Michael's quilt

There's a new little fellow in our family who's now two weeks old and doing great (and his parents will be, too, as soon as they can get some more sleep!) This quilt is on its way to Chicago right now, and I hope little Michael James will have some happy hours snuggling with it.

This was great fun to put together. I saw a similiar one made up at my local quilt shop, and loved the combination of scrappy brights and one unifying background of blue and white polka dots. As I cut and pieced this version for Michael, I added in a lot of scraps from quilts I've made for his cousins over the past couple of years. It brought back so many warm memories of all these sweet little great-nieces and nephews. I hope it'll somehow transfer the love a big, warm extended family to this newest little guy in our fold.

There are only two little blocks that go into the making of this quilt - a four-patch and a half-snowball. I can't believe the versatility of this combination. So after I finished Michael's gift, I started experimenting with another version, using a warm antique-y tan as the background color. I like it so much that I think it will become one of my donations for this year's United Way silent auction at my office.

A few of these....

Make a few of these....

Which, in turn, make a few of these....

I'm very excited to see how this one turns out. The scraps seem to sparkle and become almost jewel-like in this starry setting. However, over the next week, I'll be doing knitting instead of sewing -- Dan and I are taking off for a much-needed week of vacation. We'll be taking our first RV trip and camping at Lake Champlain on the New York/Vermont border.

I've been sorely tempted to take my sewing machine along -- I have idyllic notions of setting up a workspace on a picnic table at the campground, and sewing happily away in the great outdoors. However, for this trip, I think I'll stick to the more portable knitting needles and churning out a few more hats. I'm restricting myself to one medium-sized plastic bin of craft materials, but you can bet I'll be cramming as much into it as humanly possible!