Project Monogamy

AKA, finishing a project.

First of all, where the hell did January go? I blinked, and it was over. I had a week off in the middle, a stay-cation, marred by the death of my godmother, who I've known since I was hours old. The world is a sadder, duller place without her, and I miss her like hell. I spent most of the rest of my vacation in my sewing room, losing myself in piecing and color and old episodes of SVU on Netflix. Ask my husband--I was not a joy to be around that week, crying at the drop of a hat, not sleeping well, and no nerves to speak of. I'm on the other side, and I'm grateful I had the time away from work and people to get my act together. I'm also lucky to have a husband who just holds me when I'm a mess. :)

But from all dark places come bits of light, and at the end of the week, I'd finished my first quilt-along. EVER. My favorite fabric maven, Brenda, started a Bust Yo Scraps! quilt-along at the beginning of January, and boy, did I have scraps to bust! I pulled all of my blue, aqua and green scraps, then threw in a few odds and ends in gray and black. I cut and cut and cut and sewed for hours, days. I'm not normally one for sticking with a project to the end, and I'm still not sure what was up with this. Maybe because it was the first quilt I was making just for me, specifically? I don't know.

All I know is, at the end of the week, I had this.

Said awesome husband helped me baste it, and I started working on picking a binding. I thought I knew just what I wanted, until I pulled it out...

Have you ever had a different idea of what a fabric in your stash looks like? I somehow remembered this Tula Pink fabric as being much more green than this, but when I pulled it, it read paler and more gold than I'd remembered. I spent several hours kind of casting around aimlessly, pawing through my stash. I lit on this DS Quilts print, and decided to run with it. Two hundred and seventy-some-odd inches of binding later, I had this...

The quilting, usually my least favorite part, was smooth and easy and pleasurable on this one. I never know how the quilting will go--sometimes the easy stuff takes me ages and plenty of frogging, sometimes the ones I think will be more challenging are fast and easy. I decided to try and take it easy on myself for this one, and just went with straight lines about a third of an inch or so to either side of each block seam. I used Warm and Natural batting, which allows you to quilt or tie up to ten inches apart. My quilting lines are about seven inches apart across the blocks, and it made for a soft and cozy lap quilt.

This quilter finally has a quilt of her own. It has scraps of so many favorites, and it's backed with another DS Quilts print.

My first finish of the new year, AND one that would work really well with Jelly Rolls or Charm Packs, too. It went super fast, and I'm so happy to finally have a quilt on my own--now I can stop stealing the Madman's Man Cave Quilt when we're watching TV! (Although, this quilt, which finished at about 54"x62" after washing, is slightly bigger than the Man Cave Quilt, and now the Madman is whining about needing a bigger quilt, too. *sigh*)

Now, on to the next project! Hope everyone else had a good sewing start to the new year, and I promise I'll try and post again before March!