Ruffle pillow, quilt progress, and 36 weeks

Tonight I made this:

A ruffle pillow for the baby's room. I LOVE IT. I thought my back would appreciate a pillow during late night nursing sessions. I also thought the glider needed something to dress it up.

For you crafty types--I used a 12x16 pillow form and cut my front piece 13x17 to allow for 1/2 inch seam allowances. I cut 6 pieces 3x26 for the ruffles. I serged the edges of the ruffle pieces (THANK YOU Kristina and Kristina's mom for the use of your serger, you are seriously the best). I then sewed the ruffles down and gathered by hand as I went. I pinned each ruffle piece at the center, then the ends, and then half-way between each end and the center to help distribute the gathers evenly. I cut two pieces for the back, both 11x13 and hemmed one 13" side of each. I used this tutorial for the back. The only change I made is that I pressed the outer piece 1/2" and then 1 1/2" (instead of 2"). When I used this tutorial previously I found that 2" did not give me enough overlap. Then I sewed the front to the back and there you have it.

Baby's room:

Notice the curtain panels are up. I finished them last week and we hung them up on Wednesday. I'm not a huge fan. I think the valence needs to be higher, but we have a double curtain rod that makes the two hang at the same height. I might just have to make Eric install another rod up higher. I do like that they make the room dark during the day. So at least they're functional. Since I don't really like them you're not getting a full picture yet :-). I also hung up the bow holder I made. The nail was already there from the cross-stitch I made Kaylin. The baby's cross-stitch will probably hang there eventually, so the bow holder might need to find a new home. It works for now.

Today I finished quilting Kaylin's quilt! I think it turned out well. If you don't think so, keep your mouth shut ;-).

This was a daunting process. I worked on quilting it for 6 days, with most of the work taking place on 4 of those days. It took me somewhere between 8 and 10 hours. I used over 700 yards of thread. This is only the second quilt I have free-motion quilted and the first one I've done on my machine. I bought a darning foot for my machine so I could do it myself. I used this tutorial for reference, I highly recommend it. I love that I can do this on my dinky machine. Next up is making the binding and sewing it on! That's next week's project.

And in case you're curious, here's how I looked at 36 weeks (Tuesday):

I'm now 36 1/2 weeks. Only about 3 1/2 weeks left! It's stressing me out. I still have a lot to do. But I am making a lot of progress. And whatever is done when this baby comes is done. That's my new mantra :-).