Now how familiar are those? These are my bibs! And my bibs are these bibs! Can't you see the resemblance? 
I feel like I was on the cutting edge when I made these bibs over a year ago. The Purl Bee is only now posting about them. Maybe someone from The Purl Bee saw my handsome nephew in his bib, or cute-as-a-button baby Ruby wearing hers and was inspired by my vision. Or, maybe they just happen to have the same book of sewing projects that I do. Regardless, I'm pleased to see that The Purl Bee and I are on the same crafting page. The fabrics on the bibs from The Purl Bee are great, and definitely one of the reasons I want to get myself down to that store. I have a vision of a store where the walls are lined with shelves and on those shelves are reams and reams of fabric with bold colors and unique prints. And my mind will swim in an ocean of ideas - what to do with that fabric? Aprons, bibs, curtains, quilts, bags, napkins, table cloths, pillow-covers... the list is endless. Imagine what kind of quilt I can make with those fabrics! It would be even more wild than the one I'm making now.
On Saturday my aunt and mother came up to help me assemble and start to actually quilt my quilt, so it's only a matter of time before I'll be done with this one and need to move on to something else. We got the quilt assembly done (at least to this stage, which is simply connecting all three pieces of the quilt - front, batting, and back), and I actually hand-quilted two squares. Hand quilted! It was truly a miracle. Tell me that this doesn't look like fun and you don't want to do it, too:
First, we taped the back of the quilt to the floor to keep it in place for when we put on top of it the batting (the off-white material) and then the front of the quilt (the layer with all the t-shirts).
Then, we pinned all three layers together. See all these pins? We had to make a trip to the craft store to get more of them. It's a big quilt, and we went a little pin happy (but at least we know that the quilt won't shift during the sewing process!). 
Next we traced a small square into each of the fabric squares. This was truly a family affair, because look who we roped in to help us with the tracing! 
The small squares are what we are actually going to be hand-quilting, because this is what will keep all three layers of the quilt connected when we unpin the whole thing. My mother, aunt and I are trying to get Doug to help with the hand-quilting process. After all, he wants this thing on the bed as much as I do, and if he wants it on the bed before we're both too old and blind to see it then I think it's only right that he put a thimble on and help. Thimbles are cheap; I'll get another. But, even if Doug doesn't help, I do have many helpers for the actual quilting process, some more helpful than others.
You see me in the background, pulling my needle through the quilt, while Meg lays contentedly and takes a nap. There's something about this quilt that the cats love. Sewing the second square later that night was enough to charm both of the kitties right to sleep. 
It's going to be a long winter of cats and quilts, that's for sure, but I am looking forward to it. Because I really do plan to make another one (which is just want my mother and aunt want to hear... but at least they'll get a free meal out of any day that they come to help me!). This one can be the summer one, and then I can make another with more subdued, wintery colors. (Ask me how I feel about this thirty squares from now, when I still have forty more to go...) For now, it sounds like a plan.
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