Sew many things happening here

I love my man to pieces, but I really loved that he went to Detroit without me this past weekend. I had 2 solid days of errand running and crafting, and it was glorious.

I'm teaching a class the first weekend in February, and I had a ton of supplies to find. I did most of that on Saturday. Tomorrow I'll do a test run of my class with some friends (if you're in the Indy area and would like to dye yarn Wednesday 1/14, let me know!) to make sure my new equipment works and then I'll hopefully pack everything up and have it ready for the big day.

While I was out, I also headed to my favorite little quilting shop, Crimson Tate. I love quilting and learning new patterns, but picking out fabric isn't my forte. Luckily they are happy to help and I brought home fabric for the first of my baby quilts for MJ. I know that the first of her upcoming arrivals is a boy, and we aren't sure what the second one is yet. I knew I wanted to follow a tutorial I found on Pinterest, and I knew I would like to have it blue and yellow but after that I was pretty open. I came home with this:

While this was in the wash, I sat down to finish a woven and then sewn bag that was supposed to be a Christmas gift. And I hated that thing. The more I worked on it, the more disgusted with it I became. So I scrapped it and pulled out a bunch of...well, scraps. Several months ago I had a bunch of 4" squares and I decided to make a patchwork quilt for my brother. I put together a bunch of strips of squares and decided that really was never going to get finished. I pinned a bunch together and sewed them into a big tube, put a bottom on it and added some straps and a lining. Since the strips were pre-made, it only took about an hour. And I'm so much happier with the new bag than I was with the woven bag.

Then I went to the local pub, knitted with a martini for a bit and watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey in fleece leggings with the cat. Like I said, Gavin was out of town. And the cat doesn't judge. She likes the leggings. 

Sunday I went to knitting group (since I stopped working every Sunday at the nursery it's nice to get back to the old knitting group) and came home and got started with the cutting of the freshly washed and ironed baby blanket bits. I cut 10" squares, sewed and cut again. And then got back to work on my yarn business. That yarn won't ship itself out! 

Last night I met Tall/Dark & Handsome and his friend for dinner on the way back from Detroit and I came home and couldn't resist those perfect little squares on the dining room table. I must have blacked out, by the time I realized what was happening I had this:

Okay that part is a huge lie. The middle mushroom bit took me longer than anything else. The pattern I printed out is really more of a guideline and it assumes the quilter has done this before and not had a gin and tonic at dinner. It took me about 45 minutes and lots of seam ripping to get those 4 little mushroom triangles to a) all be the same size b)go the same direction and c)just fit. For cryin' out loud- WHY AREN'T THEY FITTING?!

Once I got the first two the same size (4th try is the charm) I figured out a system and the last two were a piece of cake. Then I got the next round done, stepped away and fell in love. It was 11 o'clock but I couldn't stop. One more round!

It was then that I made a couple realizations. Firstly, that the mushrooms that took me almost an hour to get going the same direction are going the opposite direction of the other mushrooms. I also don't care enough to change it now. It's a quirk, not a defect.The Amish always put a mistake in their quilts because only God is perfect. Another realization was that the pattern/guideline wasn't quite accurate in how much fabric was needed. Had the final size of the quilt been listed, I would have probably figured out that the suggested pattern amounts weren't going to be enough. So I need to go back to the fabric shop because I'm on halfway done with this quilt top and nearly done with my fabric. I do really like this pattern despite the road blocks, so I will probably just buy a yard of everything and have enough to make a whole other baby quilt because someone is bound to have a boy eventually. But this time I'll get the mushrooms right.

And on a final note: the most boring cross stitching in the world.