out with the old, on with the new

some of my points are fabulous. Some - not so much  : /

So,

I finished the orange and blue chevron baby quilt

and it is now with its new owner (who deemed it 'perfect' :-)

This was a commissioned project

and I earned enough to buy 80% of a sewing machine!
YAY!!

those tumbling elephants are so fun!

I underestimated my costs

and

underestimated my time, as well.

(I thought I could get it done in 12 hours, but it took me over 14 hours,

not counting the row of hand-quilting

or sewing down the binding - which I did by hand and it took an embarrassing amount of time. 

I think I over-pressed it (who knew?!) and it made it hard to catch the fold just right.

It does look awfully nice, though, if I do say so myself ;-)

I only charged what I'd estimated,

and chalked it up to a learning experience.

I'll eat the underbid materials cost, so I can put all $120 in labor that I charged towards a machine for Rahab's Rope.

I'm hoping to buy them so many machines that they tell me

'Enough!"

Wouldn't that be so awesome?!?

For the quilt, I followed Nettie's tutorial exactly exactly

(Really, I did!)

It would have been better to press the seams open, I think, though,

as there was a lot of bulk at the points.

Of course, that would have added a considerable amount of pressing time.

(It takes me 3 times as long to press open as it does to press to the side - what about you??)

Speaking of pressing, my iron died. dead as a doornail dead.

It put the kibosh on last' night's sewing plans,

but worse, 

I couldn't iron Tyler's shirt last night :-(

A friend is giving me a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon

and I'm going to buy a new one today) 

I bought the same one I had before.

I love the Laurie Wisburn birds :-)

Fortunately, my iron didn't die on Monday, instead of yesterday

(one too many falls of the ironing board)

because

about 2 hours after I pulled the zigzags out of the dryer (on Monday...)

I was spraying my beloved sizing all over the 35 fabrics for my next project :-)

This project is super special to me;

it's for my baby brother and his fiancee!

Yep, Matt and Marin are finally getting married and we are just as tickled as can be.

She 'ordered' a black and white quilt - any design I choose.

ahhh, the pressure ;-)

I said, "And what other color??"

Marin cocked her head the right, smiled her beautiful dimpled smile

and said, "None. Just black and white."

"Lots of black and white prints."

After searching black and white quilts on Pinterest for a few hours, 

and not being inspired by anything I found,

I remembered this quilt I'd pinned, and thought it would look rather smashing in B&W,

so 

over the course of a few days,

I designed my own (much larger!) version.

We'll see how it works....

The wedding is in May, so I best get cracking.

Speaking of weddings,

the girls are going to be flower girls in just a few weeks,

so tulle skirts climbed to the tip top of my sewing  list.

I'd be okay putting it off another week ;-)

but I'm afraid it might make the bride a little nervous...

Linking up with the fabulously talented and creative folks over at lovely Lee's and (carpenter extraordinaire) Amanda Jean's

I think the colors are most accurately represented in this picture.