March - Big Events for My Boys Month

I haven't posted in two and a half weeks...gosh, I wonder where I might have been! ;)

If you need a hint, "Eolmana ma?" is how you say "how much for a yard?" at a Korean fabric market. Sort of.

And this is what 15 yards for $45 looks like.

And that other thing we went to Korea for...I think that went well. Honestly, I'm not going to breathe again until we get initial approval. But, we met the Little Man and he flopped right down on the quilt I made for his foster mother and hugged it, so I like him already.

Sewing

Chunky Log Cabin - Finished

Skorca! - Finished

Both long-time UFOs, so good to knock those off the list.

Some smaller projects...

...a table runner for a friend...

...a pillowcase for the Dude...

...and a birthday table runner. For my NINE YEAR OLD.

Quilted

Central Park Sudoku / Reverse Hearts - Hearts is now bound but not all the threads are buried. CPS is waiting for binding.

Piecing

Spin Cycle - adding a few blocks every week. By the way, who bet on 2.5 months before Little Miss Fluffy Tail ripped the design wall down?

Bedtime Monkey {my NewFO} - done to the applique. I can't decide if the monkey ought to have shoulders. He looks a bit weird without them.

Striped Tablerunners - I took a class on these at the beginning of the month and whipped together a few more. Only the birthday ones have been quilted so far.

Weekly Churn Dash - quickly polished off the last two {bottom row} this weekend. The darker teal is from Boardwalk, and the other is, of course, my most favorite fabric ever, the Lovely from my Celtic Solstice. {Does it count as a scrap if you're not done with the quilt yet?}

And speaking of Solstice, I didn't do any sewing on it this month. In fact, I unsewed. I decided the pinwheel centers in Block B were too distracting, so I used the 12+ hour plane rides to rip some seams, and the down time in Seoul to sketch out a plan.

And I dug out Toy Story 1 and discovered it was a whole six seams from finished. So now it's a top.

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

A Year of Lovely Finishes
Fresh Sewing Day @ Lily's Quilts

NewFO @ Cat Patches

Weekly Progress - Some Little Projects

So, this past week was the first time since November that I wasn't devoting 1-2 hours a day to running.

I think it shows.

Finished

Flirt Marks the Spot

Central Park Sudoku - added the borders, finally. I was going to quilt it if I had time after the Flirt session, but it was snowing, so I went to the grocery store for my bread, milk, and eggs instead. The backing is already pinned to the zippers, so it'll get done soon-ish.

After my mother-in-law's marathon Christmas PJ pants sessions, my ironing board was looking sad. It already had the rips, but since my poor old iron leaks, I never use water in it. She didn't know that, so there were lots of water stains added. And the poor old iron gave up.

So I made a fresh new cover and got a fresh new iron. The cover is duck cloth, 54" wide. I left the selvages on and sewed some old double fold binding along the edges, popped in some elastic, and voila! Easy peasy way to brighten up the sewing room.

I moved the Dude's dress up bin to the other side of the play room and set the ironing board in front of the window so I could spy on the neighbors keep an eye out for the school bus. 

And notice the cat bed right underneath? And notice where CC is? Sigh.

I mustache you where you plan on keeping your allowance. {A wallet for the Dude.}

Piecing

Cat Tails - ran out of Dimples. More horrifying - no store around here carries Dimples! Everything is pieced except the rows that can't be, and I'm working on an online order.

Weekly Churn Dash - this was another obvious pick. The backing of Bad Romance and one of my favorites in the pink bin!

I pieced together the jumbled mess of Celtic Solstice pieces from last week. Now let's play "Spot the Error!"

The owner of these fabrics and I worked out a great plan for them. So off I go to piece!

I also cleaned in the sewing room enough to find my list of Fat Quarter Stars - yay! Still can't find the binding for FPF or the table runner pattern. Sigh.

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Celtic Solstice @ Quiltville

Weekly Progress - Tape(r)

Tape and taper contributed a lot to this week.

On my quilty finishes, I tried out batting tape. Usually I franken-batt with a zig zag stitch, but I wanted to try the tape to see if it was faster/better. Also because I just had to get that little triangle in place.

Verdict: eh. No faster. Feels like it's holding just as "strong." Kind of a pain to wrestle batting on the ironing board vs. through the sewing machine. {Note: I do have CC trying to claw her way up anything draped over the ironing board. YMMV.}

The taper led to an epic finish - knocking nearly ten minutes off my personal record.

And the taper also led to lots being done in the sewing room, since I was full of nervous energy and couldn't run it off.

Finished

Owl Always Love You

Quilted

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

Working on the binding!

{Those are bow ties...not butts.}

Four Patch Frenzy

Don't even have binding for it yet. I took it to my long arm rental time as a backup, if-I-still-have-time thing. And then Flirt didn't happen, so I had time. Which makes me sad! Somehow I totally misjudged my backing for Flirt, so I couldn't quilt it. Planning on getting a new back and going back tomorrow! And maybe getting some binding for Frenzy. Eh.

Piecing

Obviously I finished piecing Road to OK - that was a biggie.

After that was done, I worked on borders for Central Park Sudoku.

And a churn dash of the week - this leftover from Big Blue, my largest quilt ever, was an obvious finish for the month of dark blues.

And here's the four blues together!

{Don't mind the feet. The feet wouldn't move. Neither would CC.}
Then I pulled out another UFO, Cat Tails, pieced together the last few cats, and worked on the layout. It exceeds my design wall by a bit, but I think I have a plan worked out.

And some Celtic Solstice leader/enders. I need to do some pressing and shuffle these pieces into blocks!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Weekly Progress - Finishing Machine

What do you do when you used to devote hours to running and now you're firmly in your taper?

A lot of sewing.

This coming week will be even more productive in the sewing room, with a whole three miles to run and no strength or cross training. Oh, and a measly little half marathon at the end of the week.

Finished

Heart Table Runner

Chevron Baby Quilt top

Piecing

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

Pieced the inside and started on the borders. Are those borders? When you're continuing part of a design into the first border, does it really count?

Churn Dash of the Week

These are my very oldest scraps - my mother made dresses out of this material when I was in middle school. Let's just go with over twenty years old. I wore the dress to a handbell concert in Washington DC, and fell off the stage at the Old Post Office. Ah, memories.

Fat Quarter Stars
It's hard to come back to a project like this when you can't remember where you're at. I don't remember if I'm done with the online quilt along, where my list of the 9" stars is, and...so I made this star. At some point before next month, I'll try to figure out where the heck I am with this project!

Quilt Doodle BOM
And then I started a new BOM. Technically, it's a row-of-the-month hosted by Quilt Doodle, but she said it's winter-themed, so I'm hoping to make one block a month for a January-ish wall hanging for my mother. The blocks are 10" and the wall hangings are supposed to be about 30x40", so it should work out.

Obviously Mr. Snowman will be getting button eyes.

And Celtic Solstice is still a leader/ender project. I went back and forth on turning the chevrons to make a star, and not piecing the second block until I was really sure. But after seeing other people post their various versions, I'm sure I want the star. So here it is!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways

Weekly Progress - Tops and Stops

Well, I survived my hardest week of training in, um, probably forever. I've never done a running plan with a 12-mile long run. Longest I've ever run pre-race was just shy of 11, and that didn't include a week of heavy duty sprints and tempo runs beforehand. Ow.

But now I am tapering and foam rolling and icing and treating my legs like princesses. Princess who take Epsom salt baths instead of bubble baths, that is.

And sewing! I've done some of that, too!

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

Stalled out when I realized I didn't calculate my yardage right. And did I mention I bought this fabric last summer in Sun Valley? Oops. I called the store, emailed with the very nice owner and I think the right fabric is on it's way. Otherwise...

But hey - look! I got my design wall off the floor!

...and the countdown to CC pulling it down begins.

Churn Dash of the Week

This is one of my very first fabric purchases, some eleven years ago. It was supposed to become a pillow, I think. Instead, it became a doll dress last year, and then relegated to the scrap bin.

Flirt Marks the Spot

Ever walk into a quilt store, spot the perfect border print immediately, then wander around for thirty minutes because really, the first one can't possibly be the best one?

Yeah. The first one was the best one.

Another project in the bag for long-arming!

And once Flirt was done and I hit a dead end on Road, I went back to whipping up HSTs for in between my sprints. Because I'm fun like that. Almost all the chevrons are triangled-up now.

Hmmm, I may have more tops done by the end of the month than I have time to quilt them...

And finally, Celtic Solstice has been relegated to leader/ender status. Four 54-40 blocks are done, and there's various pieces of each step scattered about the sewing room.

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways

Weekly Progress - HSTs

Somehow I got stuck trimming down bunches of HSTs this week. And I bounced around on a couple different projects - product of not being in the sewing room for a couple weeks. You'd think I'd chose something that doesn't involve so much trimming!

The final layout for Celtic Solstice has been revealed! And I'm changing it. I prefer the stars from the chevrons this way over the boxes in the original design.

CC is delightful, as always.

More HSTs in the Road to Oklahoma {Washington style} quilt. All the four patches are made, all the HST are sewn but not trimmed. I'm working through it a block at a time, trying to get all the seams turned the right way so that everything nests up nicely.

And look, I got a design wall! Just need a place to hang it up. So that CC can tear it down.

AND {obviously I missed sewing over the holidays} I finished off the baby owls top early last week. Backing is purchased, binding is prepped...and the baby shower isn't for a couple weeks! I just have to schedule some longarm time once I have a couple more things to quilt.

AND {I know, right?} I decided on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for this year. I'm going with sweet and simple churn dashes and showcasing some of my favorite scraps. This is the border from my Layer Cake Quilt Along which was made with one of my all-time favorite lines.

AND {seriously} since I had the blue bin out, I cut out the squares for the chevron baby quilt. Then I cut some Kona Bone. Then I sewed them. Then I ran sprints, and in between each mile repeat, I cut them apart and trimmed.

Now I have this! And the knowledge that I can run four miles at sprint pace. With a breather in between.

And because I'm not allowed to work on the new without a bit of the old, I'm slowly sewing together Flirt. There's a LOT of seams to be matched up, so I can only handle two or so in a row. But I should be done this week and then it's time to decide on a border!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Celtic Solstice @ Quiltville

Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways