Another baby quilt

My coworker's husband is a firefighter and when they found they were having a little boy, I was inspired to make her this quilt.

 While it's hard to see in the picture above, the middle panel has dogs and fire hydrants.  The outer boarder has pirate ships.  I loved these colors together and the little boy theme. 

The walking foot quilting on this one was tedious.  One thing I would try in the future is using a different bobbin thread from the main thread to see if it will hide the stitches on the back better. I'd love any advice.

First finished quilt

In 2016, I was determined to finish  my first quilt.  Fortunately, I had a coworker due to have a baby and thought a baby blanket size would be a great place to start.  I was inspired by this pattern.

I was pretty pleased with this outcome for my first.  The colors matched the nursery theme and could be pared will with either a boy or girl accent color.  I used a walking foot for some basic machine quilting.  Anything fancier will take some courage and practice!

Getting creative

Remember how I found fabric at Tuesday Morning?  I snatched a bunch of fat quarters and used this Pinterest post as my inspiration to create this:

It needs another boarder of gray and then can be finished!  It's not quite the right size for a twin, so will probably be useful as a throw size quilt.

Small quilt

Did you know Tuesday Morning has fabrics? I stumbled upon this find when I went hunting for a thank you gift for Michael's boss.  This was a project pack with all of the fabrics included. I just had to cut and sew.  So simple!  I think I might buy a second set to make a throw from the two joined.

A new quilt top in brightly colored batiks

I started these squares before I started school last summer. The inspiration came from a video I found on pinterest. I actually wasn't very happy with them since I mixed up the warm and cool colors and I didn't think the color scheme worked well. I changed my mind as I worked with the blocks this year. I went ahead and sewed them into blocks, lined them up to best coordinate the colors, and added boarders.  This is a throw-ish size quilt top.  I really need to get brave and work on finishing some of these quilts (with backs, batting, and quilting).

Baby quilt

I found some great fabric at Tuesday Morning and then I went looking for a quilt pattern.  I found this one on AllPeopleQuilt. I halved all the pieces and added my own boarder and I'm very pleased with how the top turned out. Now I need to get brave enough to finish it.

Quilting, eating and reading

I finally finished the fishes top

and I started on another quilt top made from a jelly roll.

I'm not quite satisfied with the colors at the moment and might buy another roll to match the colors up differently.

I've also had some cooking successes. A friend said that an easy way to make BBQ chicken is just to put it in a crock pot with a container of BBQ sauce. SO easy! And pretty tasty.  I got 5ish meals out of it! I also found a pinterest recipe for cauliflower poppers which were actually very delicious!  I still crave more.

For some reason I decided to adventure into making sourdough.  I set out a starter (2 cups of flour, 2 cups of water and a packet of yeast) for 3 days and my first two loaves turned out great! I ate more than half a loaf the first day (with cream cheese and cheddar cheese and apple butter an plain and as a roast beef sandwich)!

And of course I'm reading. I'm reading for church and for life group and for an online hermeneutics class.  When I don't get called in for my on call shifts I just sit and read. :)

That's my life lately! Pretty solitary, but thoroughly enjoyable!