Three Quilts in Three Weeks

In one of the fifteen thousand ways that Troy and I are different, how we look at challenging tasks is towards the top of the stack.

Troy will focus on all the negative parts of what lies ahead, and will dwell on it excessively to point where he barely wants to even talk about it.  When it comes to doom and gloom about stress, Troy is his own worst enemy.

Me?  I’ve been accused on being a bit of a Pollyanna. When talking about my plan to give birth without any meds, people would say stuff like “it’s going to hurt so much”, or “I could never do that”, etc.  I’d respond with something like “yeah, but how awesome will it be to take a dump in front of strangers and know it’s happening”?

I’m used to weird looks.  They’ve been directed at me my whole life.  I get it.

So, when I decided three weeks ago, that I could totally knock out three quilts in three weeks, I didn’t dwell on the late nights, hard work, and requirement to be creative.  No, I pictured the smile on the recipient’s faces when they opened the gifts.  I focused on taking the last quilt off the sewing machine, and declaring “I’m done”.

Worth every second of work!

Quilt One – baby girl
This one is for a coworker who is having a baby girl in early July.

I have a confession to make.  I can’t stand giving super girly gifts to people.  I don’t care if your whole nursery is going to be ruffles, pink, and animal print, you’re getting something tame and neutral from me.  After years of having “girlie” stuff forced upon me by my grandma while growing up, I want little girls to let their inner tom boy out.  It’s ok to not want to be a Disney princess ladies!

Head’s up, all the photos in this post are TERRIBLE; sorry.  None of the colors look bright or vibrant, but I swear they are.

The back:

Quilt Two – a baby boy
This one is for my friend, coworker, and blog reader, Krista.  We’re having her baby shower on Saturday, so she is under strict orders to not read the blog this week!

Krista is doing an animals and letters theme in her nursery, and I love the way it came together.

I love the little rain clouds.  Krista is originally from Vegas, so I had to insert a little Washington in to the quilt.

The back:

Quilt Three – a birthday

A few years ago, a new person started in my department at work.  On like her third day, I walked in to the office and said “dude, can you please help me with this project”.  She looked at me and essentially said “I barely know you and you just called me dude”.  And that is how a great friendship started.  She always refers to me as dude, and has made me an honorary Filipino.  We call ourselves the “Filowegians”, and have great plans to open a Filipino and Norwegian bakery called “Two toes Brouhahas”.  It’s gonna happen…just you wait!  Sweet lumpia in a lefse wrapper?  Yes please!

Susan is originally from the Philippines (don’t tell me you’re just now figuring that out), and then moved to Hawaii for almost 20 years.  I wanted the front of her quilt to reflect the bright sunshine she grew up with…

and then for the back, I wanted to put a Washington spin on it…

The baby quilts are from my “cheater” quilt tutorial, and the all-chevron quilt is from Patchwork Style (this book is great, but SO weird.  The woman on the cover pretty much keeps her eyes closed in all the photos, and eats apples with spoons.  It’s just so random…).

While I didn’t get an actual baby out of this long and arduous process, I get the chance to make three separate people smile.  I can think of very few things in life that is better than that!