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| Stuck at home, doing nothing, makes for a very sad boy. |
One of the hardest parts of being a new mom, for me, has been feeling like I am letting my two fur kids down. Dexter has been quite depressed and Fractal is going stir crazy. It has been very hard for me to watch,especially when I am stuck in the glider nursing the baby and can literally do nothing for them. I know it is not as bad as it is in my head since they have had trips to the dog park, one class, a journey to a friend's house and Buddy plays with them regularly in the backyard. But still, nothing like what they had pre-baby.
Pinwheels
I can't believe it, my pinwheel blocks are going to make it into a finished quilt. I am in shock really. These have been sitting around for so long and I was at such a loss for what to do with them that I was pretty sure they would never amount to anything. Which bummed me out severely since I had made them from precious Hope Valley Fat Quarters won when my mom and I saw Denyse Schmidt at a local quilt store.
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| The first pinwheels I sewed. . . in 2012! |
In the end, as it always seems to be, the answer was to keep it simple. Really simple. I just sewed the squares together: no sashing, not setting on point, nothing. Originally, I had really wanted to do a very modern, non-grid layout with these very traditional blocks, but it just wasn't mean to be. Mostly because that would have required more blocks and I have no interest in making any.
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| The odd number of blocks I ended up with before quitting. I managed to talk myself into sewing one more to make it an even 20. |
I was really nervous when I went to get backing for this quilt since I knew that there was no way to get something from the Hope Valley line. My thinking was to do a shot cotton since to me they have bit of that worn vintage-y look like the Hope Valley prints. Instead I ended up with a plum and orange print for Denyse's new Franklin line (which I like quite a bit).
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| It is very helpful that designers often use the same color palette from one collection to the next. |
Again, I went simple with the quilting. The plan was a one inch grid, but after getting all the vertical lines done, I felt like adding the additional quilting would be too busy for the small quilt. So I called it good.
All that I have left to do is bind the darn thing. I have this pumpkin colored Kona for the binding, but I'm not totally sold on it, so I have working on quilting my Bento Box baby quilt instead.
What do you think, should I just go for it with the binding, or could I do better? Something a bit more unexpected perhaps?
Linking up with WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social!
I love your pinwheels! I like the simple layout and the simple quilting too. The DS fabrics I have are predominantly orange, so to me, the orange binding would be perfect!
ReplyDeleteI too think that binding would be fine, matching the back and the front. Mind you if you had more of the stripe effect on your last pic, stripes always make great bindings! Good luck with getting it done!
ReplyDeleteI think that binding fabric would be perfect for your quilt. Love your choice of backing too. I am very impressed that you were able to find time to quilt with a little one in the house.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shasta! The time I get to sew is mostly thanks to my mother in law, who has been coming once a week to help with the baby. I am very thankful to have the support of family!
DeleteYou accomplish amazing amounts of things and it is even more impressive when one realizes you are a new Mom! Love this pinwheel quilt Whitney! I like the pumpkin binding a lot.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for active and athletic dogs to lay around. We had neighbors who had two border collies. When their first baby was born, they bought this fancy stroller that they could push along while running and were out with the dogs each day and that seemed to help a lot.
Enjoy your first agility run in months with Dexter!