Two more projects finished!

I've managed to finally get two more of the things in my "in-progress" stack finished in the last week or so. First, is the 1960s maternity dress I had mentioned a little while back, and the second is the baby quilt project I've been working on for months it seems. First the dress. The pattern is one which I was given by a friend, and thanks to some sleuthing help from a reader I have been able to pin down as being from 1960. It's a really cute pattern, and the dress turned out really well. It's perhaps not the most flattering color on me, but the black helps set it off a bit, and this also served as a bit of a stash busting project, so since I wasn't buying new fabric for it I wasn't so concerned about the color being the best suited. It will give me something a little cooler and more breathable to wear to work (or anytime that yoga pants and oversized t-shirts are not appropriate) once the weather gets a bit warmer. 

The dress is obviously quite a bit large on Tabitha, but you get the picture. The mister is asleep, so there wasn't anyone to take a picture of it on me, and I wanted to go ahead and get it taken care of. It clearly is not so trim looking through the waist when it's on me and my six months of baby belly.

The second project is the baby quilt I started quite a while back. There are forty little nine patch squares alternating with the plain white dotted squares. I used some of the extra backing fabric as well, but the majority of the fabric for the nine patch squares was cut from scraps leftover from dresses I've made over the past few years. There are even a couple of small squares that were left from my final project at the Oxbow School several years ago. I made a quilt then, too, inspired by genealogical studies of my mother's family and her great grandmother's immigration from Ireland. It seems like ages since I started this thing, and for such a little blanket I feel like I should have gotten it finished much more quickly, but  with several other projects in the works at the same time, along with working, I guess it's not all that ridiculous. Anyway, I finally got it all finished last night. It is far from perfect (cutting all those tiny squares was not as exact an art as I would have liked) and the batting made it a bit difficult to get all the corners perfect. Instead of purchasing new batting, I used my own baby quilt, one that my grandmother made when I was born. Over the last 25 years it has gotten so stretched and faded that it hardly even resembled a rectangle anymore. It had a hole in one corner that I poked with my big toe when I was five years old. Still, I have always loved it and the chance to breath a little life back into it was not one I could pass up. I pulled off the old binding (revealing just how completely faded the face fabric had become) and attempted to straighten it as best I could in order to bat the new quilt. Overall, it turned out pretty well. I'm not too worried about the little imperfections either, since I intend this blanket for serious use and abuse (although perhaps not quite as extreme as those my own blanket has suffered over the years). 

It's going to be a nice weight for using as a play mat on the floor also, which will be nice. It's also really nice having another project taken care of. I currently have nothing waiting on the knitting needles, and nothing cut out and waiting to be sewn. There are a couple of tops I want to get made, but those can wait for a couple of weeks. Up next I really need to finish recovering my couch cushions. I got the base of the couch just about finished (just some tacking to do on the back mostly), but I haven't gotten around to the cushions yet. No more excuses now. It's the only "in-progress" project on the docket for now, so I can't escape it any longer. 

I hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's Day!