Baby Steps

We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure all your life.  

 John W. Gardner

My first quilt on my NEW Innova!  Wednesday I decided to get over my fear of failure and jump right into quilting on a REAL quilt instead of a practice piece.  I am taking baby steps though until I get used to the machine and all it's features.  This is a little 36" square flannel baby quilt that I pieced from some scraps of flannel a friend gave me a few years ago.  It had been surfacing frequently in my quilting room over the last few months so there must be a little baby girl out there needing it.  It isn't from a pattern I just cut as many 6 1/2" squares as I could get from the scraps and then made a few 4 patch blocks to finish it up.  I would have made it bigger but there just was not enough of the flannel left.  I could have added some white squares but they didn't look right.

Pink Poodles Flannel Baby Quilt

Instead of batting I just used a layer of flannel.  The back is flannel, pieced from more scraps, too.  It should be a nice a soft after it's washed.  I'll have pictures of the whole thing front and back after it's bound.  The pink poodle print makes it a happy little quilt.

I chickened out on doing something elaborate with the quilting and just meandered it.  Baby steps learning the new buttons and the sound of the machine.  I'm liking the M size bobbins.  They last a long time!

Spring is here for sure now.  You can tell by the coat of yellow pollen covering everything outside.  We had a storm Thursday night that cleaned the air up a bit but the pollen is back today.  There are a few things still blooming in the yard.

Flowering Quince

I love the color of the blossoms.  The bush isn't too attractive the rest of the year.  My older sister gave me the rooted cutting several years ago. 

White Bachelor's Buttons

This one limb of the Bachelor's Buttons was still in full bloom.  The rest of the bush is past it's prime.  The cool - warm - cool - warm weather has extended to blooming for a few weeks.  We've had several days in the 80s this week but the nights have dropped back into the 40s.  This make some nice cool mornings which I like.  Not a fan of heat even if I am a Southerner.

Yesterday I pulled fabric for backs on a few more baby panel quilts.  I'll be working on them as I continue to get acquainted with What's her name.   

Linking with Live a Colorful Life and Richard and Tanya Quilts