Shirts for a Baby Girl

One of the moms I babysit for is due to have baby number 2 any day now. When she mentioned the other day that it will be a little girl, I immediately thought of the small fabric remnants I have leftover from making clothes for myself. The remnants are not big enough to make myself anything, but I thought they would probably work for making something for a baby girl. 

I've made the Wee Lap Tee from Patterns for Pirates before and it comes together really nicely, so that's what I went with again. I chose the 3 month size again because that way I didn't have to print the pattern again. 

I made one using the last of this beautiful stripe fabric, which has already been used for a Summer Basics dress and a Slim Fit Raglan for me. 

Doesn't the back of my Windows quilt make a great background??

I'm sad not to have more of this for future projects, though I do still have some remnants of the blue and black I used for my Tessa dress.

Baby clothes are so cute! Just look at how tiny this sleeve is!

I want to get a twin needle for finishing hems and doing top stitching like around the neckbands. I have a twin needle, but the two needles are closer together than I want for hems. It probably would have looked right on these baby shirts, though, now that I think about it. Until I remember to order the twin needle sometime when I'm ordering fabric, I'll just keep using this lightning stitch, which is actually the same stitch that is used to construct the shirts, too.

I have learned the hard way not to use my Aurifil thread for sewing knit clothes. The cotton thread isn't as strong as a polyester thread and I've snapped a few stitches sewn with the Aurifil. Thankfully those stitches were all in hems or topstitching, so there were no awkward wardrobe malfunction moments. I'm using Gutermann thread for my garment sewing, which I can get at my LQS.

I've been using my serger, too, and I love how it makes the inside of the garment look so tidy. It would look even better if I bought serger threads to coordinate with what I'm making, but I haven't bothered yet. Mostly that's because these four threads are all different colours, which makes it easier to tell when there are problems with the tension. Not that I can always figure out how to fix the problems with the tension...

Shirt #2 is made with fabric left after I made a Summer Basics tank over the summer. Apparently I didn't take a single detail shot of this one, lol. There are a few little ripply spots around the neckband of this shirt, but I don't think baby girl will be too concerned about those.

Both shirts have the same fabric used for the neckbands, which was first used for my test version of the Summer Basics dress and which was also used for the Slim Fit Raglan. Actually, it was used for the reverse applique heart on the Summer Basics tank, too. That means these are the fourth and fifth garments made using some of the 3 meters I bought...if it even was 3 meters. It might have only been two, lol.

I love how they look together 😊 They make a nicely coordinated gift, and one that didn't cost me anything except a bit of time. I also love that they allowed me to use some of my fabric scraps, which keeps them from going into the trash.

I cut myself another Slim Fit Raglan while cutting these out, and then stitched it up after they were finished 😊 I wore it yesterday, but haven't taken pictures of it yet. I'll do that soon and share it, too. This garment making thing is a lot of fun!

Without Deborah

 Devotion for the Week...

A few years ago I was at a women's retreat and one of the speakers talked about the story of Barak, from the book of Judges. Here's the start of the story: 

"Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet who was judging Israel at that time. She would sit under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would go to her for judgment. One day she sent for Barak son of Abinoam, who lived in Kedesh in the land of Naphtali. She said to him, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: Call out 10,000 warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun at Mount Tabor. And I will call out Sisera, commander of Jabin’s army, along with his chariots and warriors, to the Kishon River. There I will give you victory over him.' 

Barak told her, 'I will go, but only if you go with me.'

'Very well,” she replied, “I will go with you. But you will receive no honor in this venture, for the Lord’s victory over Sisera will be at the hands of a woman'" (Judges 4:4-9).

The speaker at the women's retreat spent a good 15 minutes or more emphasizing the importance of friendship and how valuable it is that we have friends who will go with us through life. She kept repeating Barak's line that he would only go if Deborah would go with him. It drove me crazy because Barak was not commended for his response - he was called out for it!

Barak's response was not a beautiful expression of his friendship with Deborah, it was a sign that he put more trust in her than he did in God. How easy is it to do that?? We can see the people around us. We know their skills and temperaments. We know what we can expect of them and how they will be able to help us. It's harder to trust in God, whom we can't see, when He's asking us to do something scary or hard.

God had already guaranteed Barak the victory, as Deborah had explained to him. God (and therefore Barak) didn't need Deborah for the victory. When Barak said he would only go if Deborah went, too, she did agree to go, but she also told him that the glory for the victory would go to someone else, not to him, because of his lack of faith. Thankfully, God understands when our faith is a little lacking, though that does sometimes mean we lose out on some blessings that could otherwise have been ours.

When God asks us to do something, do we put our trust in Him? Or do we look around for someone else to go with us as an extra talisman, or a little reassurance that things will go according to plan? Never mind that it's His plan to begin with, right? We want that extra security if we can get it.

Background quilt is Windows

Having friends is wonderful and life is better when we have others to share the burdens and triumphs with, there's no reason to deny that. But if God asks us to do something, we can trust that He will provide all we need to do it, even without Deborah.

Windows - A Finish

I have a new quilt to share today! I love looking at homes that have interesting-shaped windows and that's what I kept thinking about as I assembled this quilt, so I've named it Windows 😊 It finished at 64" x 72".

I designed this in early 2019, as part of the 30 Quilt Designs challenge with Sandra of MMMQuilts, but then it just sat waiting until a few months ago, when I realized it would be the perfect design to showcase these fabrics. The fabric line is Golden Aster, by Gabrielle Neil for Riley Blake, except for the background, which is one of the colours in the Blossom line by Christopher Thompson, also for Riley Blake. Don't they look perfect together?

I love making circles with the Drunkard's Path blocks and they're really not as hard as they look. Did you see my tutorial for them last week? If you've never tried them, you really should! They're fun and make you look like a very skilled quilter (even though they're not hard, lol).

And, of course, I also love HSTs. They're so versatile! In Windows I used the HSTs to make hourglass blocks in two sizes.

When I calculated the sizes to cut the borders for the small hourglass blocks, to make them the same size as the large ones, I got it right for the side borders, but somehow figured I needed double the size for the top and bottom. It makes no sense whatsoever how I figured that, considering I was starting with a square and wanted a square at the end. I didn't even realize my mistake until I had cut and sewn all of the blocks 😣 The blocks were all perfect placemat size, lol, but that wasn't exactly what I was going for. Thankfully I was able to trim the blocks back down to the right size, so there was no seam ripping involved.

I opened my last King size package of Warm and Natural batting when it was time to baste this quilt. I still have a full box of pieces of batting, but none of them are wide enough for a throw size quilt now. I guess I'll be piecing battings for a while, lol. And making more small quilts, so I can avoid piecing the batting. 

I quilted (and pieced) Windows with Aurifil 50wt thread. I pieced it with 2311, then quilted the windows with 2785. I debated using 2610 for the grey print, since it would have blended in better, but I was too lazy to change thread when I could just quilt the whole block with the 2785 (might as well be honest. The decision was made purely out of laziness!). 

I quilted around the full circle, then in the ditch between the quarters, then quilted concentric circles that wobble all over the place to fill the circle. I certainly wouldn't win any awards for perfectly spaced and curved lines in these circles! I embrace all the wobbles, though, and love that from a distance you don't notice the wobbles at all. The lines are kind of hard to see in the diamond print, but they are there.

For the small hourglass blocks, I outlined all of the pieces and quilted continuous curves in the triangles. I managed to do each block without stopping, though I did stitch along an outside edge twice to make that happen. Travel stitching was easier than stopping and starting again.

I debated doing the continuous curves in the large hourglass blocks, too, but in the end I decided to go with some back and forth lines. I actually really like how the blue thread shows up on the grey print. I need to remember that I love the look of contrasting thread and maybe plan a quilt where the thread will be the star one of these days.

I used Aurifil 2420 to quilt doubled loops in the pink background. This design is super quick to stitch and I find it really relaxing. It gives the quilt texture and keeps it soft.

I didn't have quite enough of the Blossom in navy for the backing, so I added a strip using two of the Golden Aster prints to make it wide enough. The Aurifil 2785 blends in perfectly on the back, but you can still see the texture of the quilting, and the 2420 shows up nicely on the navy.

I chose the diamond print for the binding and I love how it frames the quilt. I love my labels from Finer Ribbon, too, especially now that I've started attaching them in the corner. I don't always get the words perfectly centered in the corner, though, as you can see. At least you can still read it!

My plan had been to release the pattern for Windows today, too, but that's not happening. This back-to-work season has really affected my productivity. You'd think that after doing this for years I could remember how much I can get done in the average week's worth of evenings and weekends and then start projects accordingly. Apparently, though, being off for almost 6 months, with the freedom to work on projects whenever I wanted, totally erased all memory of how hard it is to get stuff done while also working. No worries, though. The pattern is started and now that I'm not spending my evenings quilting, I should be able to have it ready soon. 

Edited to say the pattern is now available! You can get the PDF version or the printed version with free shipping 😊

I'm linking up with TGIFF, NTT, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Beauties Pageant and Free Motion Mavericks.