Rest? Ha ha - I'll rest when the baby arrives, uhhh... right?

There are so many things going on in my life this week so please excuse me if I'm all over the place today. They are all very exciting things - just ALL AT ONCE is a bit... ummm.... overwhelming would be the right word. Let me paint the scene for you:

• I am pregnant and the baby is due in 3 weeks and 3 days - so I am fully NINE MONTHS PREGNANT at the moment. I can't help but mention that it has been above 90 degrees every day here in Delaware for quite some time now so I'm forced to SLOW down no matter if I like it or not.
• My husband and I closed on a new house on Friday. We proudly now own a 200 year old farmhouse that we are in love with - but that came with its fair share of issues and last week we spent many long hours of our time and a few professional contractors time to get some "safety" things taken care of to ensure settlement went smoothly - which thank heavens it did. Phew! We now own the home and are looking forward to getting settled in.

• So now I'm packing up all of our things and preparing to move to our new OLD house. We have lived in our current home for almost six years so the task is a bit of a mountain. We plan to move a week from today and I still have a LOT of packing to accomplish.

• The plan for the week ahead is for my sweet hubby to set up the nursery in the new house. Right this moment he is stripping paint off the moldings and prepping the walls for painting. He is also working on moving a electrical sub-panel up to the attic to then run more power to the nursery for the many things the baby will need. I can't wait to be settled into the new nursery as I've been thinking about the decorating for months but unable to "nest" properly with all of the move stuff going on.
• It is worth mentioning that I am still working full time running a company with 25 employees looking to me for direction.
• Oh - and I pretty much feel like I need a nap at all times of the day or night now - so yes, to answer your question - we took on too much at once, yes, I am aware.

So - in this very hectic week filled with many stressful things - I did manage to FINISH the hot air balloon quilt for our baby - a quilt I am completely IN LOVE with. I think I was stressing out too much so I just sat down at my sewing machine and in one night I had quilted and bound the whole quilt. I also felt a LOT better after several hours of listening to my sewing machine hum and ended the night with this:

I know this looks a lot like the last  picture I took of this when it was just a "top" but with moving boxes all over my house right now I don't have anywhere clever to take a picture for you.

I threw it over our fence so you can see something different.

It was folded for just three or four days and already had a crease above, but I wanted you to see that I stitched in the ditch on the star and did free motion quilting on all of the white area.

The above might show it best but I was so concerned about adding something distracting to the big rainbow star that I ended up going with what I knew would work and mimiced the seam lines.

The back is very busy but I like that it is all the same colors with the black background.

You can see the star from the quilting in the above.

 I think the generous baby size is perfect for throwing out to let the baby play or roll around. It is bigger then a typical baby quilt and smaller then like a twin. I hope our child will love it as much as I do.

My husband picked out the rainbow binding fabric for me when he stopped at a LQS on our way to a party, good guy!

It is Stella Approved but I was in a rush (as I need to box up the office tonight and the sun was setting) so I threw it at her, snapped a quick picture, and promptly ran into the house and popped it into the washing machine on delicate. Don't worry about our Stella - I know she will find a way to cuddle with it sooner or later. I'm hoping the next picture you see of this quilt after washing includes my baby laying on top of it - wow - how fun is that to think about!!??!! :)

Tonight I packed up my sewing machine and labeled it with the other boxes headed to our new house. I'd guess it will be a few weeks before I get to unpack it and get back to quilting. I do think in the next few weeks there will be plenty of other fun things to report here so I hope you won't loose interest! :) Wish me luck - God knows I need it!