nursery and the quilt (part 1 of... ?)

latest project: a baby quilt for the nursery. we painted the nursery last weekend in behr's rose glow, a kind of pinkish lavender. it changes color depending on the light and sometimes looks pink and sometimes looks lavender. we are not in love with it, mostly i think because it was a compromise color. brian wanted a brighter lavender and i wanted a softer, lighter peachy pink. it is also a color that i think neither of us would ever in a million years choose for our house under normal circumstances. it is starting to grow on me though.

we got a crib this weekend, this pretty white one. i love it. the white makes the paint a lot more bearable. we are also going to get this dresser from ikea. we actually already have it in our bedroom in the antique stain and love it, and it is a nice height to use also as a changing surface. i also really want a small white bookcase. the rocker that brian was rocked in as a baby is already in there.

i tidied up in the nursery, tried to make it look a little less "un-done," tossed my old yellow baby quilt over the crib for an accent. suddenly i liked the nursery a lot more with the lavender and yellow together. we have been struggling to find a "theme" for the nursery and i think those colors together with the white will be very pretty. i was inspired to make a quilt to start us off and so we ran out to the fabric store to pick something out.

this is what we ended up with:


the white and the yellow actually have very subtle prints, the yellow is has a soft basketweave on it and the white is actually a white-on-white scroll-y print. very pretty. brian chose the purple butterflies and though it is bright against all that white and yellow, i really like it.

i know that one square looks a bit wonky, i remembered last night why i don't often quilt. in fact i have done very little piecing in my entire life because i hate it. piecing gives me a stomachache. (piecing refers to putting together the top of the quilt; quilting is the actual putting-together of the quilt and stitching through all the layers of fabric and batting.) i hate cutting out all those tiny squares and triangles and whatnot. i hate stitching them all together. i hate that i do all this sewing and pressing all those seams and have virtually nothing to show for it. it feels like i do all this work and never make any progress. it drives me crazy.

on the plus side, this one is much smaller than the two "quilts" i have done previously (actually duvets, so i just pieced the tops and did not actually quilt them). they were both king-size which is a bit daunting let me tell you. the first one i did in a log cabin pattern which imho turned out really pretty but was a lot of work for a quilt that size. my pieces were very small and it just took forever to make each square, and i think i had to make 64 squares. the second was a very simple pattern of 3 lines of contrasting fabrics alternating with large solid blocks, i'm sure there is a name for the pattern but i have no idea what it might be. that was a lot easier because the squares were so much larger. this baby quilt is crib-size (45" x 60") and those pinwheel blocks will be alternated with solid yellow blocks, kind of like a double nine-patch, which means i only have to make 12 of them. like my second quilt top, i'm sure that pinwheel pattern has a name, i just don't know it. i drew it up on my own but there is nothing new under the sun and i can't believe that it's completely original. i haven't decided yet how i want to border this one.

we'll see how it comes along. i really like the double nine-patch pattern and i have more than enough fabric, 2 yards of each, so i could possibly stop here and start over with the nine-patch squares. i might do some blocks in the pinwheel and some in this neat disappearing nine-patch. i might do all three. i might do a "sampler" with 12 or 24 different patterns, one in each block. i might tear all my hair out and just do a large basic block quilt. i might end up in a mental institution from all that piecing, wheeee!!!