Another FO!

Okay, so TECHNICALLY this isn't, you know, KNITTING, but whatever. I can be cognitively flexible if you can! No really, I can. NO REALLY. Stop laughing. Anyway, moving on.

I bought the fabric for this a couple of days ago, along with fabric for some other projects and today I busted out the sewing machine. The thing about me and crafting is that I sometimes have more enthusiasm than skill. Which is, as I think about, quite a preferable state in some ways to the reverse, right? I only get in trouble when my perfectionism kicks in, and I've spent years in therapy to work on that personality trait.

So this is a blanket for the new baby. The reason I had to get this panel was because when we were at our first u/s for this baby, we had DS2 with us. DH asked him "so, do you think it's going to be a baby sister or a baby brother?" DS2 answered with great authority, "I think it's going to be a FROG!" So, the froggie it is. I thought this panel was adorable without being to cloyingly cutsie (I like sweet, I loathe saccharine). The backing is some sort of plushy fabric (I'm sure it's totally polyester) with little raised hearts on it - borderline for me, but the color worked and it's so soft, so I went for it. The panel was ridiculously expensive, but I sort of had to splurge on it. It's from Joann, which had a surprisingly good selection of cute and not hideous (and not character) kids' fabrics. I feel the urge to sew some flannel blankets for donation. I wish I had serger!!! Maybe I'll save my pennies.

This blanket is definitely not perfect. When I wash and dried the panel, not all of the blocks in the quilting shrank/tightened up evenly, so it went from being flat to puckering. Oh well. Nothing I can do about that. Also, I won't use that same fabric as a backing again, I will definitely use flannel. This one had some stretch to it, and I'm just not an experienced enough sewer yet to do a really good job of backing a non-stretch fabric with a stretch one (or pairing to stretch fabrics, really). My top-stitching isn't perfectly straight, but I did an okay job in this, except I missed the part where I had to catch the edges for the hole I left to turn the work right-side out, so I had to hand-stitch an extra little seam there. It's almost invisible, and DH kept reminding me that the Froggie won't notice, or care. Whate matters is that I made it, and it's pretty cute. And it's done. In a day, no less!