Living and Dying

      This weekend my husband became a great uncle for the first time.  I made this quilt for baby Braydon in November/December and on Friday, I could finally finish the label and send it by personal messenger to its intended owner for his birthday.  It's my first quilt for a person!  It's titled, "Welcome Home."

Top

Back (and label before the text)

 

     There are tons of process photos and a mosaic on my Flickr photostream.  The design is my own but based on lots of other cross/plus/x quilts from Pinterest and blogs and such.  It was simple to figure out with a piece of graph paper and sized to fit the batting I had on hand.  My spouse, for a co-designing credit, picked all of the fabrics which are Kona cotton solids in charcoal, corn, and royal.  The binding is a Quilter's showcase print and the back is Snuggle Flannel from JoAnn Fabric.  I don't recommend the snuggle flannel for gift quilts as it really pilled in the prewash and although it is snuggly-soft, it already looks old!

     I had to send my gift along by courier because I had other plans for my Saturday.  Mom and I signed up for a fabric hand-dying workshop at the Textile Center with Kristin Lawson from the MMQG.  We measured, mixed, and soaked a ton of little fat quarters.  Here are the results:

     The stacks, from left to right are: 12-step "cool" color wheel, 8-step tints in boysenberry, and 9-step Chroma Bridge from sun yellow to intense blue.  Afterward, during "playtime," I used some extra dye dregs to dip a couple of flour sack dish towels and make some pretty eyelet ruffle in a very watered-down boysenberry shade.  We got to choose our own colors for the exercises and relied upon Kristin's expertise.  We learned a ton and I now feel confident I could do this at home.  The possibilities are endless!

Now I must dash because January is almost over and I have a few Flickr swap projects that are dangerously close to their deadlines!

TTFN!