Spring stirrings

Yesterday, it finally started to feel like spring around here, and I'm hoping it plans to stick around. We made the most of the fabulous weather by staying outside pretty much all day. Matt even squeezed in some yard work during B's nap, but most of the day was all about fun stuff.

After church, we headed to the botanical gardens, where it was opening weekend for the children's garden.

  

In between climbing over every inch of the tree house, we planted a spinach plant, colored dried gourds, and met the resident fox family.

Not to mention practiced our balance-beam skills

And no trip to the gardens is complete without a visit to the sheep. B LOVES these sheep, especially the little ones.

After his nap, B played out in the yard with Matt while I took care of a little house cleaning, and then he and I headed to the park while Matt grilled dinner.

We came home to fajitas and margaritas (B missed out on those), a perfect end to a great day.

A cheerful little pillow

A few days ago, I took a mini break from quilting my Kitchen Window quilt and finished a little project I'd been dreaming about for a few days — a cheery, sunny, little heart pillow.

The pillow is for my grandmother, who, as I wrote back in October, is currently battling cancer for the fourth time. She's recently been through a particularly rough patch of complications, which led to surgery and now a (hopefully) brief stay in an assisted living home, and I really wanted to send her something to cheer her up and let her know we were thinking about her.

The assembly for the pillow was based on this tutorial. I used several pink, coral, and orange fabric scraps for the front patchwork and surrounded them with a cream solid (maybe Kona bone?). I used quilt as you go to attach the patchwork to a piece of batting but then decided not to do any other quilting other than the applique around the heart, just to keep it simple. The back is a coordinating madras print from Hancock's that has made several previous appearances on the blog (here, here, and here at least).

The pillow, which I wanted to be just a little decorative item, measures about 10" square. It's filled with poly-fill and machine-stitched closed. I was planning to mail it off last week but then received a request from my mom for another item for Grams, so I plan to finish that up and then send them off together, hopefully just in time for arrival back at home. I hope they bring a little spring cheer into a gloomy situation.

WIP Wednesday #61

Hiya, Wednesday! It's sunny (but cold) outside, and I'm hopeful that maybe, just maybe, spring is really just around the corner. Until then, I'm staying inside to sew.

Completed:
The kitties are done! I finished up the Catty Kitty baby quilt last week and sent it off to its new owner. You can read all about it in this post.

In progress:

I've been making serious progress on my Kitchen Window quilt! This long-neglected quilt (the first one I ever started) has been set aside so many times, and now it's finally (almost) done. In the two weeks since my last WIP Wednesday post, I've finished both the top and back, and now it's all basted and ready for quilting.

 

Now, I just have to decide how to quilt it. I'm really tempted to finally try my hand at FMQ, but I'm super nervous and don't want to mess it up. At the same time, this quilt is really "for" anything (I'm not giving it away), so it's probably a good time to try it out with minimal risk.

I've also pulled the fabric for two planned divided baskets. One will be B's Easter basket, and the other will hold some goodies for a baby shower gift. Fun new projects!

On the "to do" list: 
Kitchen Window quilt
Two more divided baskets from the Noodlehead pattern 
Quilted heart pillow
Mystery HST quilt

Charger pouch for the hubs
Car travel pouch for B (this, this, or this)
T-shirt quilt 
New tie for B (with a tutorial, finally!)
Superhero cape for B
Re-covering the downstairs chair

New pillows for the downstairs chairs
A mug rug for me
Ironing board cover
Reusable snack bags
Living room quilt
Washi dress/tunic (I bought fabric!)

This week, I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!