Baby fest

G'day all!

We've had a bit of a baby fest recently - some good friend who now live in California had a much wanted bub a month ago now (!!!) and DH's brother and his wife had their first a couple of weeks ago.

So what is a not very good aunty to do but start making things!

One of the problems with first babies is they get showered with All The Things early on and have a lack of things later.  So I knitted some squares for SiL's baby's baby blanket that MiL put together (or is putting together).  The white/blue/lime/purple yarn is my first attempt at speckle dyeing yarn, whilst the multicoloured yarn is some I bought at Stitches West several years ago.  The ends are not woven in as I've found ends can be handy to tie things together temporarily when you are sewing or crocheting things together.

A seahorse

A jolly seastar

Waves, probably upside down

Another seahorse

Mitred block

Pussy cat!

And I knitted an enormous baby blanket and then realised if it went to either of the new families it would be tripped over by the new mums cos both of them are shorter than the blanket... hmm... so that one has been ripped back and is slowly getting longer again, but no more than about a metre this time.

And I made a quilt for California baby - fairly gender neutral as the likelihood of me making an all pink quilt is quite unlikely.

The front, with horsies and froggies.

I pulled some favourite fabrics for the quilt - I really like the froggies and the horses.  I should link to the fabrics' designers but my brain is fried and it will have to wait, if it ever gets done.  (More important to me at least is getting more stuff out of the house into the garage!)

Actually I adore the frogs with all their antics.  Pity I didn't get good pics of them, eh?

Froggies!

Horsies! And improvisational quilting!

I built some very simple blocks and then discarded one set of the blocks and added the horse blocks as they worked better with this quilt.  The left out blocks will form the basis of a new quilt, like I haven't enough quilt ideas to keep me going for about another hundred years.  (Don't ask about the knitting, I'm going to have to be immortal at this rate.)

A craptastic shot of the back - will have
to find the big camera pics.

 

Love the tea party fabric too.

This should be horizontal, sigh... LOL

 
The back has some more favourite fabrics and some left over fabrics from other projects.  I really like using up as many large scraps and extra blocks as I can to piece a back that isn't plain.  The quilting was done by me on my poor little Singer.  I really enjoy free motion quilting even if I'm not that good at it and keep using the motifs that work for me over and over again!  But I have fun and the quilts will hold up int he wash and that is what really matters, non?

In a while I will get the needles clacking for the babies.  I figure I can make some stuff for six month old babies, though California baby is likely to get some woollies simply because winter is coming in there and bub can wear them then!  (Ahem, I might've already knitted something.  Whoops!)  Australian baby won't want woollies for summer, so that one can wait for a few months and then get some nice new things!

I have to say that I think my photography of this quilt is TOTALLY inspirational - it really shows what a bad job one can do when the light isn't so good.  I had meant to get shots whilst the sun was still on the grass but oh well.  Life is tough and my pictures are fairly rubbish but you get the idea!

Soon I'll do a post on the garage saga.  Soon, maybe not quite yet...

anon!