Design Wall Monday--9/21/2020

Design Wall Monday rolls around again--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

My design surface was only shortly occupied by the Now and Then baby quilt plan I showed last post for our DIL's sister, as I was eager to sew it up.  But first we had a very special visitor; grandson Dane came to Mimi and Papa's for the first time at 4 weeks old.  Here he is in Papa's arms.

He's growing well and filling out nicely.  I got to feed him a small bottle and change a diaper :)  His daddy is very proud of his growing boy: 

He's not quite smiling but does respond to voices and likes to sleep with one eye open, per daddy!   Not sure yet if he'll get daddy's blue eyes or mama's brown eyes. It was great fun to have a long visit with the little family, Mama is doing a great job.  Our son's paternity leave is over and he will be returning to work--but they made the most of the four weeks since baby Dane arrived. 

Construction of the Now and Then quilt occupied many happy hours (pattern in July 2019 APQ magazine, designer Victoria Findlay Wolfe).  My version is just a portion of the design.

Nine patch parts completed first, and then laying out all the cut snowball squares. 

I love the doubled nine patch block--so clever.  I was happy with the layout so proceeded to adding all the snowball corners. 

After considering a few different layouts, switching some of the blue and orange blocks, I stayed with the layout that is close to the magazine pattern. 

The top was completed in an afternoon and I like it a lot.  I'm thinking of using the orange print for the backing and binding after quilting this myself.   My sister is making two quilts for the next  babies to be born in the family, twin girls our nephew and his wife are expecting in December.  We still have never met our other grand-nephew born last December, due to the pandemic, but see him often in videos that his dad posts, love that.  

I've sent off one quilt to be done professionally but can't afford that for all the tops waiting in line...unfortunately my sister's longarm has died and unless she can find an old major computer component somewhere in the country, and someone to fix it, her money has been wasted.  Very sad! Sewing room plans for the week therefore should be directed to making quilt sandwiches for some already paired up tops and backs that I can do myself.  I'd like to have a nice pile of completed quilts before the year ends and time suddenly seems to be hurtling faster to the holidays and year end :)