Red Food

Beet Risotto

Tasty, and oh so visually appealing.

A Boy and His Quilts

Well, Nikolas has obviously grown quite a bit in the last three months. And, he has already amassed a fine collection of three quilts.
First one started, I believe, was this colorful one which I planned out.
I had made a very similar one about 2(?) years ago for friend DVP 's son DAP. I used a number of curated prints from baby quilts made as gifts for others - a fish print from a quilt for C&D's baby, alligator prints from quilts for R&M's boys, dragon prints from E&A's baby's quilt, etc. By Nov 13, when I entered the hospital for what turned out to be a week's bed rest, the quilt was not done. Some work happened while little N was in the NICU for the remainder of November & December, but it was not a terribly creative time. Finally, the day N came home from the hospital, my mom took it back to PA to do the quilting & binding, so it has much more masterful quilting than if I had done it myself.
Next, 2nd started, but 1st finished: the quilt my mom planned and made for little N.
I love how the blocks come together and form larger patterns. Also, the quilting is fantastic - my mom machine-quilted motifs from the main patterned fabric - images like a cat, a dog, a trumpet, etc - into the main blocks.
And finally, a quilted play mat that I thought I might make from remnants of K's work jeans. Then I remembered how little spare time I've had lately, and how unlikely it is I would make such a thing, so I suggested it to my mom.
And she made it so much better than what I had imagined. It's made from pieces of my jeans from high school in the 1980s, so there are fancy embroidered back pockets, as well as my own additions - bleaching & doodling. It has plaid flannel sashing between the blocks & the jeans pockets can hold little toys.
The greatest success on the knitting front has been the burp cloths from Mason-Dixon Knitting & the this-could-be-the-last feather & fan blanket.
The little guy certainly does seem to love his blankie (equating "sleeping soundly while wrapped in" with "love").

Nikolas

Our little boy had to get out into the world ahead of schedule.

Nikolas's due date was January 9, 2009.

He was born November 20, 2008.

He's in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), but doing well.

October summary

As DC has pointed out, October is almost to an end. Looking back, it was a lovely and productive October.

My parents came up to visit the weekend that friends from work threw a baby shower for me & LS. The shower was fun, and thanks again to anyone involved who might conceivably read this.My mom & I had lunch in Skaneateles,

and the next day the three of us went for a walk in Binghamton Univ's Nature Preserve, with lots of gorgeous fall colors.

The next weekend, I drove down to New Jersey to visit a friend from college and his wife & son. 5-year-old son loves drawing, and is very fond of Disney princesses. Yea for subverting gender stereotypes, but does it have to be Disney?

This would be the Delaware Water Gap, with a very low water level in the Delaware River.

A number of crafty projects have progressed close to finishing, which is good as pregnancy is taking away the use of my hands. The top for the baby quilt is all pieced together and I have backing fabric, so I'll get those combined at some point. Still have the Lizard Ridge blanket to seam up, and a couple of baby clothes to finish up.

Such as this baby surprise jacket, which has mysteriously uploaded sideways.

I bought a pack & play with bassinet top, so our son will have a place to sleep in our room until we're ready to move him to his own room (or until his own room is ready, which it is definitely not yet).

Last night we had snow and it looked fantastic with many of the fall leaves still on the trees.

Quick & colorful

This weekend, my parents were up visiting, so Sunday my mom & I cut out 108 3" squares from my pile of colorful fabric. On Saturday we had visited Patchwork Plus, outside of Skaneateles, NY, where I bought the border fabric for this quilt.

Yesterday, when I came home from work I had 108 little squares and 6 colors of border fabric.

By a little after 11pm, I had 12 blocks. Next step is to sew these blocks together & use the remaining 60 or so 3" squares to make a border.

The pattern is from Quick Colorful Quilts. Quick? yes. Colorful? Certainly!

Fall Projects

I started organizing my quilting fabric, and this is a starting palette for a new baby quilt. Many of these fabrics are left over from other baby quilts I've made, and I saved the pieces b/c I like them a lot. Especially four across the top - the dragons on dark purple, weird mer-folk on blue, striped and spotted cats and dogs on yellow, and madly grinning black cat on red.
I'm thinking to make these into something like one I made for a friend last year, with smallish squares of the colorful fabrics and sashing strips of one or more nearly solid fabric in primary or secondary color(s).
Now, the next photo is not my own project. It's a quilt my mom made for a charity auction. The centers of all those stars are made in a kaleidoscope fashion using 6 pieces of the exact same pattern section of a print. So, I believe that all the star centers are made using the fabric in the outer border. There was a request to show some of my mom's quilts b/c she is a grand master quilter and wins prizes for her quilts. This is the first picture I came up with of one of hers. I'll post more if I come up with some more photos, and so long as she doesn't mind.
It's going to be a busy fall. Last Friday was week 20 of the pregnancy, so half-way through & so far all's well. And since it would be best to get the dissertation done before the baby comes, it will be a busy fall.

Dress-Up Day

Last weekend was the end of the season for the Sterling Renaissance Faire, and with about 10 hours notice, I bought a ticket to head up with DC & BB.

We all ended up buying some new duds. We all loved our lace-edged linen shirts or chemise, as the case may be. Look how nice the ladies on the right and left look. However, this dress makes me (in the middle) look more pregnant than anything so far has. Is that a good thing? Hmm...