Sewing and comic books.

I bought a sewing machine and this quilt top is mostly machine pieced. Because there are so many biased pieces, it's a bit wonky.  Will need dense quilting to keep it flattish.  Since this picture was taken, it's been pin basted to batting and backing.  The backing is just white muslin.  Some time ago, I bought a whole bolt of white muslin.  It'll come in handy.

I've also signed up for an intro to sewing class. It starts next week.  Am very excited. Mostly I want to make quilts, bags, and clothes for the baby and simple dresses for me.

Have also started reading Birds of Prey comics, set in Gotham City.  Not sure yet what I think of it. But it's written by Gail Simone, whose tweets show a lot of feminism, so I'm persevering.  Plus, I got them from the library.

In other news, it's insanely hot in Atlanta.  But today it's actually hovering near only 90 deg F, so I've turned off the air conditioning and opened the patio door for some fresh air.

Time for color

We've been using a pack of plain white cloth diapers as burp cloths / light shade blankets.  However, I looked a Veronica clutching this and thought: My child needs more color!

So I bought some Rit dye and this is the result.  Much better. The colors in the picture below are not quite accurate. The orange is really a brighter mango color.

Dyes used, clockwise: Lemon Yellow, Kelly Green, Teal, Royal Blue, Scarlet Red, Sunshine Orange. I just eye-balled the amount of dye and water. I had a lot of yellow left over after the first cloth, so used it to dye another one.  Hence one bright yellow and one pale yellow.  The aqua is from using a less Teal to water ratio.  The bright red is from using just Scarlet. The darker red is from overdying a Scarlet cloth with the leftover Royal blue. The green is a yellow overdyed with Kelly green.

The scarlet red does run terribly.  I used the microwave method which was fastest. I rinsed them all till they ran clearish, then washed them with my regular laundry.  Now that we have a baby, there's always laundry to do.  

So the yellows and orange cloths went in a load of yellow and gold clothes.  The blue and green cloths with jeans, blue towels, etc. and the red cloths with red and black clothes.  There was a red/white/navy baby dress in with the reds, and yup, the white in the baby dress turned pinkish.  Oh well.  

I really want to dye more things now.  

Kind of on a schedule

Baby is one month old now and sleeping from 9pm to 4am, then back up at 7am.  If only I went to bed at 9am too.

I do try to take a nap during the day when she does, but so many other things call my attention.  Like quilting.  Finishing that 5, er 10, year quilt, then sewing those swaddling cloths made me really want to do more quilting.  Also, it's getting really hot in Atlanta and all my knitting projects are wool, so....cotton fabrics it is!

Baby likes to nap in the ring sling as I wear it, so I've been catching up on TV.  Thank goodness for the Internet and the pause button, since I hardly ever get to watch anything at the scheduled time.

So I've been watching:
Revenge -- soapy, soapy goodness
Scandal -- Love how take-charge Olivia Pope is and the unrequited love just gets to me.  And Mellie...what a smart piece of work she is.
Once Upon a Time -- love the Queen's outfits and outrageous hair
Grimm -- love Sgt. Wu
The Good Wife

I also started reading A Dance with Dragons, the latest book in the Game of Thrones series and have lost patience with the misogeny.

Have brought home Baby!

Her due date was May 1, but on April 18, got the call from the birth father that the birth mother has gone into labor.  Then at about 10am EST, got the call that Baby was born.

What followed was a whirlwind of ticket-buying, packing, and traveling to California on April 19. I needed to be there to take physical custody of Baby by the time birthmom was discharged from the hospital.  If she had given vaginal birth, discharge would be 24 hours later.  Since it was cesarean birth, discharge was 48 to 72 hours after birth.  That gave Husband enough time to wrap things up at work and be there on Saturday.

The hospital was great.  They let me stay overnight in a room down the hall from the birthmother and I got to room in with Baby on April 19.

Birth parents were great.  They're smart, they made the best plan they could for Baby. Husband and I traveled to CA to meet them in March and really like them.  Baby comes from good people and I will only ever have good things to say about them.

After about a week in CA, while waiting for the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children to clear in CA and GA, I could finally bring Baby home to Atlanta.

Husband couldn't stay in CA for the the 10 days I was there.  But at least his mother came from Wisconsin to help out and meet Baby.

Baby's pretty well behaved so far.  Sleeps most of the time, waking about every 3 or 4 hours around the clock to eat.

I'm doing pretty well.  The bout of insomnia I had earlier this year has trained me up for this.

Baby is perfect and Husband and I are thrilled.

Five, er, Ten Year Quilt

It's done!

Here it is, on a bare queen-sized bed.

Started: 200? Was so long ago, I don't remember anymore.  But I know I started it while living at the first house I owned so was sometime after 2000.

Finished:  April 4, 2012.

All fussy-cut and hand sewn. Tied, instead of quilted. Binding is pre-made of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I love it.

Swaddling blankets

I am very close to finishing the 5 year quilt,which I think actually took 10 years.  Pictures soon.

I have a ton of things to do to wrap up work for a client and to prepare for the baby (find pediatricians, figure out health insurance stuff, learning how to take care of a baby, etc).

However, all I want to do is make swaddling blankets.  I pulled these quilting cottons from my stash and want to just sit and sew.

One more month

If all goes well, will be going out of state to pick up new daughter