Busy Like a Bee

I have been busy the past three days getting two things ready: one, my mom's Mother's Day present, and two, Connor's baby quilt. I am going to Texline this weekend for Mother's Day, and Sam and the baby will be there (so I am told). There is nothing like a deadline to get me motivated.

The apron pattern is a sort of heirloom; my grandmother gave it to me after finding it amongst some of her stored things. You can see in the picture that a mouse has nibbled on the priceless heirloom. When she gave it to me, my mom strongly hinted that she would really like one, too.

It turns out to be a size large, a bit too big for me, but it will fit my mom better. I did take a few inches off of the shoulder straps in the hopes that it will help the fit. My mom isn't really a large, either. And given that she is just about five foot tall, the apron will be even longer on her than on me.

The quilt is finally done. It only took so long because I procrastinate. Once I got all of the pieced squares made, I sewed the top together and quilted it in about five hours split between last night and this morning/afternoon. I learned a lot doing this one (Like, had I known about strip piecing, it would have been way, way faster to strip piece the tiny border rectangles, instead of cutting out a bazillion tiny rectangles and sewing them all together individually), and since the pink baby quilt came before this one, I was able to apply a lot of what I learned with that one. The walking foot helped a lot, that's for sure, and the corners are mitered more neatly.

I hope Connor will enjoy it for several years. I'm glad that he turned out to be a boy, since I bought most of the material intending to make a sort of unisex quilt, but the orange seems to me to make it more of a boy quilt. (Lesson learned: just go ahead and wait until you know the sex of the baby. You'll have plenty of time. Unless you procrastinate. And even then, the baby won't care if it's a little late.)