Quilt along

For some time I have been cutting fabric. Lots and lots of fabric. An endless pile of fabric. Actually it all started way back last summer when I made my first quilt. When I returned home from Colorado I spent the summer doing pool and garden things but did visit the fabric store every so often. From there I would come home with a yard or two of patterned fabric that spoke to me of its great potential in a nice little lap quilt. I kept finding all sorts of wonderful colors that eventually I had myself a whole lot of flannel and no quilt. As the enjoyment of all things Summer kept my days busy I forgot about making a quilt. Sure the fabric stared at me while I worked in my craft nook but I can be stubborn. I managed to cut 2 yards of fabric, feeling success I must have found ways to fill my days and forget. Soon Winter came and with it the chill of my craft nook became too much. I couldn't find a way to endure the cold to cut fabric. I had lost my crafty mojo. Or at least the sewing mojo, instead I went to knitting and that had until recently filled my free time. Now that a new baby is on the Fall horizon I knew it was now or NEVER for these quilts.

Which is why I've been cutting fabric for what seems like weeks. I do a little at a time and stack my squares up in neat little piles. How many quilts do I plan to make? Right now just two. I have enough fabric for at least a dozen but two is all I need. I'm working on a boy quilt and a girl quilt. Since we are not learning the sex of our baby until its birth in late September I want to be prepared. I'm starting with the boy quilt. This decision has mostly to do with the simple fact that all the fabric for the boy quilt has been cut into squares. I still have some more fabric to cut before I can lay out the pattern for the girl quilt. I have to make an effort to get the remaining fabric cut because every week I'm expanding and a large belly has made working up against a table interesting. I think what will happen is I'll have the two quilt tops figured out. Then I'll piece both of them together so that I can quilt them leaving all the binding work to do when I'm at my largest. I can't see myself wanting to be pressed up against a sewing machine while 9 months pregnant. That's why I'll need to do all the machine piecing and quilting work before mid-August. Depending on my interest and energy I might just piece together several quilt tops so that at least part of the process for the piles of fabric will be made before the baby arrives.

As for some details about the boy quilt pictured. I found a variety of flannel fabric with great prints. I got all of it on discount since it was purchased during the summer when flannel is never of high need. There is a blue print with cars, a blue print with trains, a green print with fire trucks, an orange print with construction signs, a print of construction equipment, a flame print, a green stripe, and some plain red, brown, green, cream and blue flannel. I have an alternative boy quilt but that will be last on my list as I want to get this one and the girl quilt finished before I get too ahead of myself.