Has it really been so long?

My apologies for the radio silence! My work schedule has been extremely hectic, to say the least, and I've been working on the same very small baby quilt for several weeks now. And it isn't very exciting! We had so many rainy days in a row that I couldn't get a photo of the top when I finished it, but here's a preview of the quilted and unbound quilt:

Since I took this photo, I made my binding using Yahaira's bias-binding tutorial, and I completely mucked it up. I think I have some sort of mental defect when it comes to bias binding. Yahaira described the method to me when I was visiting her, and I just COULD NOT understand it (not because of her explanation, but because of my own inability to comprehend 3D space...if you remember those tests you had to take in elementary school about spacial reasoning, perhaps you will appreciate that I regularly scored in the bottom 5-10%).

She explained that she used to belong to a very traditional guild, and some of the older/very experienced quilters showed her this method. They always have the best tricks, don't they? Anyway, the tutorial is great--detailed pictures and explanatory text--but I am an idiot when it comes to bias binding, and I ended up only being able to use about half of what I made. A lot of Moda Crossweave went into my trash can. By the grace of God, I ended up with about 3" remaining after I sewed it on.

Attaching it was followed by an attempt at the invisible join, which (somewhat inevitably) resulted in tears. But then I invented my own method of invisibly joining binding, which does not involve trying to line up unmatchable diagonal lines and sewing through your finger, so I will use that forever. When I have recovered from the trauma of the first invisible join attempt, I will post a short tutorial of my modification.

I also ordered some perle cotton because I'm hoping to hand-quilt my Ocean Waves quilt. I feel like the quilt wants to be hand-quilted, and since I've wanted to try big-stitch hand-quilting forEVER (since Lisa B. explained it to me at a NEMQG meeting early last year), it's serendipity. I'm using Anna Maria Horner's fantastic hand-quilting tutorial.

Now onto piecing the back and finishing the binding of my baby quilt...