Week 6: 100th Day of School!

Project of the Week: Week 6!

Quinn has been getting very interested in my sewing. He comments on fabric, tells me how beautiful things are, and asks a ton of questions. When I asked him what he wanted to collect 100 of for the 100th day of school, he just said "money". Since this was NOT exciting to me, I kind of dropped it and told my mom how not amused I was at the thought of 100 pennies. In her infinite wisdom, she realized what I hadn't. He just didn't have any other ideas. When we started brainstorming, he was suddenly interested in doing all kinds of things. But, to my delight, he stopped me when I mentioned 100 pieces of fabric.

"Oh yeah, I want to do that. Let's do fabric." Love that sweet boy.

About 10 years ago, my mom and I were at a quilt show in Cape Cod and I bought a set of 9 fabric squares, all bug themed. I set them aside, and pretty much forgot about them! Quinn liked the bugs idea so I used the rotary cutter to cut each block into 9 smaller blocks, 1.75" square. We found some other fabrics to throw in too, and quickly had 100 pieces of fabric compiled.

Then I took a 22" x 22" square of solid white and used a quilting marker (disappears when you spray water on it!) to draw a grid of 2"x2" squares for Quinn to place his fabric into.

I pinned the back and batting to the top before we started so it'd be all ready to "quilt" when he was done placing his squares.

He was very methodical. He started in one corner and worked his way around the outside edges, making sure he didn't put two of the same fabrics next to each other.

He was pretty adorable. I know, I'm biased.

It was just the right size to tape down to his play table.

At this point, I put one straight pin through the center of each block so I wouldn't disturb his pattern when I moved it.

For "quilting", I just sewed on top of the squares of fabric, long straight lines that caught each side of each square until each block had been sewn down. It was pretty quick, but there sure were a lot of lines!

 I had some green glittery fabric left over from a banner I was asked to make at church many years ago, and I used that to make some quick binding.

He was so sweet when he woke up and saw it with the binding finished. "Oh mom, it's perfect!" I'm keeping him. Forever.

My beautiful boy with his 100 Days of School project. Thanks for letting me make it with you, Quinn!

I've also been working on little girl birthday presents for upcoming parties. So far I've got one down, one to go. I am most of the way finished with a wedding gift, and have a bunch of machine quilting that needs to be done. I'll get there eventually. The baby does NOT like when I lean over the table or the ironing board, and with all the ironing, cutting, pinning I have to do, baby has not been amused. I may have to figure out a way to either make the table taller or postpone some of my projects until after baby is here.

This week is a short one, as we have Friday off from school. I'm looking forward to a four day weekend with my boys, and hoping that it can be a productive one around the house. Especially since Friday marked the 31 week mark for this pregnancy. We're getting closer every day!