I promised a few people that I’d post work-in-progress pictures of Elizabeth’s big girl quilt. Last night I finished sewing together the 9 patches with setting squares and side setting triangles. As I have time this week, I’m hoping to get the borders put on so that I can send it home with my mom in a couple weeks to get it quilted. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I finished before Baby #3 arrives? I guess my nesting impulses for this baby are exhibiting themselves by getting his or her big sister all ready to move out of the crib…
I’m really loving the fabrics I picked out with my mom and Cammy’s help over Christmas. I love 30s reprints, but thusfar, I’ve only used them for baby quilts. I want this big girl quilt to last Elizabeth for years, so I picked fabric patterns that were fun but not babyish. Hopefully it will tie in well with her 30’s rug. Tommy’s big boy twin quilt required so many hundreds of hours of cutting and piecing that I’m amazed at how quickly this strip pieced pattern came together! Stay tuned as I add borders and backing…
The quilt looks fabulous. A couple of sort of related questions. Are you planning on waiting for the new baby before you move Elizabeth to the bed? We are trying to figure out when to move Christina. We won’t need her crib for the first couple months so we still have a little while, but I don’t want it to be traumatic either (as in, we need the crib so you must sleep in the bed!). Also, how are you feeling? Seems like maybe a little better the last couple of weeks. I hope so. Take care.
Lovely!! Your children are so blessed to be given heirlooms from the start!
The quilt is so beautiful!! ::sigh:: I wish I had the patience for such things. Where did you get fabulous fabric? My fabric exposure is pretty much limited to JoAnns.
Bethany–I get my fabric from quilting stores, where the quality is a lot higher (higher thread count, so thicker fabric, as well as famous designers). I am really fond of Moda fabrics, which I buy at my mom’s local quilt shops or online (just ordered my backing fabric from here). It’s more expensive than JoAnns–usually $7-10 a yard–but I find the difference in qualtiy striking, and if I’m going to spend 20-100 hours on a quilt, I want it to hold up! For clothes and smaller projects, I’ll occasionally pick up fabric at JoAnns, though.=)
Alison–at this point, I’m just planning on keeping the baby in our room in the mini crib until May, when we may or may not be moving (depending on Derek’s job situation!). In May/June, whether we stay in this house or move to another one, we’ll move Elizabeth into a big girl bed in Tommy’s room (he has two twin beds in there right now) and the baby into the nursery and main crib. Other than E’s little falling-out-of-the-crib incident at 17 months, she’s happily stayed in her crib. Right now, it’s just easier to have the two of them in separate rooms and keep her in the crib, so I don’t have any real incentive to move her until I have to! =)
Christina will be a bit older when baby #2 comes, though, so you probably could try her out in the big girl bed even before the baby comes to see how she does. We were afraid of Tommy feeling jealous of the new baby in his old crib, but he was so excited to be in a big boy bed that it actually was fine. We definitely played up big boy sheets, etc, to make it more exciting. I think he actually moved before she was born (maybe at 25 months?) because he was just ready and excited to be big. We kept the crib in his room for a couple more weeks in case he wanted to move back, but he never really did. I’d just say to allow enough time before you NEED the crib so it’s not an overnight transition!=)