Quilt-tarded

Note: I started this post at the beginning of January and am just now publishing it.

Why? Because I'm quilt-tarded. It has taken me this long to actually finish a quilting project. My sister-in-law Mandy and I took a quilting class together the first weekend of January, and it didn't take me long to figure out that I suck at quilting. We made the mistake of signing up for a mystery quilt class, which ended up being quite difficult - especially for two gals who'd never even used a sewing machine. We mucked our way through, though.

I started off with piles of fabric:





And these piles of fabric got sewn into annoying little pieces:





(Do you see that pair of blue scissors in the background? I've had those since I was in fifth grade. I am enormously proud of them even though they can't cut worth shit anymore.)

My seam ripper became my best friend:



And finally (we're talking early February) I was able to put together a whole block!



Unfortunately, I never made much progress after this. I still plan on finishing it, but I got distracted. Plus, as everyone at the fabric store just loved to point out, I probably spent more time talking than actually sewing.

Mandy, on the other hand, became a quilting rock star and actually finished the top of her mystery quilt:









She's in the process of actually quilting it now.

To make things totally back-asswards, we signed up to take a beginning quilting class in March to learn all the things we should have known before taking our first class in January. I decided that my project for the class would be a baby blanket for Charlie:



This was my favorite fabric out of all the ones I chose:



Of course, in true show-off fashion, Mandy quickly went from this:



To this:



While it took me forever to get from this:





To this:



I put this project away for all of April, and then Mandy and I decided that I should go ahead and finish it up before Charlie's arrival. So Mandy came over on Sunday, and I sewed all my blocks together:



And then she came back yesterday and helped me put on the borders:



Instead of quilting it myself, I'm going to have the owner of the fabric store do it, because let's face it - I'm still quilt-tarded.

But wait! There's more!

Mandy and I sewed some burp cloths for Charlie. Here are hers:



Here's mine:



Mandy sewed some scraps together to make a totally weird block:



I do enjoy quilting, even though I'm not great at it. And I actually have another project in the works, but it's going to be on hold indefinitely because I have to do things like watch TV and squeeze a baby out of my vagina.