27 weeks today!  Baby is nearly two pounds, and some people say this is the start of the third trimester.  Just in the last few days, I’ve started to feel a bit of that crowded, uncomfortable feeling which I definitely associate with the endgame.  Part of me can’t believe how far along I am, and a bigger part can’t believe there are 11 weeks left.  Or less if the placenta hasn’t moved – another ultrasound Thursday.

I am feeling OK.  I am able to enjoy life with my kids, but my energy is pretty limited.  I am still experiencing a sugar / energy crash after eating that varies from mild to severe.  Today, I tried laying down on the floor of my office, and that wasn’t cutting it, so I went up to bed.  I felt like I wasn’t going to make it up the stairs.  Now, a few hours later, I feel better.  But that was pretty rough.   I have my gestational diabetes test on Thursday, and I am worried that the symptoms I’ve been experiencing suggest I have GD.  However, I had the same symptoms and worries with my other two pregnancies, and didn’t have it, so I guess we’ll see.

I have almost no maternity clothes.  Work forced me into buying maternity clothes with my previous pregnancy, but this time, since I’ve been working from home, I’ve been wearing a lot of Lululemon tights to supplement my one pair of maternity pants and two pairs of shorts.  The bump is getting bigger, though, and I may end up having to buy more stuff just for a couple of months.  I look and feel very pregnant at this point.  I think I tend to be fairly average in terms of bump size – not huge, but definitely not tiny either.  This pregnancy seems to be proceeding like like my others in that regard.

I’ve completely switched to swimming.  Unlike my last two pregnancies, I haven’t been doing water aerobics.  Since we’ve moved, it’s a lot less convenient.  I may pick it up in the last month or two.  We’ll see.  For now, swimming laps feels great, and I’ve gone as far as 1800 yards, which is a lot farther than I ever went in my last pregnancies.  I think I’m in better shape, thanks to more minor morning sickness, and swimming 3 or more times a week is letting me increase my swimming fitness.  For the first five hundred yards, I can feel my belly stretching out, and it hurts, but it also feels good, if that makes sense.  After the first five hundred yards, I don’t feel it any more, and afterwards, I just feel better.

I’m continuing work on my baby quilt, and I have hand appliqued all the hearts to the fabric.  I was deciding between the green and blue for a border, and I think I’m going to use the blue.  Let me know if you disagree!  I ordered batting which won’t get here until early next week, but after that, I should be able to finish it up fairly quickly.

It’s feast or famine on the blog front.  Moving on to the next quilt, I’m trying to decide on the background fabric.

Option #1:

Option #2:

I’m kind of leaning towards #2 but I just don’t know.

I was inspired to make this quilt by a project from Blue Elephant Stitches, always a go-to source for inspiration.  I was sick with morning sickness and looking for something easy – and I wanted to make something for the baby.  She calls her quilt the “High Five Quilt,” and the source pattern is in a book called Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Nyberg and Cheryl Atkinson.  I didn’t end up following the pattern, however, just eyeballed it.  I cut squares of approximately 2.5 inches, then did one layer of a log cabin.  I didn’t measure precisely, and I often made the center squares a bit bigger if convenient to showcase whatever was in them.  After the block was done, I used a 6.5″ square ruler (which I bought for this project) to conveniently trim them to size.

Fabric

I honestly can barely begin to say what the fabrics are.  I made the entire quilt from stash, which I’m rather proud of, including the binding and backing.  There’s a fair amount of Sarah Jane fabrics in there, as well as a lot of Heather Ross “Tiger Lily.”  I think there’s some Lotta Jansdottir fabric.  The binding is a Carolyb Friedlander fabric from her Euclid line, and I used a few other Carolyn Friedlander fabrics throughout, especially her greens.  Beyond that, it’s hard to say.  I’ve got at least two swan fabrics in there, because I love swans, and some stripes.  There’s some ballerina fabric I bought for Isla.  I’m not sure what else.

Batting

I had enough wool batting on hand to finish the project, so wool it was.  I get my wool batting from Quilter’s Dream.  I always like wool batting for a baby quilt, because I figure quilts are as much for sitting on as for covering yourself with, and wool makes them nice and soft and puffy.  And as a bonus, they’re nice and warm for covering yourself with.

Thread

Piecing, quilting, and hand-sewing the binding was done with Aurifil Mako 50 Wt in White (2024).

Quilting

I was originally planning to quilt this on a 2-inch grid.  However, as I noted above, I didn’t measure precisely, which meant the quilting lines were just a little off.  Not cool.  It looked messy and like a mistake.  I ended up just stitching in the ditch at 6″ intervals.  I contemplated quilting the whole thing with wavy lines, and maybe I should have.  I did a lot of fussy cutting in this quilt, and I didn’t want to quilt over any of the fussy cut centers.  It’s OK.

Binding

I used a 50/50 linen/cotton blend from Carolyn Friendlander’s Euclid line for the binding.  I actually found this a bit hard to work with at the corners, especially in combination with the thick wool batting.  I was lazy and didn’t use a walking foot for the binding, which I think was a mistake.  My corners were not up to my usual standard.

I made much of this quilt while feeling like I was going to puke.  I’m not thrilled with the result, but I don’t hate it.  I think i could give it to someone in good conscience.  Something about the in-your-face combination of pink / blue / green fabrics just rubs me the wrong way.  However, I do love the fussy cutting that I did, and I think a little kid would definitely appreciate all the fussy cut pictures in the middle of the squares.

I updated the “quilting” page on this blog today, which had been very out-of-date, and it made me realize how much I was quilting in 2015 and 2016, and how little I quilted in 2017 and 2018.  In 2017 and 2018, I started running a lot and working a lot, and quilting got put a bit by the wayside.  I did do a lot of farmer’s wife blocks, but I still haven’t finished that quilt.  It’s nice to finish a quilt for the first time in a long time.  I did actually do a whole-cloth quilt recently, but I stupidly forgot to photograph it!  Finishing these two simple quilts is making me enthusiastic to do more quilting over the next three months.