Rocket Nephew

Well thank goodness for the internet - for initial self-diagnosis and distraction. It turns out I have shingles, blech. I'm not even going to post a hyperlink for that, the images (and the reality) are just too gross.

The pain is awful but I am keeping myself distracted with ancestry.com (I'm obsessed!), reading quilt blogs and sewing my next project.

I am also excited to blog about my most recent quilt! I just LOVED making it, even though it took me much longer than I'd planned (there's just no way to hurry up hand quilting!). It is now warming it's new owner, my 8 year old nephew (who hopefully doesn't mind that it was a few weeks late!).

I used the Rocket Man pattern in the first Material Obsession book.

Starting with this pile of washed and ironed scraps from my stash, in warms and cools...



...and these navy fabrics from Sewco:



...I created lots of these units:



Hand basting for the first time, on the advice of Stacey from Peppermint Stiches I used a poly thread to sew large stitches across the whole quilt. Using the white lead on my new Sewline Trio pen I drew swirly patterns and designs on the navy blue areas.



I hand quilted in DMC white perle cotton size 12. I really, really enjoyed this part even though it took me WEEKS!



I also used some space embroidery designs from a gorgeous book Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection by Aimee Ray.




I did buy the Prints Charming rocket panel used in the book but ended up embroidering Lily's own rocket design onto a piece of white homespun:



Ta da! All finished!



Cousins getting in on the act!




Ready to post off! Twas the first quilt I've ever posted so I sent it Express Platinum!



To finish off, this was on the selvedge of one of the navy fabrics. Very apt! Am off to structure some more magic (and get better)!