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I found out yesterday that one of Pyat's cousins' wives is expecting, and the shower is on July 17th. This substantially speeds up the craft timeline for me. I had been thinking that the next friend who was expecting was due in October, giving me the entire summer to put something together. Now, I find I have two weeks.
So I went out this afternoon to buy fabrics. Due to being pressed for both time and space (there's no room in this house to set up a quilt rack or quilting sewing machine, even if I could afford either) I'm not doing a full-fledged quilt. I'm going to piece a quilt top, a fun design called crazy sqares, with big pieces and only four different fabrics. This I will then sew only a length of flannellette - the stuff great pyjamas are made of. This stuff even glows in the dark. It was on sale, so I bought enough to make three blankets. Having sewn the two together, it will be rather balloon-like unless I join them elsewhere than just at the seams. So at certain strategic points (yet to be decided) I'll make one heavy stitch and attach a piece of yarn to it, which then gets tied in a knot. Kids have no end of fun trying to undo the knots, and it looks really cute. It's also much, much easier than any kind of quilting.
The biggest problem with this plan is that my sewing machine is new. It was bought about two months ago, on sale, for my birthday (which is next week - my mom thinks way, way ahead of schedule.) With school and everything, I haven't yet gone to Sears for the free tutorial they offer on how to work their machines. I called, and found out it's someone who will be starting next week, and that person will call me back then to set up an appointment. Meanwhile, I seem to have misplaced the instruction book, so I can't figure out the ins and outs of it on my own.
I'm starting to wish I'd stuck with crochet. It takes longer, but when you have the selection of hooks and patterns available that I've collected, getting started is much, much easier.
Then again, my family were starting to expect crochet from me. It was time to give them something different.
I think I'll spend the next two weeks of nap-times making this baby blanket. Hopefully, I'll finish the one for this shower really fast, then go on to the other three baby gifts I need to make before Christmas.
So I went out this afternoon to buy fabrics. Due to being pressed for both time and space (there's no room in this house to set up a quilt rack or quilting sewing machine, even if I could afford either) I'm not doing a full-fledged quilt. I'm going to piece a quilt top, a fun design called crazy sqares, with big pieces and only four different fabrics. This I will then sew only a length of flannellette - the stuff great pyjamas are made of. This stuff even glows in the dark. It was on sale, so I bought enough to make three blankets. Having sewn the two together, it will be rather balloon-like unless I join them elsewhere than just at the seams. So at certain strategic points (yet to be decided) I'll make one heavy stitch and attach a piece of yarn to it, which then gets tied in a knot. Kids have no end of fun trying to undo the knots, and it looks really cute. It's also much, much easier than any kind of quilting.
The biggest problem with this plan is that my sewing machine is new. It was bought about two months ago, on sale, for my birthday (which is next week - my mom thinks way, way ahead of schedule.) With school and everything, I haven't yet gone to Sears for the free tutorial they offer on how to work their machines. I called, and found out it's someone who will be starting next week, and that person will call me back then to set up an appointment. Meanwhile, I seem to have misplaced the instruction book, so I can't figure out the ins and outs of it on my own.
I'm starting to wish I'd stuck with crochet. It takes longer, but when you have the selection of hooks and patterns available that I've collected, getting started is much, much easier.
Then again, my family were starting to expect crochet from me. It was time to give them something different.
I think I'll spend the next two weeks of nap-times making this baby blanket. Hopefully, I'll finish the one for this shower really fast, then go on to the other three baby gifts I need to make before Christmas.