Bizzy Kid

If you have been reading a long for a while you know that my life has been a little crazy as of late.  One of our friends was going through a rough spot and we opened our home to him and his two year old daughter.  It made it difficult to sew and I have gotten pretty far behind on a lot of my projects.  Is that possible?  Can you be behind on something that is just a hobby?  With the exception of my one commitment to a Round Robin group I have not joined any bees or swaps this year in anticipation that it might get a little crazy.  So can I really be behind?  I mean I doubt I will make my goal of 12 quilts this year since it is May and I have only one finish for the year thus far but that is just a personal goal so there really isn't any consequence to not meeting that goal but it feels strangely like pressure.  This weekend I was finally able to spend a little time in my sewing room just relaxing, listening to Pandora, and sewing away.  So what do you do when you have about 4 projects you are in the middle of, round robin quilts that need to be done, and about a million other things all calling for your attention-start something new of course.  At least that's what I did!  I was originally inspired by this fabric pull that Corey did for a pillow swap and knew I wanted to make something with these bright colors.  So I started pulling fabrics for a granny squares quilt since that is the latest quilt along that the Old Red Barn Quilt Along group is working on.  But then I saw this quilt top and knew that they would be too similar.  And well honestly I wasn't feeling the granny square love.  Sometimes I like to do quilt alongs but sometimes I can't help but think I don't want a quilt like everyone else.

The two different sets 

So I had seen a pattern over at Cluck Cluck Sew the other day that I liked.  I don't buy many patterns because usually I can look at the picture and sort of figure it out but in this case I just wanted someone else to have done all the math for me.  Bizzy Kid wasn't the original pattern I saw but it stuck my fancy when I was ordering.  I needed to spend time sewing and not looking at inspiration only to find the day gone and a project not started.  So on Thursday night I ordered the PDF (another first for me) pattern of Bizzy Kid and read through the instructions.  I looked at my fabrics I had pulled and figured out I had what I needed.  I went to the LQS on Friday during my lunch break to get some Kona Snow and was hoping to find some charcoal sketch.  They appeared to be out of both but lucky for me a willing salesperson and a trip to the back found a bolt of Kona Snow that was not in the inventory in the computer.  So Friday night I cut my solid six inch squares and made the larger hourglass blocks.  Sunday I spent most of the day sewing and was able to complete the blocks and sew the sets together.  The only thing left is to sew the columns together and wait till payday to order some washi tape fabric for the back.  I think it will be the perfect fabric for this quilt.

This is a queen bed with blocks laid out on it.  The row hanging off the side will actually move to the other side of the quilt there just wasn't enough room.  And this should finish at about a twin size according to the pattern.

This is the first pattern I have purchased from Allison but I would recommend her again.  I found the pattern to be very well written and easy to understand.  And while the pattern was simple enough and I probably could have figured it out myself it was nice to have the math already taken care of for me.  Another handy trick I learned while putting this one together, my Tucker Trimmer (HST ruler) was perfect for trimming my hourglass blocks.  The two diagonals on the ruler made it the perfect tool.

I also got my Loulouthi Tiles quilt back from the long arm so I should have my second finish of the year to share with you soon.  Hopefully that will take some of the pressure off.  What have you been sewing?