Sewing Saturday

I decided to take a lazy Saturday, and spend as much of it in my sewing room as possible.  It's time, I decided, to start the March colour challenge.  Finishing the Dancing with the Stars BOM can wait. And the indigo quilt still hasn't told me how to quilt the white areas.  So, March comes out.  Cuting and sewing, and more cutting and sewing, and this is what I had by noon.

I took a break and did the grocery shopping. The fridge was pretty bare, and I figured that feeding the kids was probably a necessity this weekend.  So, groceries purchased and put away.  And back to my sewing and cutting, and more sewing. 

Here is my current progress.  36 of these blocks to make, and just 3 more strips to attach to most of them.  I may even get them all made today.  Then I can play with the layouts.

For now, I'm going to put my feet up for an hour. Then think about doing some laundry and starting dinner, before I head back into my sewing room for the evening.

UFO no more

I took my March UFO, and contemplated the various sashing options overnight.  Morning brought clarity and a decision.  Then, all I had to do was get through a full day of work, before I could get back into my sewing room to put the final touches on the project.

I chose the blue/orange batik, and added corner stones in the orange.  The corners of the quilt are an extra block that I made, which turned out to be 1/4" too small.  Using the pieces there meant that the border strips were 39" long - just perfect for one width of fabric.

I love the end result.  Thanks to Judy's UFO Challenge, another poor, ignored project came out of the closet, and turned into a quilt.  I have a backing fabric in mind, so there's even a chance this will be quilted before the end of the month.  But, I'm not getting my hopes up.  First on the list - quilt the indigo quilt, and make my March Colour Challenge quilt.

To sash, or not to sash

My March UFO is trucking along nicely.  I'm auditioning sashing options now, trying to decide if the quilt needs something or not. And if so, what. 

First, the no sashing option.  Not bad, although I'm not sure what I'll do with borders, since I'm out of the orange.

A few options here - a mutlicolour, which I think is too busy, and too yellow.  Darker orange, as someone suggested in a comment yesterday.  And what is actually a dark purple, although it appears black in the photo.

And one final option. This fabric is already tagged for backing for another quilt, but if there's enough length I could use it here.

I guess I'll sleep on it and see what it looks like in the morning.

March UFO

Today I'm linking up over at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday, for the first time.

I pulled out my March UFO yesterday.  Judy picked #8 on the UFO list, which is my stack-and-whack quilt.  I started this one a couple of years ago, planning to make some spiderweb blocks with some striped fabric that I had in my stash.  I got to this stage, and then it went onto a shelf. It's been resting there ever since.

So, yesterday, in an attempt to finish some projects rather than starting on a new one (my March colour challenge or another quilt I just designed), I decided to have a look.  I already knew that the original plan for this quilt - which was purple around the webs - would not work. First, it was too dark. And second (and more importantly), I used the purple fabric in a different quilt a few months ago. That's what happens when I leave projects half done.

As of tonight, this is what I have complete.  3 more blocks to go.  I think I'll set them like this, although I may audition some sashing before I make a final decision. What do you think?

Just loafing

This is Cari - making herself comfortable as can be, in my bread basket.   Silly cat. I guess I should know better than to leave out something that she fits into so well. 

After extracting the furry loaf from my bread basket, I headed upstairs to sew.  After all, it's Mystery Monday today, and I have clue #10 in my hands.  And, here is the result of that one.  For now, I've taken this mystery down off the wall - 9 blocks are much easier to keep together than all those little bits would have been. 

Now to decide what's next.  My current "active" list is:

1. Quilt the indigo quilt - still looking for inspiration on the quilting design
2. Finish Mystery Monday - whenever the clues complete - still have assembly and borders to go
3. Dancing with the stars BOM - one more block this month
4. Blogger's BOM - all caught up until the next clue comes out on the 25th
5. Mexican star - still need to hand-stitch all the turnouts of the folded triangles

So, faced with that list of in-progress quilts, most of which are waiting for something before I can do the next step, I've pulled out my March UFO (#8 from Judy's draw this month).  That seemed like a better idea than cutting into the new quilt I want to start.  That orange corner sticking up on my design wall is a piece of it. I should have something significant to show later this week.

Design Wall Monday - March 5

The incremental changes to the Monday Mystery continue.  Last Monday, we put together the small 1/2 square triangles.  I'm still auditioning corner settings, while I wait for the official plan. Today the next clue will, I hope, finish the blocks and then it will just be borders left to go.

The other blocks on the wall are from Dancing with the Stars.  The March package is available, and the first of two blocks is complete.  This one is Viennese Waltz, and Polka will join it soon.

I was a bit worried about this block of the month.  I don't do paper piecing in general. I tried it several years ago, and it was a complete disaster, so I swore off the whole thing and have studiously avoided any project that required paper piecing since then.  However, I fell in love with this quilt when I saw it, and I just couldn't pass it up.  So, I am commited to 30 blocks, paper pieced.  Last month, I cheated.  The block was pretty simple, so I converted it to regular piecing, and put together those 3 connecting blocks.  But the star blocks are not going to work that way.  So, this weekend I jumped in. Drawing on my vague memory of my last attempt at paper piecing, I carefully cut the pieces, reduced the stitch length on my machine, and made one part of the first block.

Imagine my surprise when it actually came out correctly, and all the points matched.  Eight more block sections, and I was able to assemble my first ever paper pieced block!  Now I can't wait to start block number 2.  And I'll even do next month's connecting blocks with paper piecing.

Also on my design railing, is the next quilt I need to quilt.  I like this quilt a lot, and want to do it justice with my quilting, but I'm not sure what to do.  I feel like I want to echo the increasing sizes of the stars, but I don't know if that would work, or exactly how to do that.  What would you do in the star points and plain areas, given the varying sizes?

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls today.

Stash Report - Mar 4

I did a lot of sewing this week, but most of it was quilting, on items already basted, so not much usage to report.  I used 1/2 yard binding for 2 quilts, and 1/2 yard backing for one.

Another trip to the quilt store netted me 2 yards of backing for the Feb colour challenge, and 1/2 yard to fill out the palette for March.  This colour challenge is a lot of fun, but it is not being very friendly to my pocketbook :)

So, for this week, that's 1 yard out, 2.5 yards in

Total this year:
18 1/4 yards out, 57.5 yards in
Net for 2012: 39 1/4 yards in 

What's next for me?  I want to quilt the indigo quilt from last June's colour challenge.  It's already backed and basted, and I need the pins back if I'm going to baste this month's UFO.  I have 2 "quilt kits" in hand - that is, fabric purchased to make a quilt, but no design in mind.  So I want to spend some time with EQ this month, and see if I can come up with a design I like for those fabric sets.  And of course I have the March colour challenge.  

Fabric is bought for that one and a pattern picked, so I just need to get started. Here's the colour palette from Vicky, and my fabric choices.  My yellow is much brighter in person, and I thought the black was blacker than that.  I may look for something darker in that one.

Check out Judy's blog for more stash reports today.