Merlin Magic

I needed a quick project after my trip to Oklahoma to see Autumn's birth and welcome her to the world. Yes, I know my granddaughter has enough burp cloths and they are already being put to good use as you can see.

But my daughter really liked this wizard-print flannel fabric and I'd had a hard time finding a coordinating flannel I liked. Hence this flannel yardage did not make it into the 1st wave (shown here) or 2nd wave (shown here) of burp cloths. Here were the candidates I bought, tucked under and to the right of the featured Merlin wizard fabric.

I really wanted a lavender/lilac to pick up the colors in Merlin's beard.  The two lavenders I bought really did not appeal to me. The upper one was too crisp and geometric and the lower one was cream rather than white and looked dirty against the white-ish milky way pattern of stars. I thought about using maybe a dark blue, like the polka dot, and might have gone with that had it been stars instead of dots, despite the lack of contrast. I tried to branch out with the green multi-dots. The dots were the right color family of blue-violet and I really almost went that route but you know how when you have a certain picture in your mind it is hard to change. In Oklahoma my last visit (to be at the birth of Autumn) I bought a pale lilac flannel that had a starburst-like print on it.  It had the color in Merlin's beard and the star image I wanted. Also the stars are blurred around the edges and not such a sharp image. Here is the front and back of the finished burp cloth.  I made two. In retrospect I wish I had sewn one with the green multi-dot, just to be different but, oh, well, I did not. The lilac appears kind of grey in the photograph but it really is a lovely complement to the wizard's beard.

This is truly an American multi-state burp cloth... wizard print from California, backing lilac stars from Oklahoma, and burp cloth pattern from Kansas.  I bought the pattern to use for my nephew's baby girl while I was in Kansas with my daughter, buying her wedding gown.  Daughter and gown are shown below from May 2011 wedding day. Odd, how the little bits of life come together.  Little did I think (nor did my daughter!) when I bought that pattern that, slightly over a year later, I would be making burp cloths for her baby girl!

I will not do much quilting this weekend and I did nothing special for Halloween.  I am returning to Oklahoma to visit that new granddaughter of mine. After all, I have been away two whole weeks! This will be a quick trip... out on Friday, back on Monday.

Completed projects:  

1. Wizard burp cloths
2. Caught up on quilt blogging- even made non-WIP entry this week just before this one

Ongoing projects:  

1. Doll quilt - still awaiting binding and next up on finishing since it is so close
2. Grinch quilt - still on design wall for assembly and creative sashing solution
3. Chicken wall hanging to back, FMQ, and bind
4. Square pumpkin/iris/red modern wallhanging to back, FMQ, and bind

New projects:  

1. Wizard burp cloths
2. Returning to Oklahoma this weekend to visit

This week's stats:

     Completed  projects - 2 burp cloths

     New projects - 2 burp cloths

     Currently in progress - 4 

     Those in closet - many enumerated in earlier posts and not repeated here