some quilts with the recipient's name written on the back, so I decided to try and do that with this baby quilt.

 At first I was going to piece the letters, but I ended up using machine applique with a cute font.

Each row was done with a different quilting motif on my home sewing machine. Amazingly, I even attempted a little bit of feathering - not too bad!

The binding was made using leftover bits of the fabrics I had, so it's scrappy. I can't remember what brand of cotton batting I used, because I used leftovers from another project, but I was amazed at how much it shrunk! The quilt was 36" wide when I made it, and after washing it measured only 31" - that's a LOT!

Since my last post three weeks ago, hubby & I spent a week in Missouri & Illinois on vacation.  Visited the St. Louis Arch, the Zoo, and the Botanical Gardens. Then we drove up the Mississippi River to the beautiful small town of Nauvoo which was very significant in the history of our church. Now that we're home from vacation & the baby has arrived, I'm hoping that life will settle down to normal and I can start posting more regularly.

We're loving this new addition to our family -  we now have four grandchildren and hope for several more eventually.

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Just a LITTLE to Share Today

I recently spent a week in California visiting family so I really don't have a lot to share right now. This is the hand stitching project I took with me to work on in the airport, on the plane and while visiting. I got it all finished except one piece that I lost somewhere along the way - so I stitched it on as soon as I got home. Wool pieces appliqued onto a cotton background.

I helped my mom finish piecing this quilt top. She's had the fabrics for years and years - two years ago I helped her lay it out and she stacked up each row and labeled it so they'd stay in the right order - but she never did a thing with it after that. I told her that this quilt was going to be our project while I was there and we got it all done! I brought it home to get it machine quilted for her - then I'll send it back with the binding sewn on too.

Before leaving for CA I completed the border on my family rug - if you compare this photo with one a couple posts back you can see what I accomplished.