Skorca! - Finished

Just running right through the list of UFOs. This is another longtime one - finished the top in March 2012. I covered the problems I had with quilting it earlier this week - short version, that many bias seams and a walking foot do not make pretty.


The longarm makes a huge difference, and changed my love/hate relationship with Skorca to just a simple like. The top still has some puffiness to it, but it's not a disaster like it was before.

Oh, right, so there's this show, the Penguins of Madagascar. It's basically awesome, and the best episode of all is Skorca.

The penguins at the Central Park zoo are afraid of the Sky Orca - the Skorca. I swear, the first time we watched this, I laughed for five minutes.

As I remember, I started Orca Bay with Quiltville right from the start, and it was renamed by the Dude to Skorca within the first week. Skorca was my first time doing a mystery quilt, and eh...it was a learning experience.

{That bear peeking out is hands down my favorite scrap in this quilt.}

I didn't do a good enough job picking fabrics - some of my black and whites had too much white, and the blocks aren't as defined as I would like, as you can see above. I solved that by letting the Dude draw on some of the blocks.

The quilting, which you can almost see in the above picture, is a looped swirl with a meander in between.

The Dude picked more than the name - the borders, backing, and the quilting were his picks as well.

Oh, and there's a story behind the layout, according to him. The penguins {border}, obviously, are on the icebergs {stop border.} The black and white blocks are the orcas, swimming in the blue {block} ocean. And the red is the BLOOD OF THE ORCAS' VICTIMS.

Living with a boy is super fun.

I also discovered I hate - and I do mean HATE - string blocks. I will never make one again. If pattern calls for them, I'll just substitute a single solid block. Don't try to convince me that they make the quilt better, because...

My hate is your gain. As I cleaned out my scrap boxes, I've been stuffing everything under 1.5" into this box. It's about a gallon size bag or so of skinny strips, selvages, and some random triangle-y shapes.

Want 'em? Enter with Rafflecopter. You don't need to comment or like me on Facebook or Tweet about it. However, there are scraps in there from Joann's and Hobby Lobby, as well as "quilt shop quality" - so if you don't want them...don't enter.

Oh, and sorry - since we're leaving for Korea shortly, I'm limiting this to US entries. I just don't have time to make it to the post office and find the proper stuff for international.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

{Why yes, that is a Perry pillowcase from Phineas and Ferb, our other favorite show.}

Quilt Details

Fabric: hahaha, you're kidding, right?

Backing: from Hancock Fabrics

Binding: more B&W scraps

Size: 66" square

Pattern: Orca Bay by Bonnie Hunter, now found in String Fling

Linked:

Whoop Whoop @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

TGIFF @ Sew Giving

Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Link A Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

I Quilt @ Pretty Bobbins

Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation

Finish-Along @ The Littlest Thistle {FAL List}

Weekly Progress - Striped Table Runners

Y'all. I have a new addiction.

And it's not a TV show.

Or Benedict Cumberbatch.

{CC....still a PITA!}

I took a class on these striped table runners, because my mom bought the witch fabric a while ago and asked for one. I bought the pattern in Oklahoma, but finally committed to the class here, because I wanted someone to hold my hand for the first few cuts.

They are so easy, once someone holds your hand through the first few cuts! A yard and a half yields two long runners and one hexagon one, with only a little bit of excess fabric.

I may have a problem. But at least it's a quick project!

Finished

Vera Bradley Quilt

Reverse Hearts top - ready to quilt!

Quilting

I feathered all the blocks of Chunky Log Cabin, but ran out of time before I got to the borders. Back on Wednesday this week.

Unquilting

I have been picking out the quilting in Skorca for a while now. I originally quilted it at home with my walking foot, and it was terrible. Not in an "oh, I think it's terrible but it's really kind of okay" - really, terrible. 

It was well pinned, but see that bubble behind Skipper? The quilt kept shifting and stretching over and over with each line, and it kept getting worse. My stitches were awful - I'd hit a massive seam and stop, then have large jumps when the walking foot finally made it through. There's puckers all over the back.

I made it about halfway across the top and quit last year out of frustration. I honestly think Bonnie Hunter's patterns can't be quilted at home with a walking foot - there's just too many seams and bias edges.

Enter the long arm late last year, and suddenly Skorca is a viable project again. I'm down to one episode of Downton Abbey of stitch picking to go, and the plan is to get it quilted and bound for the Dude's birthday. Only two years late!

Piecing

Weekly Churn Dash - the border from Flirt, because I love Flirt so very much and I would make every churn dash this month from it if it hadn't been a jelly roll.

Spin Cycle is moving along well. Once all the square-in-square blocks are done, each block goes together quickly.

I'm debating using the dark blue from Happy Go Lucky. I like it...but I think it's way out of the color scheme, and would be distracting. I don't need it - I have plenty of fabric to finish without it - but...I really love those puff balls! Thoughts?

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

Messes and Mess-ups Monday @ Sewing by Moonlight

FAL - First Quarter

My January goal list was mostly finish blocks, not finish quilts. So...what do I want/expect to actually finish before March 31?

The pile o'unquilted tops is nearing the top of the chair...should probably work on that. 

Specifically, Fall-gyle, Frolicking Pinwheels, Star Wall Hanging, Layer Cake Snowballs, Skorca!, and Olivia Schnibble. That's two a month, one big, one small. Doable.

Two are Christmas, but with a move halfway through the year, I'd really like to get all the Christmas stuff packed and moved together, including the finished quilts. Which requires finished quilts.

I also want to get over my nerves and deconstruct a flight suit. Really want to make it into a camera bag for our Spring Break vacation. Desert or regular?

And I have two t-shirt quilts, a heart wall hanging, and a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star quilt to make. But they're not UFOs, so they don't count. As much. I took the orders in 2012, so maybe they should count!

Linked:
Finish-A-Long @ She Can Quilt

Weekly Progress - On UFOs

I have not started anything really new in ages. But I need to get somewhere with all these projects before I can start something new!

T-shirt quilts are not very creative. But they force me to be very precise in piecing. And they pay for more creative quilts.

Design Wall - LQS Saturday Sampler 2011

I'm working on this because I have to - it has a date with the long arm and needs to be in a box by Christmas. But all that white space and the simple layout makes the blocks pop.

Grandmother's Choice, block six. I like this one. I don't like #7, and I really don't like #8. But this is a BOW about choice. So...I'm going to do the blocks I like, and appreciate the work the designer put into each week even if I don't make the block.

 Fat Quarter Stars - I made two 12" blocks - Weather Vane and LeMoyne Star - from my shop hop collection. Then I figured that if I was going to get my sister's block book back to her, I should start doing those. So, my first 9" block - Air Castle.
Technically, Weather Vane and Air Castle aren't stars, but they are kind of star-like.

UFO Busting

 Oh, Skorca! I mowed the backyard on Sunday to put off quilting this UFO...talk about a bad sign. I think I need something different than one UFO day a week - because I will come up with a hundred excuses to not sew that day! This week, I'm going to try quilting for an hour each day. That should, hopefully, take care of Skorca, and then maybe I can move on. 

Fifteen Minute Challenge - Organization

 I only folded fabric once in the past week. The cutting table? Covered. The sewing table? Piles on the corners. Felt boxes are on the floor from a kid craft project, I have a giant basket of t-shirt scraps... I need to DO my 15 minutes this week!

Oh, and my other deadline project. Crazy as the idea was, this is actually coming along nicely. The base of the costume is done - now I'm adding the layers. 

Linked:

Fifteen Minute Challenge @ Life In Pieces

UFO Sunday @ the Free Motion Quilting Project

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

BOMs Away Mondays @ What A Hoot

Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Weekly Progress - Serious Progress!

We are finally getting into a routine and getting life into a rhythm, and I got tons done this week!

Finished: 

Bad Romance - finally!

Fifteen Minute Challenge - Organization

Slow and steady, I am getting my sewing room under control. I did my fifteen minutes every day this week: sorting scraps, folding bigger scraps, filing patterns and keeping the flat surfaces clear.

Design Wall - LQS Saturday Sampler 2011

I want this to be a Christmas gift, so I talked to my quilter and scheduled it to go to her on Nov. 15. Deadline!

UFO Busting
Leah's post last week was about the snowball effect - working on little things to free up more time to work on the bigger things. So I looked at my stack of flimsies and picked Bad Romance because it was already halfway quilted.

Next, quilted a wall hanging for my mother. Binding is on and handstitching has begun.

Now I'm at the point that the next quilt done will probably be my Blogger's Quilt Festival Quilt....so I want it to be a good one. But also one that has a back picked already...which kind of limited it to Skorca! 

Blocks
 
Grandmother's Choice, block five. It's a little chaotic, but I like it!

I found six of these blocks {leftover from Sunkissed Jewel Box} and made four into a pillow-sized block. Once I quilt the quilt version, I'll use leftover backing to finish off the pillow. The other two blocks...I don't know. Probably make a notebook cover or something.

Other
 
Toyland Row Quilt had a few of the rows sewn together. I'm not in a hurry to finish it...only to add it to the quilting pile.

No picture, but I finished another t-shirt quilt to the quilting stage! I should finish that off this week.

And finally, I started making these as leaders/enders, thanks to a tutorial on the Sew Lux blog.

Linked:
Fifteen Minute Challenge @ Life In Pieces

UFO Sunday @ the Free Motion Quilting Project

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

BOMs Away Mondays @ What A Hoot

Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Finish-A-Long First Quarter Summary

It's March 31st already?? Yikes! 

I said I wanted to finish three quilts this quarter, plus quilt as least one of my languishing tops. 

Then life, as it does, went all topsy turvy. My husband is deploying. In conjunction, the Dude and I are going to live with my parents this summer. They have a huge basement floor perfect for quilt basting. (I can't easily baste anything bigger than 50" on my kitchen floor.)

{And they have three cats. So there will be five of them "helping" me. And one is convinced he's still a kitten. He'll be a BIG help.}

So all tops - except for three baby quilts I need to finish in the coming quarter - will be doing more languishing until then. So I'm not technically finished with these, but I am finished in accordance with the new plans in my life.

Skorca! - top finished

Frolicking Pinwheels - top finished

Big Blue - top finished, quilted, waiting for binding

Linked:
Finish-A-Long
Slash the Stash

Sunday Stash Report - Week 12

Remember last week, when I bought A Walk in the Woods? My sister outdid me and bought the whole fat quarter set. Some of them might go missing next time I visit... 

Anyway, she went fabric shopping in honor of National Quilting Day, and at her shop, someone was showing off a finished Orca Bay.

Coincidentally, I'm showing off one too! Small world, indeed.

Not only that, but one of the blue borders was giving me a massive headache (sewed/unsewed it FOUR times), so I whipped these blocks into a finished top to release my frustration.

Of course, I did go fabric shopping last Sunday...

The blue is the borders for Skorca (and granny squares, and possibly Star Wars...) The floral is Denyse Schmidt's Daisy Mae, to back my Chunky Log Cabin (yes, I bought it just for the Mae.) The orange orca flannel is the backing for Skorca...seriously. That's the last time the Dude gets to pick.

ETA: I mailed off my giveaway last week! Duh! Need to count outs wherever I can get them!

Used this Week: 10.35

Used Year to Date: 33.67

Added this Week: 12.83

Added Year to Date: 80.33

Net Used for 2012: (46.66) yards

Check out more reports at Patchwork Times!

FMC/WiP - Deep Breaths

Early spring/no winter means the cottonwoods are in full bloom very early this year, and it's killing me. Literally. My trachea is about as big as a pin. If I tilt my head down or up more than 45 degrees, I can't breathe. Fun times.

I told my husband I was allergic to deployments. He didn't think I was funny. But he did hide the chainsaw when I threatened to cut down my neighbor's cottonwood tree.

Fifteen Minute Challenge - nothing really to show. I've been spending 15 minutes a day cleaning the sewing space, sorting patterns, folding fabric, etc. Since all my patterns are currently (sorted!) on the floor, it's at the "things look worse before they look better" stage. 
On the plus side, you can see the top of my Necchi sewing table! (Which the cat promptly started sitting on.)

Quilt-Alongs: 

Fat Quarter Stars - 6/12 blocks - blocks 6 and 9. I cheated on 6 - didn't want to make a Cathedral Window - so I faked it.

LQS Saturday Sampler 2012 - 6/36 - new blocks to make

LQS Saturday Sampler 2011 - Blocks 10 & 12! I really like 12 - I think it's my favorite of the bunch. Now that I'm finished with the BOMs, it's time to start putting together a quilt.

Quiltville Orca Bay {Skorca!} - I couldn't find a blue for the border until Sunday, so it's slowly getting borders. The penguin border is directional, so I had to do math and careful cutting to get them facing the right direction.

Swoon A Little, Swoon A Lot - no new blocks - I can only do so many intense piecing blocks a week!

Granny Squares - yeah, I know, another quilt-along. Shush. I need to make a quilt for my cousin's baby, and she gave me free range, and I'm so over making stars right now. I'm making granny squares with a "special" center - minkee, fur, flannel, corduroy, etc. I tried to be careful and not get near the minkee, but, um, not careful enough. Oops.

Untouched This Week:

Chunky Log Cabin

St. Paul's Cross

Frolicking Pinwheels

Awaiting Quilting:

Sunkissed Jewel Box

Bad Romance

Layer Cake Quilt Along

Hunter's Star

Fall-gyle

Star Wall Hanging

At the Quilter's:

Big Blue

Adoption:

Application Submitted - 2/12 

Home Study - in progress 

New Projects: 1

Completed Projects: 0

In Progress: 16

Linked:

Work in Progress Wednesday

Life in Pieces' Fifteen Minute Challenge

WiP/FMC - Swoon and Skorca Week

Hey, for the first time in two weeks, I don't have any fun life events to share! It's good to have a quiet week.

Fifteen Minute Challenge - I did my mini-quilt (see below) Wednesday-Saturday. Then I realized how messy the sewing room had gotten, and dedicated 15 minutes every day to putting away the clutter. Most of it was scraps for Skorca that could finally go back to their boxes. 

And then there was the pile of the Dude's jeans that surpassed his non-destroyed pants. What is it about boys and knees? Fifteen minutes later, there's patches to survive the spring before these become shorts. Like all his pants have for the last three years.

My mini-quilt. It's hanging on the wall until I get the nerve to try hand embroidery again.

Quilt-Alongs: 
Fat Quarter Stars - 6/12 blocks - will be getting more background fabric on Saturday and having some catch up time

LQS Saturday Sampler 2012 - 6/36 - caught up!

LQS Saturday Sampler 2011 - 10/12 blocks

Quiltville Orca Bay {Skorca!} - is 90% assembled...and all you get is a shot of the middle rows. All I'm going to say is it looks pretty awesome...somehow way smaller than I thought. Something with 80-billion-little-pieces should be bigger than 58" square. Wait, when did 58" square become small?

Swoon A Little, Swoon A Lot - really like this color combo

{Creepy Cat as I assembly Swoon pieces}

Untouched This Week:

Chunky Log Cabin

St. Paul's Cross

Frolicking Pinwheels

Awaiting Quilting:

Sunkissed Jewel Box

Bad Romance

Layer Cake Quilt Along

Hunter's Star

Fall-gyle

Star Wall Hanging

At the Quilter's:

Big Blue

Adoption:
Application Submitted - 2/12 
Home Study - in progress 

New Projects: 0

Completed Projects: 1

In Progress: 15

Linked:

Work in Progress Wednesday

Life in Pieces' Fifteen Minute Challenge
 What A Hoot's BOMs Away!

And check out my giveaway here!

Design Wall Monday - Skorca! (Last Time!)

Yup, this is the last time you'll see Skorca! on the design wall.

All I have left is sewing the red and blues together, and then the rows. Borders on by Friday? I think it can be done!

As long as I remember to fix that one twisted hourglass...

Check out more design walls at Patchwork Times.

And check out my giveaway here!