Retro Granny on its way

It's been nice to start the year off with a relatively clean slate. I have just a couple of knitting projects, a few small sewing projects (that have admittedly been hibernating a long time), and this granny square quilt. I've spent the last days brainstorming new things to work on, but I haven't really landed on anything that's truly grabbed me yet. Looking through my notebook of ideas reminded me that I had this (and those other small projects I mentioned) hanging out ready to be finished, so I'll likely spend some time finishing things before embarking on the new and shiny. 

My dear Retro Granny, as I've decided to name her, has been super fun to put together so far. I discovered I was smart and finished all the blocks up before tucking it away. All I had to do to get started again was take out my cutting board and trim squares. Mom bought me a 12.5" square ruler which has made the dreaded task of squaring up blocks SO MUCH EASIER. I've been doing fine without by using my 6 x 24" ruler and some basic geometry, but it's so much faster with this guy. I will never scoff at how expensive quilting tools are ever again. 

See how amazing that square looks? That's right, a perfect nine inches square. Perfect. It didn't take me long before I had the whole stack of 20 blocks all trimmed up and ready for the next step. 

I thought about skipping the sashing and instead sewing these together side by side. I'm 99% sure this is going to be a baby quilt for Dave's supervisor('s baby), but even given that I think it would have turned out smaller than I would have liked. Plus, after perusing Google images I found that I simply liked the versions with the space around the blocks better. So sashing was cut and sewn on, and before I knew it I had myself a finished top!

Right now I'm apparently a pro at finishing up quilts so hopefully basting, quilting, and binding won't be far behind. It's funny, you'd think after all the work I just did over the holidays I'd be ready for a break, but all I wanted to do when we got home was sit down and sew. Well, that and clean the kitchen, but we won't talk about that.