How it's going...

I have completed one block, with another 3/4 of the way complete.  I have purchased the marker/paint I am going to use for the eyes.  I was looking at the last block and decided I did not like the way it looked, so I am turning it into my quilt label.... kind of...  I am going to put Baby Last Name, September 2011 with baby footprints.  On the back I will probably put my name and my place of residency.  I'm hoping this last block goes really fast so I can quilt it and put it together Saturday night.  Hm... at least there are several baseball games all evening so I will have something to watch while I do this.  I'm figuring I will have 8 hours to cut and sew and cut.  Then I will paint the eyes on Sunday evening.  I will take it with me to the baby shower hosts and wash it (several times) as I help prepare our baby shower food.  We'll see how well I do.  It IS Thursday, after all, but I still have 5 breaks and 2 lunches to complete this project.  Next up is the baby animals again, only this time in all boy colors.  The other couples either know what they are having or have already had the baby.  I'm not sure I ever want to do 15 embroidered blocks in one month again.  Although, it does keep me busy during breaks and lunches.  Not to mention meetings, ball games, and other places where I have 5-10 minutes of down time.  I will post more about the pattern I used after I have all the animals sewn together in one piece.

Pictures!

Even though it's been a week, I am still a little behind.  However, I was refiguring my math and realized that if I made all of the embroidered blocks I was going to make, this baby quilt was going to be huge!  So, I did some recalculating and realized I only needed a total of 30 blocks, 5 across and 6 down.  That means I only need 15 embroidered blocks, so I have to complete 3 more.  I haven't done the eyes yet, I'm not sure how I'm going to do them.  I'm contemplating coloring the eyes and then outlining them with the stem stitch I've used on the rest of the animals.  I hate satin stitch, so I really don't want to use it.  I can not get my tension even.  So, here we go with some pics:

This one is my favorite.

I am planning on quilting around the animals with 12 weight sulky cotton thread.  The other 15 blocks are flannel with X's through them.  The finished quilt should be about 42.5 by 51.  (That's the hope, anyway.)
That's all for now.

Week from Eschatological Unmentionable

It's been a little while.  I finished 3 blocks, so this week was a fail.  However, I work a full time job and a retail part time job.  It was inventory week, so I logged a total of 64.5 hours at a place of employment.  If I throw in the drive time, I lost 5.5 hours there, so even though I only finished 3, it was not a complete loss.  Anyway....

I was going to take pictures of my "completed" blocks, but when I went to turn on the camera, the battery was dead.  I have an Olympus camera with a special battery.  I am also not the best housekeeper in the world, and had lost my charger.  After looking for it for 4 days, I have finally found it.  So, said camera battery is now charging.  I'm hoping to take pics tomorrow evening and post around Monday night.  I did score a new foot for my sewing machine, which is a Baby Lock Crafter's Choice.  I got the machine freehand quilting foot.  I also got some quilting thread.  We'll see how this goes.

For 2 of the baby quilts I am embroidering 1/2 of the blocks on a white flannel.  That's 24 blocks per quilt.  For the 3rd I am embroidering 5 blocks and my mother is machine appliqueing 5 blocks with 10 blocks left in the cute print we found at a chain store.  (They're baby quilts.  Babies eat, sleep, poop, and throw up.  That's why I don't feel bad using chain store fabric.  For more on this topic, I suggest you listen to Sandy at Quilting for the Rest of Us.)  Back onto topic...  I am ragging these quilts because I like to use a medium loft polyester batting to support my embroidery and haven't figured out how to do it on individual blocks before assembly the entire quilt.  I am going to free motion around the embroidery because I don't think I will like a square around my embroidered blocks when I am creating my quilt sandwiches.

So, I guess it wasn't a complete fail, and next week I have 2 evenings opening up, I should be able to make up for the loss this week.  We'll see what happens.

1/4 Done!

I have finished embroidering 6 of the blocks for baby quilt #1.  That means I have 18 left.  The whole project has to be finished by August 29 because that is when the baby shower, which I'm helping host, is.  I have a timeline/deadline to follow.  It will be done.  I have decreed it.  I will let you know how it really goes.  I will probably work on pictures tomorrow.

So many quilts, so little time

In October I am going to Germany for almost 3 weeks.  As of Monday, I had 2 quilts to finish before I left.  Now, I have 3.  The good news is that I have to have one finished by the 29th of August, while the other 2 just have to be finished before I leave the 30th of September.  The good news is that there are several baseball games to be attended before the babies come, so I should have plenty of hand stitching time to complete.  Two of the quilts are embroidered rag quilts.  I'm not sure what the 3rd will be, but probably a rag without the embroidery.  Time will tell.  Once I get the pictures taken, I will show the works in progress.  Right now there are 5 complete embroidered blocks with the rest of the fabric to be cut out.

A New Blog

I have decided to take the leap and start podcasting, but in order to podcast, I need a place for notes.  So, blogging, here I come.  This is really a test run, I don't expect to have an actual podcast for several weeks, but here's a trial run for the blog.