Reese Niece Number 3!

Josh and I were a bit relieved when we found out we were having a boy because the existing Reese Girls, courtesy of Josh's brother, are the most awesome and adorable:

Before I sneaked into the hospital one night while Josh was on call so we could "borrow" an ultrasound machine to find out what kind of baby we're having, the "Other Reeses" came up to Oregon for a visit.  I was 10 weeks pregnant at the time, and we had decided not to tell them because five-year-olds are good at repeating things they hear - and we weren't ready to spread the news just yet.  But on the first day of our vacation, Dave and Ruth told us they were expecting!  Josh and I didn't react with hearty congratulations right away because we were so surprised.  Especially when they said Ruth was 10 weeks along, too!  After some frantic texting across the living room, and what I'm sure they thought was the weirdest response ever to such fantastic news, we let them know that we were in the same boat.  The exact same boat.  Crazy.

In fact, years ago, I had a dream that Ruth and I were pregnant at the same time.  In my dream we were both having boys and were racing to see who could have theirs first because we wanted to use the same name.  Until their ultrasound, I thought maybe I could have been a prophet, but we diverged from my dream's plot and discovered they were bringing another most-excellent girl into the world.

We're both still waiting on these moseying Reese babies, but I finally finished a quilt before a baby was born!

The blocks came together very quickly, but I mixed it up in the sashing by adding those pinwheels.  I think the simple blocks, mix of fabrics, and pinwheel sashing ended up working really well together! Here is a closer shot so you can see more of the fabrics:

And a picture of the backing where you can see the roses I quilted all over:

This quilt was really fun to make; and it put me back on schedule with my quilt making!  Oh my goodness, I can't wait for Reese Niece #3!

Seeing Spots

My oldest friend in the world had a baby just a couple weeks ago!  Crystal and I met when we were around 3 years old, grew up together, were roommates in college, and now are having sons just a month apart.  Well, the due dates said it would be just a month apart, but little Josiah Wright decided to make his debut a tad early (not that I would object to mine doing the same).

Crystal has always loved giraffes and decided to do the nursery in a giraffe theme.  I figured she would get a lot of giraffe things, and she knows a lot of crafty people, so I tried to think of a way of making a giraffe quilt that no one else would think of.  This is what I came up with:

I appliqued giraffe spots onto squares to make a big giraffe print.  I was originally just going to use browns on the applique squares, but it struck me that I could incorporate her other nursery colors into the zigzag stitches around each spot!

I quilted around each spot in both light brown and dark brown so you can see the spots on the back side as well.

It took some time to figure out how to draw the spots so they looked good.  After trying to arrange random spots on a square, Josh advised me to notice how the spots fit together like puzzle pieces in the fabric that had the giraffe print on it already.  So then, I cut the applique paper into squares the size of my background fabric and sketched out an entire square as a cohesive unit.  They came together so quickly after that!  That Josh has a good eye.  And the observation came in handy when I frosted these cookies for Crystal's baby shower as well:

Quilty Catch Up Part 4

Last Christmas I made a quilt for Mema and Pepa.  I may have said on the blog that it was the best quilt I'd ever made; but I forgot to take pictures of it before we boxed it up, so I couldn't prove it.

Well, we surprised Josh's parents and grandparents by showing up in Tulsa for Christmas this year, and I was happy to see that Mema and Pepa keep the quilt out in their living room!  Since they didn't know we were coming, I think that means they really liked it!  I snapped a couple photos on my phone to share.

You can see in the last picture that I fussy-cut the cream fabric on the border to better frame the blocks. I need to get better at planning block layout, though.  5x4 square quilts don't really allow for symmetry, so I remember agonizing over how to arrange the middle row so it would look good from any side.

I'm still hard at work on other folks' baby quilts, and am having a lot of fun playing with a variety of styles.  We're on vacation this week, and then it's my last week of work ever.  We'll see how things balance out after baby Reese comes and if I'll really end up with more creative time after all!