A Hat for Sarah Kate

I've used this pattern to make baby hats a few times, but always just in one color. This time I decided to experiment with stripes.
I'm a little rusty on changing yarns in the middle of a row, which is basically what this is since the hat is knit in the round and it's just one really long row. I managed to do it without leaving any holes though. Here's what the "back" (inside) looked like before weaving in the ends.
And here it is after weaving in the ends. Pretty bad.
Here's what it looks like on the "right" side. Hopefully this part of the hat can be turned to the back of her head and no one will really look at it. Once I made a pair of mittens for someone, and there was a left and a right which you could tell by the seam, but when I gave them to her she put them on the wrong hands. I guess not everyone notices details like I do.
And here's what it looks like on top.

Star

Tonight I made my second block, the star.
I chose these three fabrics: subtle blue floral print for the background, dark red with big pink flowers, and smaller pink floral.
Here are the squares that I cut out. The row of blue at the top are slightly smaller. They get to remain squares. The rest of them were further cut into triangles. I came across an interesting method for piecing triangles, in which you put two squares right-sides together and sew two seams through them diagonally, and then cut them apart between the two seams. I was going to try this but I didn't have a marking pencil that would actually show up on the fabric. So I cut them into triangles and then sewed them together.
Here are the triangle-squares arranged in the way that they'll be sewn together.
And here is the finished block. It's a little bit small so I might do that border thing again. I haven't decided yet. In hindsight, I think I should've chosen two fabrics for the star that were a little closer in tone.

Maple Leaf

Today I started on my first block. I decided to go with the Maple Leaf. I've never done triangles before so I looked in a couple of books to see if there were any special instructions. I didn't read extensively but I didn't find anything special. So I made some calculations for the sizes of squares and triangles I would need, plus seam allowances, and got started.
Here are the two fabrics I chose. Light green with a subtle floral pattern, and red with yellow flowers and green vines. I could make a whole quilt using this color family. I love it. [And one of these days I'd like to make a Christmas quilt, which would probably fit that description.]
Here are the pieces, including the stem on the far left. I debated on whether to make the stem the same fabric as the rest of the leaf or something different. One book I looked in showed this block with a different color for the stem, but I finally decided to keep it simple. The stem had to be appliqued to one of the green squares. So far I haven't wanted to attempt applique, but this one was pretty straightforward.
Hmm. At this point I start to realize that I may have miscalculated the seam allowance on the triangles.
Wait... something's wrong here... oh yes. The middle row is upside down. Guess I'm going to have to start paying attention. Ripping out stitches is not my idea of fun.
Because I miscalculated the seam allowance, my block ended up a little smaller than I needed it to be. I had planned on making this block without a border of the green fabric, but I did see a pattern that called for a border so that's what I ended up doing to make the block big enough.
Except I must have calculated wrong again because now it's too big. Designing is hard.

Tentative Plan for 9-patch

I switched to the old-fashioned design method: graph paper and pencil. Here's my tentative plan for the 9 squares and the layout. Although I don't like that orange and blue one in the lower left corner. Maybe I'll do a churn dash there. And once again, the colors in the sketches do not indicate the colors of fabric that will be used.

Design Process

So far I only have 6 blocks figured out. Maybe it will be a 6-patch sampler. (Colors do not indicate what the actual colors will be)

New Fabric

I'm ready for my next project! I think I want to do a 9-patch sampler with different blocks for each patch. I haven't designed it yet but I went out and bought 15 quarter flats today, and I'm ready to get started.

T-Shirt Quilt #2

I just finished this quilt for Lydia in time for Christmas-- one year later than planned.

Collaboration

This is a quilt that my coworker Celine started for our other coworker Kari, for her soon-to-be-born son. When Celine asked me to help her finish it, this is how it looked:She did all of the piecing and pinned the layers together for me. The first step for me was machine-quilting. I outlined each of the stars with black thread.
Mama's little helper was right there with me the whole time.
After quilting, I prepared the binding and machine-stitched it to the front. This picture shows the binding after it's been stitched to the front, and at this point I'm cutting off the extra batting and backing around the edges. Daisy goes nuts over the scissors so this part took a while.
The next step is to turn the binding under to the back and hand-stitch it.
This picture shows how the binding looks on the front and back.

And here are a few shots of the finished quilt.

[Thanks to Lindsey for fixing the flash on a couple of the pictures.]