Finn | Night Quilter

I’m still working on a post about my experiences at QuiltCon last week, but as March continues to skip on, I thought I should share February’s stitches for my 1 year of stitches project in the meantime. QuiltCon post coming soon!

My 1 year of stitches project is a personal challenge to stitch at least one stitch every single day. I am working with no set plan, I don’t mark the fabric before stitching; I simply stitch whatever wherever whenever. It’s quite fun!! You can follow along with my daily stitches at @NQ1yearofstitches on Instagram.

Even after a short month, it grows! As a reminder, here’s the hoop after the month of January:

and here it is showing the progress from February:

I guess 28 days can make a big difference!

The highlight of the month was getting the chance to chat with Erin from Aurifil on Facebook live while attending QuiltCon in Savannah. You can see my low key chat HERE on the Aurifil Facebook page. I talk about my process, how the project came to be, why I use Aurifil 12wt thread, and I show a quick demo on how to stitch a French knot. It was a really fun opportunity, and while a bit nerve-wracking knowing I would be live, Erin made it easy by being totally awesome and relaxed. Plus, she’s from Maine. Perfect! The whole experience inspires me to try a bit harder to figure out a way to video my stitches live each day, or at least some days each week. I’ll get right on that and will let you know if I figure it out!

Back to my embroidery progress! Here are some close up shots of the various sections of this freestyle hoop.

I am still stitching without a plan, deciding each day’s stitches the morning–or sometimes night!–of the current day. I have tried a handful of new stitches and look forward to trying even more as the year progresses!

Those little white three-petalled trillium flowers are the most recent addition. Time will tell where this will go from here!

This month, I had a photography helper, so of course I can’t end the post without a few Finn cameos. I often use the photos on my phone as a reference, so I pulled up January’s photo to make sure I arranged the thread in a consistent way. Finn was please as punch that they matched.

He also helped me put the thread back into the box, then arranged around the hoop, back into the box, then arranged around the hoop. What a helper!

Hmmm what shall I stitch today?

I am so excited to introduce the newest member of our family: Finnian Steven Wilkin, born at 5:59am on Friday June 5th. He weighed in at 9lb 3oz and 21 inches long, and has been warmly welcomed by his big siblings (even if his big brother insists his name is “Taco”)! His birth was smooth and completely natural, and we are all doing great!

Finnian's first photo — Finnian’s first photo

For those of you on Instagram and Facebook, you’ve already been introduced to baby Finn as my epic Friday finish. I’ve been doing a whole lot of cuddling and snuggling and nursing, and as Finn sleeps peacefully in his daddy’s arms, I figured it’s a perfect time to share our happy news here.

What better way to introduce you to my newest bundle of joy than through photos? Here are a few photographs of Finn at 3 days old.

Since Finn’s birth, I’ve been thinking that he really needs a quilt. I’ve decided to make child sized rainbow quilts, since Maddie loves hers so much. I have a few design ideas in mind, and plan to pair rainbowy goodness (which we know is in good supply in my fabric stash) with either low volumes–for one design idea–or black–for the other design idea. I probably will go with both designs since Max still needs a quilt, too.

Here are a few of the new stash additions that I plan to use in these quilts. They definitely need to be properly photographed and described in a stash post, but that will come in time. I’m eager to put all of these to good use and create more beautiful things for my children.

I really can’t wait to put this rainbow fat eighths roll to use in some quilts!

Now begins my transition back to snuggling a newborn, and sewing in very small increments. I will focus on appreciating every moment, and remembering that creating 20 minutes at a time results in a finish eventually. I’ve learned that taking those 20 minutes to create each day is so essential to my balance, and being happy and balanced will benefit my whole family.

As I enter this next phase of my journey, know that I read and appreciate every single comment on here, even if my responses dwindle or are quite delayed in the coming weeks. I will still try to reply to all of you, but baby snuggles trump all (as we all know!). Thank you for joining me on this journey, and I look forward to sharing the new inspiration that comes with every big change in life!

For the fun of it, I’m linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday this upcoming Friday, and Molli’s Sunday Stash–does adding a baby to the family count as stash building!? If not the baby, then I’ll count this sneek peek at my new fabrics that have yet to be shared as my stash building!