micro BUJ's quilt

Did that title make you wonder what I'm doing?  Let me explain...

I have a nephew named Joseph.  Named after his father, so he is a II or a Junior, I can't remember.  He was born about 25 years ago and, being his mom's first, he was of course late to arrive.  (He is still late to arrive for pretty much everything, so I guess we had fair warning?!)

This photo, a scan of a copy that is as old as the child, isn't great, but you get the idea that he looks a little overdone here, right?  So my hubby, being the kindest uncle that ever was, started calling him Baby Ugly Joseph.  You can imagine how happy the parents (his brother and sis-in-law) were to hear this, so he started calling him BUJ.  (Pronounced like boojhe - I think...I'm not so good with that phonetic deconstruction stuff!)

This led to his dad being called Big BUJ.  For Big Ugly Joseph.  So, of course, this baby needs to be Micro BUJ, as he will be Joseph III.  (Hopefully he's cute as a button when born, or we're all in trouble!)

At the baby shower last weekend, I heard my nephew tell people that his dad was the original BUJ.  Sadly, that is not true.  At least not as far as the nickname goes.  But I also am not sure he, or many others, know where the nickname came from.  I'm not sure they've put together the letters and the original name.  Maybe that's good?

Anyways, back to the quilty part of the story!

Nephew Joseph and his girlfriend are pregnant.  (Well, you all know only she is pregnant, but you know how things are these days...and I'm trying not to be a curmudgeonly old lady, but seriously, if they aren't growing or squeezing that thing out, I'm pretty sure the boys are NOT pregnant.)

Baby is due around Christmas.

The shower was planned for weekend before last - late September.

Of course this kid is going to get a quilt from me.  (Joseph asked my hubby and was probably told something like "well duh, of course!" because my hubby...well, if you haven't figured out his sense of humor from the nicknames above, I'm not going to have any better luck explaining it here!)

The search began.  It didn't take long - when I found these vehicle patterns, I was ready to start.

But first I needed some background fabric.  The originals are done with white, but for a baby, that seemed dangerous.  (At least that much white...I've used it before, but not like this!)

I wasn't sure exactly what I'd end up with, but figured a light blue or green would be great.  I ended up with a blue-green (which is kinda hard to tell here, what with the shadows and big ball of lovey fur sitting on it), but also snagged a wonderful fabric for the back - those trucks were perfect AND on sale!

Time to get sewing.  I shared the blocks as I finished them before, but I'll give you a quick rundown again, since I don't have a lot of other photos...

Each one was fun to make, though I did get tired of making so many tires!

Then it was time to figure out a layout.  I knew I'd need to make some blocks taller, but decided to add those pieces after I figured out a layout.

Construction took a bit longer because I measured sashing wrong and had to rip out some, but in all, that part went faster than the blocks!

It's a bit wider than it is tall, but that's okay.  It's nearly square and that's good enough for me.

My hubby was getting excited about it at this point.  He likes quilts that he can figure out what they're supposed to be.  "Star" is not enough.  He wants "tiger" or "dumptruck" to be the answer.

I stalled here a bit because I'm still working on tweaking my longarm to perform nicely.  Also, I wasn't sure what to quilt.

But one morning, it hit me.  Piles of dirt.

I loaded it backwards (upside down?) so the lumps could be going the right direction and got busy.  I took no in-progress photos, but it didn't take very long.  A simple pattern shouldn't, right?

I sewed the binding on fairly soon after, but then, true to my nature, didn't finish it until the day before the shower.  Label, too.

But I got it done and the hubby held it up outdoors at my in-laws house, just before my mother-in-law and I headed over to set up the shower.

Here you can see what I'm calling the "piles of dirt" quilt motif.  Basically a clamshell, but for this quilt, piles of dirt makes more sense.

The shower went better than expected, though many in the family were dreading it.  We know very little of her family and this is her second child, so many of us were a little miffed that she expected the shower in the first place.  (It's our nephew's first kid - and the first great-grandchild on that side of the family - so we sucked it up for him.)  She got a LOT of clothes and diapers, but her sister crocheted her a nice afghan and I believe it was one of my nephew's great aunts that crocheted an adorable doggie stuffed animal.  (Amigurumi style.)

Quilt stats:

Pattern: Vehicle Quilt

Designer: Quilts and Nice Stuff

Size: 48 x 56"

Pieced and quilted by me!

In more recent quilty news...well, there isn't much.  I worked a tiny bit on the hand-pieced Dear Jen block, but wasn't feeling it, so I ended up reading.

I've been reading more.  With the cooler weather, sitting under a quilt and a cat with a book is quite nice.  And last weekend (Thursday through Saturday), my local library had a used book sale.  While it's not as large as the one back home, now that the one back home is done quarterly, this one IS about the same size.  I came home with 30 new-to-me books!  (And I may have gone back Saturday for the $5 bag sale to scavenge any gems left behind and found a few more...)  They're all numbered and nestled into my cart.  Barely!  One more book would have done me in.

Also, there has been progress on the cat toy front.

The kicker toys are all done.  They seemed to take forever, but mostly they just took a lot of stuffing.

Finn wanted to help with the smaller toys...

There are just a few left and he is sleeping on them.  Much like collecting eggs from chickens, I had to reach under him and pluck them out as I needed them.  He is such a box fiend, he didn't even get up.  He just gave me the "hairy eyeball" as my 7th grade math teacher called it.

And then, at work on Tuesday, the coworker who brought me homegrown catnip last year left another bag hanging on my car door handle.  I guess that means his cat, Joe, wants more toys for Christmas?  I wasn't sure I was going to make anything, but decided it would be fine.  I'll just make more kicker toys, right?

Once I did the math, figuring two per person, guessing about a few people who may or may not have cats, factoring in my friends who also get toys, I ended up needing 52 toys.

I used up all the Christmas fabrics that were leftover quilt backs in my stash and still needed quite a few more.  Yay for stash reduction!  (And this time, it was significant...not like those measly birds from last year!)

I've sewn and turned them all, but the next steps are ones that need to be done all as one.  I can do smaller batches (cellophane, stuff, catnip, stuff, catnip, stuff, sew shut), but it still takes time and I wasn't up for it yet last week.  I've got plenty of time.  More than this, though, these are bigger than anything I've done yet, so I need to figure out a way to wrap these...

That's all my news.

Toby is headed to the vet shortly, so I need to get that underway.  Also, I need stuffing, so I suppose I should head out soon, before the stores get busy.  (Shopping early is nice - turns out all those "old people" knew what they were doing when I was young and thought they were nuts!)

Happy quilting,

Katie