Some Sewing

I didn't choose a very good week to take off for my mini vacation from blogging - it's been so hot I can hardly manage to turn on my machines, much less make progress to talk about later!

About the only things I managed to accomplish in my entire week off were the coordinating bib and hooded towel for my second Welcome Baby Package of the year, for Baby W.

The bib is backed in the same terrycloth as the hooded towel (using the leftovers from the hand towel that made the hood) and one of the decorative pink-ish fabrics also helps tie the two together. I chose the coordinating fabric first, based on scrap size to do the towel trim without seams. After that, I chose the cupcake piece because I know there's some baking and cupcaking in the family history. After that, I just pulled any scrap that seemed to match one or both of the pieces I'd already chosen and was the right size for my project. It's a lot of pink, but I'm hoping the greens, browns, and blues will help tone that down and keep it from being too overly sweet.

It's been a couple years since the last time I made a hooded towel, so I did have to pull up my favorite tutorial for it again (at Obsessively Stitching). This should be an easy thing to make - even with the addition of the accent fabric - but I made mistake after mistake and it wound up taking me more than two hours to get it all pulled together. I'm still not thrilled with the outcome, but at this point, it's going to have to be good enough (unless a trip through the wash destroys my work). Clearly, I need not to take off years between projects, even if it is relatively simple and straight forward!

Fortunately, sewing and assembling the bib went much more smoothly. Even installing the snap - not my favorite part - went fairly smoothly. I'd kind of like to make one more bib to include with the package, but if I do so, I ought to write the family and see what not-pink, not-cupcakey themes they might be interested in.

The two pieces are in the wash at the moment, and assuming all goes well, I think these might be the last pieces before I can take photos of the package as a whole and begin wrapping. I've got a couple more weeks before delivery - and a longer timeline if I find someone else to take this to the baby shower instead (sadly, I was booked to work long before I knew that was the baby shower weekend).

At least installing snaps and taking photos is relatively cool work! It's about 80 in my house at the moment, and that's just too hot to turn on the sewing machine or iron, so all my other projects are just sitting in the corner waiting for cooler weather. Looks like I may not get our quilts done by end of August after all!