What a month!

Back from our vacation, and I think I need another one again! ;> It was Benji's first flight and I'd say he did quite well. Don't think he was very comfortable in our laps though as he is so used to having his own seat in our cars. And too bad that I only realised infant flight vests (or for lap held babies) are available after our trip. I strongly encourage people who travel with small babies to get one of these. We could not get car seats for the kids in our tour van and we had to carry Benji in our laps again. It was uncomfortable and nerve-wrecking at some points of the journey through the Bangkok traffic. Again, we would have felt safer if he had the vest secured to our seat belt.

And since our return, my time for sewing was affected when my folks took off on their own vacation. So, I had Benji all to myself for 2 weeks, and could only reply my emails during his naps and bed time. BUT I managed to squeeze in some therapeutic and quality time with my projects ;>

1. Banana Milkshake Shrug

I finally completed the shrug made for my good friend and Benji's Godma. Meant for her BIG THREE-O birthday and I hope she likes it! I hope she will remember to take a picture of herself wearing it ;> It was really a joy to make this for a good friend, and very easy!

2. Soft book for Baby Joey

My friend's youngest, Joey (6 months old), went into surgery the week before for her heart problems. She just got discharged from the hospital and we are all looking forward to her speedy recovery. This is the same soft book panel I made for Benji before, but then I did not have the embroidery function on my old Singer. This time, I had Joey's name stitched in place for her with the Bernina 440 :>

3. Trip Around The World

I completed basting the lap-sized quilt and what a sense of accomplishment. Yes, it might not be a big quilt, but it was most challenging to squeeze time to get this quilt done within this busy and tiring month.

I had some strips left over and decided to make a pieced backing. I'm not bothered whether the strip is dead center - horizontal or vertical, I'd rather have it asymmetrical. I think it works better for this small quilt.

Actually I could have completed the quilt top earlier. But I found myself a few inches short of the outer border all around because I forgot to include the inner border's width! I tried to take a short cut by piecing the border to make it longer. I deliberated for a few days after I 'fixed it'. Ultimately, I could not bring myself to accept the mistake and ripped out the entire outer border, cut new ones and sewed it back on. I'm glad I did that. This is how one of the mitered corners of the borders turned out.

It is now sitting at a corner of my sewing table, ready to be quilted. I really hope that this could be ready before my birthday at the end of June. Not sure if I'm going to keep this quilt for myself - if yes, it will be my 30th birthday present for myself, if not, I'd give it for my mom who helped me babysit my boy during my quilting sessions!

And THANK YOU to all who have left nice and encouraging comments in my blog. I'm still pretty new to all the sewing stuff and sometimes wonder if I'm making sense about what I blogged (??). But ultimately, I want to share about what I'm doing, the mistakes I made (so you won't make the same), and the tips I discovered, and to give back to the craft blog community since I have been so inspired by many of your blogs :>

Have a great rest-of-week ahead!