Into the wild

The finished quilt is roughly 43 x 50 inches,
much more square looking than this picture.

It came down to the wire, but Baby Beluga was released into the wild today.

Not having the sewing room unpacked and arranged was a major issue in trying to get this quilt done. It was planned that way; annoy me enough, and I'll finally take action to clear that room. What I didn't count on was the delay in finding the things I really needed to complete the quilt.

The feet for the extension table and the presser feet for the machine both proved elusive - the feet for the table for almost three weeks, the presser feet for a vital three days.

The end result, between the late discovery of the hiding place of the feet and my own borderline obsession with finishing the last Harry Potter book, was that I didn't begin machine quilting until three p.m. on Saturday.

The baby shower was at 2 p.m. Sunday.

I don't do all nighters; I never did it in college, and refuse to do it now (well, other than perhaps New Year's Eve). This wasn't looking promising.

Still, the machine quilting was finished, the quilt sandwich trimmed and the binding machine stitched on  in record time. I was even able to do a bit of the hand sewing on the binding - and still get to bed by ten-thirty Saturday night. The rest of the hand sewing, the label and the pictures were all done Sunday morning.

While it certainly isn't my best work (the quilt kept getting caught on the edges of that blasted extension table when I was machine quilting - I really, really missed having the machine dropped in the well on the sewing table - causing uneven stitching), it turned out pretty cute.

Hand applique is not my thing, but the whale is 9 x 16
with gentle curves - fairly easy to do.

Most of the quilting is a largish overall curved meander, but on the navy on the whale and directly below it, as well as on the final medium blue border, I did little waves. The thread in the medium blue areas is a close match to the fabric; the thread used for quilting in the while background print and on the body of the whale is actually a light aqua.

Since the kit came with the pattern, I can replicate the quilt at any time. While my mind was wandering whilst doing the hand applique, I thought maybe this could become my go-to baby quilt, particularly if I can design some other easy-to-applique animal motifs to replace the whale. There's also enough room in that light background at the bottom to add Baby's name, if the shower is held sometime after the birth.

Spending time at the machine after a gap of more than a year was wonderful, even with all the issues. It's past time to work on that room...starting tomorrow.