While waiting

I thought I'd update some long overdue posts...

Here's another little quilt for a good friend's upcoming babe.

Here's from the design and construction process...

The couple are both redheads and had an"orange" theme to their wedding (ok, ok... I guess you know it's for the Speed family's little Steamboat), so I thought the oranges and greens would be a good color combo. Some of the fabrics are from my mom's fabric stash I inherited (dated from the 70s and 80s) and just fit in nicely.

I got to play with applique on the sashing for one of the first times ever and have to say I'm pretty happy with the results!
Hope little Steamboat enjoys spending the summer on his own little citrusy-melony little quilt!

Home stretch

There is now 16 days until the official due date. I've been ignoring this part. Just pretending that we really wouldn't have to deal with this last window.

Each day when I wake up I can't breathe until I feel the baby move. I have to poke and prod, silently willing the inevitable flailing protestations from inside to begin. I try to be positive, but part of me still reserves a small portion of my brain for "what I'll do this morning if the baby doesn't move." I have a list of things to try (ice water, oj, etc) and who to call and in what order. Morbid but necessary, I guess.

I am also monitoring EVERYTHING. Heart rate. Kick counts. Hiccups (frequency and duration). My water input. My water output. Other "outputs." Anything I can measure and record. Yes, yes. My brain knows there is no way any of these things will make any real difference. But at this point stopping seems like inviting disaster. Like we'll be jinxed. After all, nothing has happened since I started, right? That spells success! This is how someone with a mild OCD copes. To me, right now, stopping all the monitoring would be as wise as walking out into traffic.

The last days of pregnancy with Burke keep replaying in my mind. What I did at work. Cutting out stars for the baby bedroom ceiling. Napping. Washing and folding clothes. Eating. Painting. Walking. All the while giddy with anticipation. Not knowing that something was about to go horribly wrong inside me, something that would cause our son irrevocable harm. The worst part about it all is that we don't know what it was, when it was, or how to prevent this child from losing oxygen. So I record it all.

The odds are that all will be fine. All will be well. Labor will start, the two of us will work together to see each other on the other side, this baby will be born with love and cries of relief and joy. This baby will be placed on my belly, and B will be the one to tell me if we have another son or a daughter. The issue is that we are 1 for 1 when it comes to this. Not such great odds. But I understand that the only way to get to the other side of this is through it. I have to walk through the coals of these last days with my baby reaching out for a kidney (or just more legroom) inside me, and trust myself and this child to reach cooler ground underfoot.

May gift (in progress)

May's baby gift is a big one, both literally and figuratively. It's a quilt for the babe. We are quickly running out of time until we meet this little one. It seems I lost a bit of plug this weekend, which doesn't really mean much except that things are gearing up for a Birth Day.

The size of this project is a little bigger than I expected. I think I have bitten off a bit more than I should have with the time constraints I've got to deal with. But how can I resist the Eric Carle fabric?? I've redesigned the quilt a couple of times, trying to keep it simple. Hopefully I can get the quilt top pieced by the end of the weekend and get it ready to quilt.
The picture below shows the size a bit better with the zig-zag border on the top and bottom. I still have the side borders to complete as well as cobbling together a nifty backing. I have some green flannel I really love, but also a bunch of batik swatches I keep laying out next to the fabric.
My original intention was to have a bunch of accent blocks around the main panel done in "coordinating" batik prints, with the food as the sashing or border around the outside. It's funny the way things change when you get started putting things together.

So, here it is in it's picked apart and reassembled state. Verison 2.0, I guess. No guarantees it'll look the same when it's done!

April gift

April was really a month of multiple gifts. There's the family quilt that still needs a little more quilting and some binding, a little quilt for baby L and yet another quilt for baby Steamboat (photos of that one to come). The April project for the baby was slated to be a yoda sweater knitted with a soy-blend yarn. Unfortunately, I seem to be through with knitting for the present time, and so it remains in the knitting bag by the bed, missing one sleeve and front panel. Oh, well! Quilting is the new Knitting. I'm sure by the year's end, I'll be finished with sewing and be back onto string and stick construction. So, here's some super-cute flannel wipes in progress. I love the the junk food flannel!


The pink candy fabric is also awesome! I can't wait to get them finished. I think I'll have enough left over for a couple burp cloths. How appropriate!

March gift

Yeah, I know there's a bit of a delay. Here's March's gift: a sling for the baby. And look! It fits now! I used a free pattern I found online (possibly from the Maya Wrap site?) and plastic sling rings from www.slingrings.com. The batik fabric might be a little too heavy for summer use, but it's cotton and pretty breathable.


Too bad the sling doesn't support this belly that is resting in my lap as I type. Actually, I'm sitting on an exercise ball with my belly hanging down in between my legs. Just three weeks to go!

Time for Breakfast

Yesterday morning I woke up and spent about fifteen minutes just lying there quietly, listening to the rain. B was hanging out, and the two of us just spent a while talking about the open house, all the friends and family we got to hang out with, and generally analyzing the projects that got done and the projects yet to finish.

Once he got up and left the room, the insistent prodding from the babe made me sit up in bed, and I began trying to decide if it was time to get up or if the babe would quiet down enough for another hour of sleep. All of a sudden I heard this low growling noise from right behind me. Startled, I checked to see if the dogs were in the room (they weren't) or if the cat was hanging out (he wasn't). I heard the growl again, and checked behind me again, a little freaked out. It took me another minute to realize it was coming from me, but from the back of me. This kiddo has pushed my stomach back to my kidneys and I was hungry.

Go figure.

Pressure

Phew; what a weekend! Got a bunch of stuff wrapped up, but unfortunately it makes the other ongoing projects in the house stand out... and with just another week until the party the pressure is ON... so, there probably won't be too many posts until afterwards. Wish us luck dealing with the mountains of crap that we keep shifting around from room to room along with the painting, grass cutting, weeding, dusting, floor cleaning, trim hanging and general effort to pull this house back from the brink of construction we've been living with for over a year now.

TTFN.