My Country Gym Shorts

I saw a few people posting online this week about their City Gym Shorts, the free pattern that The Purl Bee recently released. At first I thought, oh, those are cute, but I can just buy shorts. Then I read another post and realized that they came in adult sizes and thought, oh, those are cute!

So I clicked over and printed the pattern, headed to town, picked out some fabric, machine-washed and dried it and sewed it up. I always think that projects are going to take an hour. Not quite sure why, it’s never happened. The pattern was easy to follow and overall came together fairly quickly, if not in an hour. It was my first time both using bias tape and inserting elastic into a waistband. I had to take my time but they both turned out. With quilts, I can usually visualize how they’re going to look but I’m always slightly surprised when I make clothes that actually look like clothes. 

The fabric for the back is Peppered Cotton in charcoal.  I love the texture; the weave gives it some nice depth and it’s very soft. I intended to get a bright fabric for the front, but I spotted this black and white print and thought it worked perfectly. 

Although they're called the City Gym Shorts, my gym is more country than city. I've already worn them to the lake. They were nice and comfy as I ran up and down the bank carrying tools for the dock and helped launch the boat. I can't wait to make more in different colours!

A Quilt for Max

Here’s a little quilt for baby Max, just in time to meet him at his baby shower.

I used four fat quarters, so it ended up a little smaller than I would normally make a baby quilt. I just couldn’t pass up those little elephants. But this way it can fit in the car seat and will hopefully travel well. It’s my first attempt at free-motion quilting and I did some loops and curves to somewhat mimic the pattern in the green fabric. I found the hardest part was timing my foot and hands to work together, so that my sewing speed matched how fast I was moving the quilt. Baby steps. 

He's so sweet.

St. Andrew’s Medallion Quilt

Apparently I was experiencing a brief moment of not feeling too busy a few months ago over the March Break, when my grandma stopped by my house. She told me she was going to a meeting at the church later to discuss prizes for the Thanksgiving Raffle. I jokingly asked if they needed my advice and she said yes! I said that I guessed, if they didn’t need it too soon, I could maybe make a quilt. She quickly offered to pick me up later and take me to the meeting – I think she was afraid I would come to my senses and back out.

I had been admiring some medallion quilts on Pinterest, so I started sketching out some block patterns and designed a quilt. I managed to time it well with a big sale at my local quilt shop and ended up with some blue weave prints, one of my favourite green prints and a solid yellow. They even had a marbled blue extra-wide backing fabric that matched nicely.

I started with the centre block:

My centre block ended up a little too big, as did my flying geese, so as I went I tweaked the pattern to make everything fit. 

It was my first time making flying geese and I was happy with how they turned out.

I added a few borders at a time and it was nice to see it grow from the middle and kind of look like a real quilt early on, rather than random blocks and bits of fabric.

The parallelogram border took a while.

Once the top was finished, I asked for advice on how to quilt it myself but the quilting instructors talked me out of it. I decided to save myself many hours and the challenge of a 90-inch quilt and have a long-arm quilter do it. I’ll practice my quilting on smaller quilts to start.

I had her do an all-over quilting pattern and I bound it with the lighter blue.  

I'm a little sad to see it go. I may have to buy a raffle ticket!