Block Progress

I have finished the top I was working on, and put together all the blocks for a second complementary top.  This quilt pattern is from "Modern Neutrals" by Amy Ellis.

For the second quilt I reversed the dark and light fabrics, so the overall effect is a slightly lighter/brighter quilt this time. Once I get all the new blocks put together, I'll have to take pictures of the two quilts in the same location so that the lighting is the same.  But for now, I think I do like the lighter one better.

It's also time to add up my blocks for the month, for the 350 block challenge.  I thought it was going to be a slow month, but I surprised myself.  These are all the blocks I made this month:

6 arrows - block lotto
4 blocks - 60 degree triangle samples
3 blocks - finishing pyramid quilt(that's a guesstimate, since the quilt doesn't have traditional blocks)
20 blocks - neutral quilt
20 blocks - second neutral quilt
16 blocks - guild mystery


That's a total of 69 blocks completed this month.  And (69+74) = 143 blocks so far this year.

I'm linking up at WIPs be Gone today, and at the 350 block challenge.  

More UFOs Finished

I found a few more small projects that were piled in a corner of my sewing room.  Cleaning up is great for turning up long-forgotten items.  First, there's this table runner.  I made this ages ago (2 years?) as part of a 60 degree triangle experiment. Now that I think about it, this would have been a great sample for my 60 degree demo a couple of weeks ago.

It just needed 1/2 the binding sewn down, so that is all taken care of now

I also dug out these placemats.  I made these for a colour challenge last fall, but only finished one of them.  Now all 4 are done and ready to be donated.

You can see in the closeup the ruffle that I added down one edge. This was a tutorial I found on pinterest, but the source of that seems to have disappeared.

And one more UFO on the way to finishing.  I finished quilting this top today, so it just needs binding now.

I'm linking up at TGIFF today.

Found some UFOs

In the process of cleaning my sewing room in order to replace the carpet, I found some old UFOs.  These 2 little quilts were intended for donation at a guild, for NICU babies.  All I had to do was add the binding, so I found some suitable fabric and stitched them up.  All done and ready to donate (after a quick spin through the washer, since they've been collecting dust for over a year).

I also found some placemats and a table runner, so those are next on the list for finishing. Just some hand stitching to do there, then I'll take them to the Modern Guild meeting for donation to Meals on Wheels.  No pictures of those until they are done.

And, I've been working busily on 2 new projects, of course. Step 5 & 6 of the guild mystery quilt are now complete.  So many interesting variations of the blocks we made here. I can't wait to see how it all comes together. But still 2 more steps before the assembly.  We'll see those next month.

I have put together the rows of my neutral quilt, and started version two. This one will reverse the light/dark sections so I can see how the alternate arrangement looks. I actually had enough fabric to make the new one the same size as the original, so I'll have 2 48x60" quilts when I'm done.

Now that the guild mystery is all caught up, I need to figure out what is next (other than the second neutral quilt). I think I should probably get caught up on the Border Creek Station mystery, so I'll pull that out next time I'm in the sewing room.

Design Wall Monday - Feb 23

My design wall hasn't changed much since Friday. I do have the last 4 blocks made for this quilt, but not pressed yet.

That doesn't mean I haven't been quilting, however. I finished longarming a customer's quilt yesterday.  And did some work on the binding for one of mine while I caught up on a TV show last night.

And I did manage to get all these blocks done for the guild mystery quilt. One more set of blocks to go and I'm all done the February clue.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to this week.

Stash Report - Feb 22

I had a finish this week, so I have some new yardage to report out. And my willpower continues - nothing came in this week.

2 yards - batik baby quilt
3/4 yard - binding for 2 quilts (Bonnie Hunter/One block wonder)

I just need to finish stitching the binding down on the two quilts, and I'll have real finishes to report for this year.  And now I'm looking at the two quilts coming together on my wall (posted here) and wishing I had counted the fabric before I started cutting. I'll have to figure out how much I used for them.

Stash totals for the year:
72.5 yards in
58.25 yards out
Total: 14 1/4 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see how everyone else is doing this week.

Work in Progress

I've been working on a new quilt, using up some fabric I bought about a year and a half ago. This is Robert Kaufmann "Shimmer", and I fell in love with the fabric when I first saw it.

However, this is not exactly what I was expecting/hoping this quilt would look like. The pattern is from "Modern Neutrals" by Amy Ellis.  It was supposed to be all soft shades, in medium and light. But when I bought this fabric, I picked up some darks along with the light neutrals.  I though they would pass as mediums, but they've made this quilt darker than I expected.

I have enough strips left to cut a 3x4 quilt with the larger squares from the lighter fabric. I'm going to try that, and see what I get from it.  In the end, I'll have 2 donation quilts from these blocks. This one, 48x60" with 20 blocks, and the other will be 36x48" with 12 blocks.

I also have made some progress on the guild mystery quilt. I have 4 blocks assembled, and the instructions for the next 2 steps came out on Wednesday, so I'm working on those blocks now.

I'm linking up over at WIPs be Gone, even though I seem to be creating more WIPs than finishing.

Progress

I finished one top over the weekend, successfully keeping it from becoming a UFO.  This little top started as a sample of what you can do with a 60 degree ruler.  I took 20 10" squares that I had leftover (from that quilt that I STILL cannot find), and cut them all into 4 5" triangles and 4 1/2 triangles (the "leavings" on the edges).  The center came out at 27x29", adding 2 pieced borders and the white batik (also from that same quilt leftovers) turned it into a 36x48" quilt, perfect for a donation to Victoria's Quilts. I pieced the backing from some leftover flannel, and now it sits in my closet waiting for a turn on the longarm.

I've also been working to catch up on a guild mystery.  I thought I'd get farther, but every little bit helps. This is the October clue and almost all of the November clue complete.  I had hoped to be all caught up by Wednesday but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

I'm linking up over at WIPs be Gone today.  Drop by to see what everyone is up to.

Design Wall Monday - Feb 16

There are a few little odds and ends on my design wall this week.  I was asked to do a demo at the LQS last weekend, on using a 60 degree ruler. So I made a few samples to help illustrate what I was talking about, and the myriad of projects you can make with that ruler.  So now I have all these "half-finsihed" objects in my posession - and rather than add them all to a UFO pile, I thought I'd just try to finish them up right away.

First up, the thousand pyramid quilt. Ok, in this case it's more like 60 pyramids, but you get the idea :)  This is about 28" square. A little too big for a quiltie, plus I still have some off-cuts left, so I'm going to add a couple of borders and see if it can finish at 30x48" for a Victoria's Quilts donation.

The other two are larger projects, with more fabric available, so I may put them on the back burner while I finish a couple of other small projects.

Plus there's the fact that my son helped me move some furniture around yesterday. We disassembled my whole sewing table (the parts don't fit through the doorway intact) and moved it to the other bedroom where I'm relocating my sewing area.  So I have a bit of a disaster on my hands now - projects & fabric all over the floor of my current room. Cleaning really should be in the plans for today.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to today.

Stash Report - Feb15

It was a good week in the sewing room, for the stash count anyway. I quilted two tops, and got another one finished. That's lots of fabric I get to count out today.

3.5 yards - backing for One-block Wonder.
5 yards - borders & settings for block of the week
4.5 yards - backing for Grand Illusion

13 yards out. And not a single one in this week.

Stash totals for the year:
72.5 yards in
55.5 yards out
Total: 17 yards in

Woo hoo!  I'm definitely heading in the right direction here.

Drop by Judy's blog to see how everyone else is doing this week.

Design Wall Monday

This quilt is now officially off my design wall.  I'm not 100% happy with the borders, but it's what I could do with the fabric I had.  Paying shipping charges from the US to buy another 3 yards of the border print was not in the cards.

This corner of the border I love.

I really enjoyed making this quilt - 1 six-inch blocks a week, for 49 weeks, so it's been a work in progress for a long time.  It was definitely a chance to work with a lot of different blocks, and some very small pieces.

Now that this one is done, I've already started my next project. Yes, I know I should be quilting some of my (now) 23 quilt tops.  And I did get one loaded this weekend. But a girl needs a break from the longarm once in a while :)

Here's the fabric for my next adventure (ignore those bright yellow/purple/red splotches - I didn't realize I'd piled the fabric on another quilt). The quilt is coming from "Modern Neutrals" by Amy Ellis.

Stash Report - Feb 8

Well, here it is. 17 quilts on hangers with backings and ready to be quilted. None of the backings are counted out yet - I'll do that when I load them on the longarm, because I've been known to change my mind before it gets to that point.

I know I said 22 in my stack - one is too big to hang up (ok, I just can't be bothered to try to refold the giant thing); I'm working on the backing for one; one is too small to hang; I'm still looking for one more backing.  That's 4 of the others. And sadly, one has completely disappeared :(  I can't find it anywhere, despite cleaning/moving just about everything in my sewing room.  It has to be there somewhere, so hopefully it will turn up when I get to the bottom of a bin one day.

I'm going to link up to WIPs Be Gone, with all my WIPs that need to go :)

And my stash report this week - not too bad although it did head in the wrong direction.  More than half of what came in has gone out so far this year, so that's good news however.

In this week:
2 yards - borders & binding for block of the week
2 yards - additional backing for Tell it to the Stars

Nothing I can count as out for this week, but next up on the longarm is one of mine, so that will get a backing counted.

Stash totals for the year:
72.5 yards in
42.5 yards out
Total: 30 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see how everyone else is doing this week.

WIP Wednesday

I've been busy trying to organize a bit in my sewing room, collecting all my finished tops and matching them up with backing & binding fabric.  I have 10 quilt tops hanging in my closet now, so I guess I'm about half-way through them all.  A couple I still have to find, somewhere in the depths of my sewing room.

In the meantime, I have been fitting in some sewing.  I made 6 blocks for the Februrary block lotto.  I'll get to admire these for a while, but unless I get lucky in the draw, they will all be flying away at the end of the month.

I'm linking up today with Freshly Pieced and the Needle and Thread Network.

Design Wall Monday

I have an almost-finished top on my design wall today. I've been working this week on assembling my block of the week project. I decided to go with a rectangular quilt with 48 blocks, rather than the original 49.

The quilt is upside down on my wall, so the borders here are also upside down.  The border panel on the right/bottom of this photo was the inspiration for the colours in this quilt.  But because the fabric was printed with only 1 border strip rather than two symmetric ones, I only bought enough for 2 sides of the quilt (buying 8 meters of fabric just for the border strip seemed excessive, even to me :) )

The other borders will be from the rest of that print - the wild circles you see on the left.  Unfortunately it appears I did not buy the inner border fabric at the same time.  That would be fine on the right, but I think the fabric on the left needs a small solid border between it and the quilt. So I'll have to head over to the quilt shop and find something tomorrow.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else has on their design wall this week.

I'm also linking up over at WIPs Be Gone.

Stash Report - Feb 1

I managed to avoid making any fabric purchases this week, and I finished the last of my mystery quilts from New Year's Day. That's good news for my stash report this week.

Used:
about.com mystery - 7 1/2 yards

Stash totals for the year:
68.5 yards in
42.5 yards out
Total: 26 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see how everyone else is doing this week.