Some quilting for a community quilt fundraiser for Doctors without borders.
And while I am not a V-day or heart lover, I just couldn't help making these. I had a lot of scraps and a friend talked about her hearts, and well I was just inspired.
Hopefully we can send a little love out in the next few weeks... if I am able to make it to the post office.
At least the sun was shining, we had 4 days of sun, now back to grey.
There was a little crafting prior to our trip. The type of crafting that needs to get done because you are already 2 months late for the special persons birthday. This picnic blanket was thought of in July and I am happy it was made, although I wasn't incredibly pleased. I was having some major conceptual blocks.
It was definitely saved by some last minute freezer paper stenciling and a little bit of decorative stitching.
Rip it into strips and start sewing?
Some improptu log cabin style blocks
Inspired from a painting (just terrible lighting, really the colors are beautiful)
waiting to be all pieced together and quilted in my first free motion quilting project
with plans to be wall art in the living room. 
Ahh mama art, I am so happy to be making time in our new routine for some sewing. It just feels good, even if there are only 15 minutes at a time to squeeze it in. I will take it as it comes. 
Finally the quilts have made it in the hands of the triplets. A lot later than I had anticipated, but none the less they are out of my hands... This was definitely a nerve wrecking quilting project. I made quilts for my first neice and nephew and when A&R let us know they were having triplets, due essentially when I was due (early, keeping in three babies is hard) I was thrilled to have a project, baby quilts, oh hooray. But then I realized these were first babies, a nursery wasn't going to be already done and my quilts needed to be amazing for three babes coming fast. 
We didn't have colors or fabric picked out until new years and I was quickly becoming more uncomfortably pregnant, more tired and less inspired. I started dreaming about the quilts and things progressed. I knew they needed to have some simple construction due to time, but they needed to be special enough for the individuals that would be receiving them and united for the nursery theme... Everything was first constructed as strips and blocked together in different ways. This was my first venture into applique, and I am quite pleased with the results.
I love trees, they are one of my favorite things. i would hike hours to find spectacular trees, always found peace climbing them as a kid and hope to transcend that magic that I find within their limbs to all the children I encounter. Aryeh's quilt was dreamed up first, simple simple in construction, I ripped the fabric strips and pieced it in one day, Built the appliques and voila, a top was done. This was the first quilt top done, last quilt completed. In the above picture you can see the front (lft), back (right) and a bit of a bigger view of the tree. The bird is detailed below. 
R picked out the most beautiful color scheme, and the lightest blue is gorgeous, but holy cow was it ever hard to match... it wasn't baby blue or teal, but a shade in between. Sew Sassy had only two blues that matched relatively well, both a bit bolder but in the same family, this little blue bird is one of those and I adore the way it pops on the tree.
Yael's quilt was my second dream. With the simplicity of the strip quilting mojo happening in my brain, I still needed a way to make things unique. R found a beautiful leaf print fabric with all the colors that she liked and I just made those leaves into an applique, stitched them up the way the lines were on the fabric and was very happy with how the quilt took shape. I cut the mass of strips and interspersed them with the leaf fabric and leaf applique to feature that fabric. Above is the front and back with a bit of a zoom and below is a detailed leaf.
After Yael's leaves came out so well, my mind was swimming with what to put on the final quilt. Amalya's quilt came together in my mind very rapidly and pieced together quickly and I was so pleased with the simple feel of the quilt yet the attention to detail as I topstitched the applique.
Uniting the other two quilts with trees and leaves and birds. I felt that this quilt was the most bold and when I saw the first picture of Amalya getting weighed in on the scale so tiny, there was something in her that seemed bold and that she is going to be a very petite spit fire, I knew this quilt was for her. Detailed zooms below. 
I am pretty sure that all the tops were done before River arrived. While in labor I worked further on Yael's quilt, it was my project before my water broke, and the bias tape was on. In the coming weeks, with newbon and toddler in tow the other two were completed, thanks to help from family watching the boys and ironing fabric. And now they have arrived in St. Louis where they can meet their owners who will hopefully love them and wear them out until they are threads full of a life story. Amalya is home today joining her brother and sister and we get to meet all three of them next weekend. I am thrilled to have more nieces and another nephew.
I started it after his due date, and got it done fairly quickly, Ben took Asher fishing one evening and I was able to get all the machine quilting done- amazing what happens when you actually use tools for what they are purposed for- 10 years to get that stinking walking foot on my machine and these are the results? Why did I wait sooooo long? 
This past week lent itself well to crafting a bit and I had a great excuse: my niece is moving to Amsterdam and she needed something to entertain her on the plane.I made a crayon roll, maybe not very age appropriate, but perhaps it will help with cleaning up afterward, but fun and easy to make.
Hopefully it keeps he occupied for some of the 8 hour flight. Plus it was awesome to use my walking foot again to quilt-- love that thing.
The quilt contains my first bit of machine quilting with my walking foot, an amazing accessory. I suspect this will be a year of quilting without hand stitching, Shane still got some hand stitched stars on his.
Our Food Nanny endeaor is just going great. People sometimes approach Ben in hushed voices to ask if he is the "food nanny" he is like a superhero in the town which is amazing... we have 31 members and our goal over the next year is to have 50, so things are great!!
I am at a loss of what else to include, this morning I have woken up to yet another cool, gray, rainy day, which I could not be any happier about. Yesterday was the first day in too long that i have had no headache, nasuea or desire to nap and it was awesome!! I am ready to be fully footed in my second trimester and get that nesting energy... there is lots to do, starting with laundry and sweeping. Hope you are all well.
You can see that Asher was really attached to the quilt, more probably good ridence from his perspective. He did have the opportunity to leave his mark on it though, some nice tugs on it as I was sewing, making for some decoratively un-straight lines- who likes straight anyway? 
