WIP Wednesday

close up of the quilting on cailynn's baby quilt - you can see the blue water soluble markings
i picked this backing fabric because i thought it went great with the bug theme from the blue print fabric on the front

eeek! i'm so excited! i finally got the top of my green string quilt finished and a back pieced for it and got it to the longarmer on monday night! even though i dragged this out longer than i should have, i should still get it back in time to get the binding on and give it to M for our fourth anniversary on march 29.

in the midst of trying insanely to get the string quilt ready to go to the longarmer, i got a baby shower invitation (a whopping nine days in advance!) for M's niece Cailynn, for whom i promised to make a baby quilt. i thought she was due in july, but M got the dates mixed up with the other pregnant niece and cailynn's due in may. i can't make the shower on the 17th, but i wanted to have a quilt ready to send with someone in the family who is going.

i quickly decided on elizabeth hartman's charm squares baby quilt. i thought i even had a charm pack to use, but the one i had in mind was too girly. then, when i was tidying up on friday afternoon, i went to put away the three fat quarters i'd received in the february "a little fabric, a little chocolate" swap. i realized they would be perfect for a baby boy quilt and did some stash diving to come up with two more prints that coordinated! on saturday i cut out my squares and the sashing and managed to get the top pieced. sunday i picked out backing fabric and binding fabric from my stash, and monday i had a friend help me spray baste after spin class. last night i did the quilting, copying safieh and using a serpentine stitch. safieh used a zig zag on her machine, lengthened and widened as much as possible. i didn't like how that looked with my machine, but i found out i have an actual serpentine stitch on mine, so i used that instead! i also got my binding prepped and ready to go.

tonight i hope to be able to get the binding sewn on, then i can handstitch to the back while i finish season 4 of bones!