that's just cruel.

My cousin A graduates from high school this year (as do my sister S2 and my cousin J). Because I made a quilt for A's sister H, I am now dutifully making one for her. With all of the nuttiness in my life right now, I look forward to working on the quilt, and I finished piecing the top a few minutes ago. I actually find quilting and embroidery and all that mess pretty relaxing...mostly because it's darn near impossible to be stressing or thinking of other stuff when there are pointy needles involved. You lose concentration, you poke yourself in the fingers...or screw something up that requires a mulligan, and that ain't cool. Anyway, here's the cruel part. Preggers as I am, I am finding it increasingly difficult to sit at my sewing machine. There is no apparent comfortable way to be there. I spent just under half an hour at the machine today, and my back has been in knots ever since. Cruel, cruel world.

Also, the quilt I'm making started off as an Amy Butler pattern. This is the second time I've attempted one of her patterns. The first time it was a bag pattern. I was pretty unhappy with that pattern. I remember thinking that it was poorly written, but I was willing to admit that I was (and am) a sewing novice and as lazy as the day is long. This time, I don't think it's me. I ended up going rogue with the quilt. It just wasn't coming together properly. Plus, get this: I bought $150 worth of fabric for the silly thing. I sincerely have enough material left to make a second quilt. My enormous punch bowl is FULL of leftover fabric. And that's not even counting the extra THREE YARDS of backing fabric. Maybe I can sell the second quilt to pay for the first one. Anyway, I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist. A no-good complainer? Sure. Conspiracy theorist? No. However, I've got to think that our darling Amy Butler has upped the amount of fabric that she says to buy because she also recommends using her fabrics. There's no other conceivable explanation.

I will say this: I was planning to make the quilt bigger than the pattern. Lots of quilt patterns are for lap quilts and throws, but the point of this one is to go on A's bed at college, so I figured out how much extra fabric I'd need to increase the quilt size appropriately. There were random diagrams with loads of multiplication sitting around our house for days before I hit the quilting shop. I guess I should've just bought what the pattern called for after all.

That's enough complaining. Frankly, the all purple quilt is turning out pretty darn cute. A will love it, and that's what matters. Right?

In addition to quilting and embroidering, I thought S needed a little mommy-and-me craft time yesterday, so we made some new playdough and then played with it. Here's the only picture I took of us playing. You've heard of coke bottle glasses? S wears Bonne Maman jar glasses.

Also, my baby girl has strep with a wicked rash. You can see it on her chin in the picture. She's so pitiful.