Please cross your fingers that I will be able to find this quilt tops and four (or five) other missing quilt tops.  A couple weeks ago, I put this top and the other tops (along with their backings and bindings) in a bag to bring home from the cabin so that I could baste them here at home where I have a tile floor.   In the two weeks since then, we've been sick, had a crazy dance recital week and been otherwise very busy, so I didn't get to basting the tops.  I've spend the last several days tearing both houses apart looking for the bag of these tops&backings, and I can't find them ANYWHERE.  I'm absolutely sick over it.   Included were this quilt (from one of Gayle Bongs books), a scrappy four patch quilt that is going to be a gift for a friend, a pinwheel top destined to be donated, and a twin bed size trip around the world quilt for my son.  There may have also been another donation top in the bag, I'm not sure.   I'm starting to worry than in my recent decluttering I might have thrown them out or something...or maybe I put them in a 'safe place that I won't forget' LOL.   I'm feeling sort of sick to my stomach over this right now.

Pillowcase dresses

My guild's latest community service project is making pillowcase dresses for an organization called Dress A Girl Around The World.  The dresses are simple to make using the pattern found on the organizations webpage, but there are also lots of other cute tutorials out there in blogland for those who like to make something slightly different.  I purchased a beautiful shower curtain (it came from Target, according to the care label) at Goodwill and upcycled that fabric into three pillowcase dresses.  Instead of using purchased bias tape, I chose a fabric from my stash and made my own bias tape.  

These went together very quickly and they were easy to do, even for the non-garment sewer that I am.  I will definitely be making more of these in the near future.

A baby quilt

We have a new baby in my family!  It's a big reason to celebrate, because there hasn't been a baby since my son was born 10 years ago.  Of course now it's time for a new generation to be having the children.  This time, it is my cousin Michael, who has a new baby boy born in February.  The baby's name is Michael Jr.   A couple of weeks ago, we had a "welcome baby" party instead of a shower.  

I made a set of burp cloths with some neat fabrics that I purchased at Joann.  You can find the tutorial here .  I did not add the ribbon as shown in the tutorial because I wanted these to be 'guy friendly' so that Dad would be happy using them.  Basically, you add a fabric rectangle to a prefolded purchased diaper.

 Of course I also had to make a quilt for the baby!  It had to be something hip and modern as well as guy friendly.  It also had to be simple and fast to make because I wanted it finished before the party, and only had a couple of weeks to get it done.  I saw a picture of this quilt on Pinterest, and followed the link to an Etsy shop.  The gal's blog indicated that she was planning to write a tutorial, but it hadn't been posted yet, so I just looked at her picture and guessed.  I have no idea how mine compares size wise with hers, but this ended up being about 54X60".  Kind of big for a baby quilt, but it will be useful for years (hopefully he'll wear it out before he outgrows it!).  Overall, I'm very pleased with how it came out, but I do wish that I took a little more time to add more quilting.  I get a chance to try again though, I've got a plan to make another almost identical quilt out of the leftover fabrics from this one.  I'll share that when I finish (within the next few weeks I plan to get it done).  I'm sorry for such a lousy picture...it was very overcast the morning I finished the quilt, and I couldn't wait to get a better picture because the party was that afternoon!

Next time, I'll share the pillowcase dresses that I recently made.   I might even have more finished by then to show!