Diamond progress

I've been plugging along on my latest quilt.  All the main blocks are made, and I decided to lay it out, and make sure I pick colours that fit well for the edge pieces.  Since the instructions were wrong and I cut twice as many pieces as I need for one part of those, this seemed like a good idea.  Lots to choose from, and an opportunity to make sure all the colours are balanced in the end.

Please ignore the piles of stuff in front of the design wall.  I have so many quilts in progress & planned right now, I have no place to put everything.  I need to focus and finish a few projects over the next couple of months.

Most of this fabric is from the "Sweet Serenade" Moda line. The quilt might be "Living in Harmony" but I'll have to give that more thought.  The pattern comes from "Modern Patchwork".

Design Wall Monday - Oct 21

New quilt!  Now that Kaffe is off the wall, I've started on my next project.  Yes, I know, I need to quilt Kaffe.  But I've been itching to start this one.  It's going to be a sample for class I'm teaching in January, so the sooner I can get it done, the better.

I fell in love with the orange/turquoise in these fabrics, and was determined to make a quilt with them.  A bit of pondering, lots of help from the ladies at the LQS, and this is what I came up with.

I love the way it's coming together, although I'm not overly fond of the instructions for doing it (particularly the cutting directions, which had 18" of waste in every strip cut). But I fixed that up and now it's coming together.

There are some althernate blocks to get in there too, but for now I'm just stitching together all of block A, before I lose track of what I cut out.

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

Stash Report - Oct 20

It's been a while since I had anything to mention in my stash report, but today I have a completed top!  I finished the top from the Kaffe Fassett workshop a few weeks ago, and put together the backing for it yesterday.

The quilt will be a donation to Victoria's Quilts, once I finish admiring all my hard work :)  I spun the seams at every corner on the back of this quilt, to make sure it lies perfects flat.  The pressing was almost more time consuming than the sewing, because of that.

Then I played with some backing choices.  Flannel of course - that's a requirement for Victoria's Quilts.  After debating between these 3, I decided on the lighter brown fabric for the backing.

One other finish today - I finally! finished an embroidery block that I've been working on since January.  It really should not have taken this long, but I kept avoiding it, especially once I started on the black sections. But I think the rest of the blocks for this charity quilt are still waiting, so I didn't completely miss the deadline.

Fabric usage this week:

4 yards used for top
3 yards used for backing

Total this year: 195 1/2 yards out

Drop by Judy's blog for more stash reports today.

Design Wall Monday - Oct 14

Happy Thanksgiving, to all my Canadian readers.  I've been enjoying a nice relaxing long weekend, which has included a little bit of sewing.  I sewed all my squares into pairs, and now I'm putting the squares together into 4-patches.  Working my way across the quilt, slowly but surely.  I hope to finish this one so that I can have it quilted for December (even better if it was quilted before Nov 8, but that might be overly optimistic).  This is my quilt from the Kaffe Fassett workshop in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago.

Drop by Judy's blog for more design walls today.

Design Wall Monday - Oct 7

I wanted to have something (anything) on my design wall this week, since I've been pretty lax lately. So I pulled out my fabrics from the Kaffe Fassett workshop last week, and reassembled my quilt with the dark background. This was definitely my favourite from the few options I previewed at the workshop.

I think will sit on the design wall for a few days.  I want to get the current quilt off the long arm before this weekend, so I can take it back to the owner when I see her on Saturday.

Drop by Judy's blog for more design walls today.

The Tale of a Storm at Sea

This quilt has been in the making for over 2 years (since July 2011). It was originally intended to be a quilt for my son, before he went to university.  I made all the blocks over the course of about 5 months, and then stalled on the border.  I knew what I wanted to do, but the piecing and sizing of the border felt overwhelming at the time. So it went onto a shelf.

When I pulled it back out last year, I decided on the size of the quilt, figured out how much fabric I had left (ordered some more), and completed the pieced borders.  I thought the quilt was done, and added it to the "to be quilted" pile in May 2012.

At that point, I knew I was buying a long arm, so I waited. And then waited to get better at free motion quilting, and then waited for some other quilts to be done.  And FINALLY, in July this year got it out to do the quilting.  And at that point, discovered that I must have been dreaming when I finished it.  The size was completely wrong for its intended use, so it went back on the design wall, I dug out the last scraps of fabric from the making (lucky I still had it!), and adjusted the overall size of the quilt and added some new borders. That adventure is detailed here.  I ended up removing a row, and using those blocks on the back of the quilt.  And I extended the borders with an outer white border, because I really was not happy with the look when it ended right after the diamond border.

And THEN it could get onto the long arm.  And off.  And bound.  Only 27 months in the making :) my Storm at Sea quilt is complete, and perfectly sized for the double bed that now resides in the my son's old room (since he left for university over a year ago).

I'm linking up at the October finishing party over at A Stitch in Time.

Get it Done - October

Apparently I completely missed the September "Get it Done" post.  Not sure how that happened.  So, going back 2 months, this is what was on the table for August.

1. Storm at Sea is on the longarm, so I want to finish quilting it
2. Finish labyrinth top, and quilt it
3. finish binding Hunters Star, and Bear's Paw
4. bind Storm at Sea

As of today, here is my progress:

1. Done!
2. Done! (in September)
3. done (Hunter's Star) and not done (Bear Paw)
4. not done

In addition, I did finish quilting my mystery quilt, and bound it.  So at least some progress was made, even if it wasn't on a list anywhere.

For October, I'm keeping my plans minimal, and binding oriented apparently:

1. Bind Storm at Sea
2. Bind Bear's Paw 
3. Bind Labyrinth
4. Finish quilting Dresden plate (not mine)
     
   

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is planning this month.