WiP - Slow Stitching

I'm back from our adventures on the East Coast! My mom's sewing machine was under a pile of construction, but I did get some hand stitching done at their place.

Mom taught me to blanket stitch so I could fix my sister's Cinderella quilt. So far, I stitched the shoe in place and started ripping out the words. See the words in the light pink? No? Yeah, that's why they're out.

At my MIL's, I visited her neighbor who imports threads from Germany. My thought - uh, Gutermann? Nope, turns out it's hand-dyed, artist palettes, all kinds of weights and decorative things that I don't understand. But I understand sparkly and now I have a small sample to play with. As soon as I learn a running stitch.

I also did a lot of binding stitching and got my mother's table runners finished. I'm working my way around the daisy ones next, and then I still have a nice stack waiting to have binding stitched to the front. Sigh.

Once I got home, I pulled together the rows for Luscious Picnic. And a bonus doll quilt from the scraps. And the backing, and the binding, and it's all ready to go when my babysitter comes back.

Then I made five of the flannel stars for Grandma's quilt. I'm going to try to knock out five a day, because that's all I can stand of trimming flying geese.


And California Girl became my leader/ender project, and goodness gracious, she is perfect. LOVE!

Full disclosure moment. What I have to deal with every time I want to take a picture.

And then I realized I hadn't done any BOM stuff. I don't know where I am on churn dashes because it's green...again. Apparently May was emerald green and August is bright green, and all of my May ones were bright, so...maybe dark green? Maybe something totally different?

Anyway, instead of making a decision, I whipped out Part Five for Ripples and Reflections. I had to skip steps because I miscut Fabric Nine. It's been replaced but not yet recut. This step was fairly simple, but as there's sixteen of them, fairly boring.

And finally, my blue palette, borrowed again from Lori Barbely Photography. She goes to Maui and takes these gorgeous pictures, and all I get is a couple yards of fabric. Not fair. And look at those Kona names! Oasis, Breakers - yes!

Linked:
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
Color Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy
Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

WiP - Pool Time

I'm at my in laws, so there's not a lot of sewing going on here.

Whole lot of this, though.

I did manage to get some stuff done before I left, and during naptimes.

Okay, Central Park Sudoku isn't new, but the finished post is.

Checked off part 2 of Ripples and Reflections - a whooping 2.75 hours to build these four matching blocks, at 180 pieces total. I was right about them luring you in with part 1 being fairly easy. Glad to put it away for a month!

Now I'm strip piecing my Hello Luscious-Avignon Picnic. Strips are done and cutting is happening...when there aren't little fingers around. And there's twice as many of those than normal!

The first section is nearly together...and yes, I went color-sorted-scrappy. And yes, cell phone pictures at nine p.m. are amazing.

In a departure from the norm, I went scrappy with my last red churn dash, because I adore my Punctuation scraps and I didn't have enough of one piece to make a block.

And my palette of the week. Look, it's not food! Although suddenly I want pomegranate punch.

There's also been trips to the zoo, and Mary Jo's, and treasure hunts, and smores, and lightning bugs, and did I mention the pool?

Linked:
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
Color Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy
Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

WiP - Diversity

I'm still bouncing all over the place this week, but at least I have some finishes to show for it! And some new skills to boot.

I quilted and bound my sister's Christmas tree skirt, and bound Central Park Sudoku. Making bias binding wasn't a new thing, but attaching it in a circle was. And it wasn't that hard!

Then I practiced a mitered border on a little panel piece from my husband's grandmother's stash. It worked okay...

...so I went ahead and put the mitered border on my Wee Wander quilt. I'm so glad I learned the technique, because this is perfect. Straight borders wouldn't have cut it with this amazing border print.

I finally - finally - finished cutting my MIL's Ripples and Reflections, and made the first block. I'm keeping track - 1 hour to sew, 41 pieces.

And since working with Christmas, modern fabrics, 80s fabric, novelty fabric, and batiks wasn't enough for one week, I started one with homespun-style flannels.

When digging through Grandma's stash, I found two pillowcases with a design and her name and her husband's. And then I felt immense guilt because I've had the denim from her husband's jeans for three years and haven't made her a quilt yet. What kind of person puts off Grandma's quilt??

So I whipped together a plan, dug out these flannels from a kit, and got started!

And in between all this, I cut another neutral jelly roll for my vacation sewing. This is a new one to me - Plaster of Paris - that's very Grunge-like. The real jelly roll is California Girl, bought during my husband's last deployment. Fitting that I should work on it during this one!

Oh, yeah, and my Weekly Churn Dash. This is just a Joann's print, nothing special, but I love the pattern of the white dots and the random blue flowers.


And the design palette of the week! Orange, and I love the matching Kona names. {Photo courtesy of the EPA. Really!}

Linked:
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
Color Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy
Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

June - The Roller Coaster Month

June has been an interesting month - lots of ups and downs.

My husband was supposed to go on a short trip, but ended up shredding an engine and being stuck in Guam for nearly two weeks. {He had three other engines to land with. Clearly this was not an emergency. I like denial.}

Since this was a mere 20 days after getting home with the Little Man, I was going slightly insane by mid-month. Not to mention, no "babysitter" = no long arm rental time = delay in finishing a customer quilt.

But woo - the up! A customer quilt!


A running t-shirt quilt - and I think I did a fabulous job. ;) {My AYOLF goal.}

I also ventured cautiously into the world of branding and hired a designer to do my logo. I'm slowly working toward understanding my Facebook page and blog as a business. Don't worry - it'll take all summer.


I also finished a t-shirt quilt for Lori - just a sneak peek, full post will be Friday. With professional photographs! {Because I mailed it to her.}


Worked on a Tennessee Waltz for my aunt - the first border, an "extension" border is done. {My NewFO.}

Kept steadily cutting Ripples and Reflections. O.M.G. So much cutting! I thought I would cheat and just cut step 1, but so many of the steps overlap pieces. I need one Fabric 4, Piece B, for Step 1, then four more in Step 6, and the last three in Step 10 - or something like that. So I need to cut everything...and I really don't know how to organize it.


Put extension borders on Summer Drinks. I wasn't sure on this, but I think it's the perfect way to finish it off.


Finished the star blocks for Cardinal Charms and started piecing the rest of the quilt. I laid it out and thought about making more star blocks {six seems paltry} but I really like the 10x12 layout. So I'm sticking with it.

{And yes, the colors will be spread out. Just threw them on the design wall/floor to check layout numbers.}

Since we're halfway, here's six months of Churn Dashes. Not too many darker ones, but this month is red, so there will be some darker tones added. Overall I'm really happy with these!

Oh, and I made a skirt! A very simple maxi skirt, but I followed instructions. And my fabric wasn't stretchy in the same direction as the instructions. So my waistband had no stretch...plus I measured after eating pasta, so everything was just a little off. ;) I ended up sewing a casing, picking out the side seam, and putting in elastic. Little extra work but it fits fine now! And the foldover waist hides the extra stitching.


There was also school finishing and national park visiting and half marathon running and lion feeding and inappropriate dam joking. You know, summer stuff.

Linked:
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
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

June Goals

Well, since I got so much done in May...

Hahahaha...sigh.

Anyway.

In June, I have two t-shirt quilts to finish off.

This one for a Half Fanatic/Marathon Maniac. I pieced the last two blocks this morning so tomorrow starts assembly!

And this one for my running buddy, Lori. Lori ordered the grid style, so it should go together fast. We just need to have a debate about how much I love her and might be willing to part with the best fabric ever from Korea.

{And she's going to point out that she sent fabric from Hawaii and kitty fabric scraps. Like that makes a difference.}

Other than that, I have a half marathon in Seattle. No biggie. I run those all the time. :P

And I should really get Ripples and Reflections fully cut and started. Or at least stop cutting in color order and start cutting for the first step. It's a BOM quilt with 11 months of steps and May 2015 is the deadline. Time.to.start.now.

Crud, and something old. Um. I finally found the border pieces AND the top of Summer Drinks, so I can try to throw that together. {I'm totally not going to, but we can pretend for the sake of the linky, mmkay?}

And then other than the Cardinal Charms and Churn Dashes leader/enders, I'm not committing to anything else. Mostly because I need to start {gulp} prepping my lesson plans for sewing classes. You know, when the toddler isn't turning off the computer every three sentences. {WHO PUTS THE GLOWING POWER BUTTON ON THE TOP??}

Linked

A Year of Lovely Finishes

Something Old, Something New @ Never Too Hot to Stitch

May Goals

I don't really have many goals beyond, um, getting and then getting to know my toddler. I think that might keep me busy this month.

But hey! I can be unrealistic anyway!

In old news, there's plenty of binding to do, especially Cat Tails, which will be my Blogger's Quilt Festival entry and therefore my AYOLF goal.

Ripples and Reflections needs to be started since the official one-year-countdown to my MIL's 60th birthday starts in a few weeks.

St. Paul's Cross should be an easy one to do a few steps here and there. Save me the slow frustration of hating paper piecing when I'm only doing it in spurts.

And if I move enough things through the columns of my spreadsheet... {Yes, I have a spreadsheet tracking quilt progress. Doesn't everyone?} 

I think I'm going to call the Cardinal Charm Tessellation the new leader/ender project. I want it for Christmas for my FIL, and it'll take a while as a l/e. But mindlessly sewing squares to corners is a good l/e.

Linked

A Year of Lovely Finishes

Something Old, Something New @ Never Too Hot to Stitch

Weekly Progress - And a Happy New Year!

I'm continuing the trend of not much work over the holidays - while my mother-in-law polished off 4.5 pairs of flannel jammie pants at my machine. And she put all the scraps in my bins! Guess who's getting a flannel rag quilt next Christmas?

This Christmas, she got a Kindle, so I whipped together a case for her. She left a big bag of batik fat quarters and scraps here after Rainbow Sherbet, so it was pretty easy to pick out three fabrics from there and pull it together. I just cut an outside and lining to fit, with an added outside pocket for her glasses and stylus. And many layers of heavy duty interfacing.

I might buy a pack of hair elastics and replace the button-y-thing-y next time she's here...I don't love the white elastic.

And I know her initials are crooked...dang embroidery hoop slipped.

{I have got to do something about the lack of design WALL soon!}

I laid out the blocks for the baby owl quilt in a mostly-symmetrical-but-looks-random pattern. All ready to become rows sometime this week!

And I mostly kept up with Celtic Solstice. I'm worried that my yellow {an ombre stripe} is too pale in places, and now that it's against the neutral...I'm still worried. We'll see how it looks overall.

I also worked on cutting pieces for Ripples and Reflection. It will be my BOM for the year, so my goal for January is to get all the fabrics cut and organized.

Oh, and you know how I mentioned eleven projects in my NewFOs for 2014, with one spot open for whatever pops up during the year? Um, yeah... Mother-in-law and I went to Bear Paw Quilting, and I was utterly smitten by the Downton Abbey fabrics. I don't even watch the show! 

I bought this pattern, which is done up all pretty in DA fabrics, but I think I'm going to change it a smidge, and try it out on my Pat Bravo stash. Then if I'm very good...maybe I'll get some DA.

Linked:

Fifteen Minute Challenge @ Life In Pieces
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Celtic Solstice @ Quiltville

Weekly Progress - Little Bits

I am still slowly unpacking. We're at the lovely point where it feels like it will never actually get done, and we will drown in piles before we figure out where everything goes. So.Many.Tchotchkes.

This, of course, extends to the sewing room. I have no idea where I'm going to put a design wall. 

My two corners of the room look like this:

And this:

 

Wall space is pretty much gone. The front {toy} half of the room is all windows, so I'm not gaining any wall there. At this point, I think pinning a flannel-backed tablecloth to the archway is my only option. Sigh. I hate trying to fit into a new place!

But anyway, in between bursts of unpacking, I did manage a few little things.

Cut all the reds for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge leaders/enders.

And while I had the box out, I cut the reds for my Rainbow Chevron quilt.

And since I clearly hadn't spent enough time at the cutting table, I cut the first piece of Ripples & Reflections. It's actually the third color, but the first one is the border and the second one is the huge corner setting triangles - no need to cut those down for another year or so.

And I finished the nine-patches and four-patches for Flirt Marks the Spot. Still have snowball-ish blocks to piece before any sort of assembly, though.

Linked:

Fifteen Minute Challenge @ Life In Pieces

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

    

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

    

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure