Moving on...

At the beginning of last year, I did a post where I counted the things I had made.  I'm not sure what motivated that nit-picky attitude, but it's there in all its glory.  This year I decided to just make a mosaic of various types of things to memorialize the year.  I was fortunate enough to be able to spend lots of time in the sewing room this year, since I no longer work full time.  Some of these are just quilt tops that I hope to finish in 2014.  Others were some from bees and swaps that had been languishing in the WIP basket for too long.  Still others were started and finished in a rather timely manner.  A few were things that just screamed to be made.....NOW!

There were the quilts, of course....

And while I realized I had been on something of a bag making kick, until I put the mosaic together I didn't realize just how much....

And if I needed proof that I had kind of overdone the swapping thing, this mosaic should remove any doubt.

But overall, it was a great year.  

I have a cheerful new little sewing space that suits me pretty well.  I say little, but it's twice the size of my old space (and still too small!) 

I have a new sewing friend - her name is "Barbie" - that is light years ahead of my old one (although sometimes I miss Priscilla terribly.)  I hope soon to add some embroidery capabilities (like I need a new hobby!)  

 And I learned a little bit about photography that I hope is evident in the photos here.

The Mickey Mouse duvet cover on his bed

And now that my son has returned home and the Christmas festivities are over, it's time to get started on what will become next year's wrap-up  blog post.

Wishing you all the best in 2014!  Happy quilting!

13 Finishes in 2013 - The Recap

Last January, I set a rather ambitious goal to finish 13 projects in 2013.  Call them UFOs or WIPs, or whatever, the truth is these quilts-in-progress were just languishing in a basket in the sewing room, taking up space and making me feel guilty.  Here was my original list:

 1. Jelly Roll Quilt - Finished March 9, 2013

2.  Fairy Tale Friends Finished - February 21, 2013.  Donated to Project Linus.

 

3.  3 x 6 Bee Blocks - I thought I had enough of these aqua & red blocks to make one quilt.  Turns out I had enough blocks to make two quilts.  I didn't quite get them finished to complete my May goal, but they were both finished by June 8, 2013 and both were donated to Project Linus.

4.   Citrus Quilts - I thought I had 10 blocks.  Turned out I had 48 blocks! so I ended up making 3 quilts and asking for a few more from the most recent round of the  3x6 bee so I could make one quilt a little larger.  These 3 were completed in August.  I have the final one on the list for 2014.  Two of these were donated to Project Linus, but somehow, I couldn't part with the third one. 

5.  Granny Squares Quilt.  These blocks were from a couple of online bees in 2011, so I had plenty of squares to finish this quilt. It's one of my favorites, in fact.  It's also the only quilt I've had the pleasure of quilting on a long arm (thank you, Marcy!)  This one was finished in April.

6.  The String Blocks Quilt  was finished in October. 

7.  The Bow Tie Quilt was finished in September.  I really had fun quilting this one.  I called the quilting motif a Double Daisy, but the ladies in the guild thought it looked like Sand Dollars.  Whatever it was, it is finished.   Yay!

8.  Bento Block Quilt - I finished this one in December.

9.  Breath of Avignon Quilt - I haven't made any progress on this one, so it will be tops on the list for 2014. 

 

 

 10.  Ari's anthropologie knock-off duvet cover was finished in April, 2013 as a graduation gift for Ari and her husband, Mitch.

11.  My Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt is really coming along.  I am actually amazed at the progress I've made on this one, so while it's not really finished, I'm not going to count this as a fail, either.  It's a great project for wintertime, since it's all hand-stitched, so I'm going to put it on the list for 2014 again and see how far I get.  I'm really pleased with my progress on this one.

12.  I have made 2 Weekender Bags from the leftover HSTs from the Swoon quilt, so I'm going to count this one as finished, July, 2013.

13.   I've made virtually no progress on my Basket Blocks quilt.  It's still sitting there in it's little zip lock waiting for some attention.  So this one is going to the top of the list for 2014.

There were a bunch of other finishes in 2013, and one day I will get around to figuring that out, but that's it for this list.  While I didn't get to everything, I'm not going to beat myself up about that.  Overall, I'm pretty pleased with what I did accomplish, and that's good enough. =)

I'm debating whether or not to try to do 14 in 2014.  Is that too much?  Especially considering that my WIP pile is considerably smaller than it was last year.  There are these two unfinishes of course - the Breath of Avignon and the Basket Blocks.  

And then there are a bunch of others.  Some have been sandwiched.  Some are just finished quilt tops. 

And a few are just unfinished blocks - or blocks yet to be made.

It will be interesting to see what quilty pleasures 2014 brings, won't it?

A Couple of Recent Quilt Finishes...

As we near the end of the year, it becomes more and more apparent that my quilting accomplishments for 2013 are all but over.  However, I do have a couple of finished quilts I haven't shared here, so I thought I would share them today.

First, I finally finished my Bento Blocks quilt, and I really like it.  A lot more than I thought I would.  It is so colorful and bright that it just makes me happy.  I had thought I would probably donate this one to Project Linus, but I may have trouble parting with it.

I just quilted this one with a basic stipple.  Funny how sometimes it's nice to go back to basics.  I love how the red polka dot and plain white borders tone down the madness of the bentos.

And best of all, this is a 13 in 2013 finish.

I also finished my Wonky Cross quilt.  These are the blocks I won in the ECMQG block lottery last summer.  I finished it off with a gray (yes, gray!) border and a fabric I really like called Peacock Gardens from the ModKids collection by Patty Young at JoAnn's.

I quilted it with swirls in the body and a herringbone in the gray border.  It's pretty hard to see the quilting in the Peacock Gardens border, but I tried the Bernina #4 stitch that I've seen people use, and it turned out OK. 

Here is the back, so you can get an idea of what it looks like.  It's a pity it doesn't really show up on the front.

I really love the way these blocks coordinate and how great they look together.  I appreciate the effort the ladies of the guild put into these blocks.

And now that Christmas is over I can share the quilt I made for my daughter for Christmas.  The pattern is Wallflowers by Allison Harris (Cluck Cluck Sew.)

The fabric is mostly Lush Uptown by Erin Michael which I purchased from my favorite fabric shop, with a bit of Denyse Schmidt Florence and a couple of random color collection FQ bundles from Pink Chalk.

I wanted to highlight the motifs from the Lush Uptown collection and the Wallflowers pattern was perfect for showcasing the lovely designs in the fabric.

 It is king size, so I sent it out to the fabulous Sarah Russett for quilting.

So that's it for my most recent quilty adventures.  Once my Christmas company leaves, I hope to get started on some new projects, perfect for the new year.

All the best!

13 in 2013 November Update

I really thought I was doing great on this 13 in 2013 challenge until I looked at the calendar the other day.

Here's the list I started with in January:

1.  Jelly Roll Quilt, finished March, 2013
2.  Fairy Tale Friends, finished March, 2013
3.  Teal/Red 3x6 Bee Blocks, finished 2 quilts, July, 2013
4.  Citrus quilt(s), finished 3 quilts, August, 2013
5.  Granny Squares Quilt, finished March, 2013
6.  String Blocks Quilt finished October, 2013
7.  Bow Tie Quilt finished September, 2013
8.  Bento Blocks Quilt (sandwiched and ready to quilt)
9.  Breath of Avignon Quilt
10.  Anthropologie Duvet Cover, finished April, 2013
11.  GMFG - this one is about 2/3 completed
12.  Lark Pinwheel Quilt - I used most of the blocks for Weekender bags, so I'm counting this one as finished
13.  Basket Quilt

On the one hand, I feel like I've accomplished quite a lot so far this year.   On the other hand, I still have a ways to go, and we're now officially into "gifting season", and I have high hopes of making a lot of my gifts this year.  In addition to that, I have several swaps and some donation quilts that need to be finished by various deadlines.  Yikes!

But I did finish my October goal, which was to complete the string blocks quilt.  That makes 9 out of 13 completed.  I still have the Breath of Avignon blocks and the Basket blocks sitting in their little plastic bags waiting for their turn.

Even though I had the bento block quilt sandwiched at one point, I decided it wasn't quite big enough to be useful, so I took it apart and added borders at each end.  About the time I finished doing that, I found enough blocks for one more row, so I decided that I needed to add them to the quilt or the extra blocks would forever languish in the orphan pile.  I took off one border and managed to add the extra row with only a minimum of fuss.

It is sandwiched again now, thanks to an incredibly hot and sweaty marathon sandwiching session on the primary room floor the other day.  I sandwiched it and 5 other quilts that day.  I bought king size batting and there is simply not a place in this house where there's room to lay out something that big. A king size bat will make about 3 large-ish quilts, so for an extra $5.00 (with a JoAnn's 50% off coupon), it makes sense to buy the bigger size.  My friend came in and talked to me while I was working, so the time just flew by.  It was a pretty productive day, despite the fact that I was totally worthless by the time I got home, and spent the rest of the day watching Season 7 of Hell's Kitchen.

So my ALYOF goal for November is to quilt and bind the Bento quilt.  It shouldn't be too hard, right? 

And if I'm really on top of things, I'll get the other two quilt tops put together.  Honestly, I would be totally jazzed by that.

I might just pull this off.

13 Finishes in 2013 - September Goal

I'm doing OK with my 13 in 2013 goal, but I'm still behind. 


Here's the list I started with in January:

1.  Jelly Roll Quilt, finished March, 2013
2.  Fairy Tale Friends, finished March, 2013
3.  Teal/Red 3x6 Bee Blocks, finished 2 quilts, July, 2013
4.  Citrus quilt(s), finished 3 quilts, August, 2013
5.  Granny Squares Quilt, finished March, 2013
6.  String Blocks Quilt
7.  Bow Tie Quilt finished September, 2013
8.  Bento Blocks Quilt
9.  Breath of Avignon Quilt
10.  Anthropologie Duvet Cover, finished April, 2013
11.  GMFG - this one is about 2/3 completed
12.  Lark Pinwheel Quilt - I used most of the blocks for Weekender bags, so I'm counting this one as finished
13.  Basket Quilt

And I did go on a sandwiching spree this week and got three quilts sandwiched; the string block quilt and the bento block quilt are sandwiched...

And the bow tie quilt is DONE!

It shouldn't be too hard to finish both the string block and the bento quilts since the worst part of the job is done.

I've made wonderful progress on the Grandmother's Flower Garden - more than I ever expected - but I still have a couple of long rows to do to finish the top...  and I think I'll count that as a finish.  If I decide to hand quilt it, it may be another couple of  years before this one is done.

So, with three months left in 2013, I have 5 quilts left to finish.  Two of those are already sandwiched and ready to quilt, so they are well on their way.  I think I will be able to finish the GMFG top by the end of the year. That will just leave the Breath of Avignon and the Basket quilt to finish before the December. 

Who knows, I might actually make it! 

13 Finishes in 2013 - September Goal Completed!

As I mentioned in this post, although I managed to create several quilt tops this month, my September goal for ALYOF was this bow tie quilt. 

I did manage to get the top laid out last week, but I was missing one block.  So frustrating.  Luckily, this week I was working on another project, and it called for 3-1/2 inch squares.  In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say, so I made one more bow tie block while I was at it.

Once the block was made, it was only a matter of a couple of hours to stitch the blocks and rows together and voila!  One quilt top!

Then, on Wednesday, I did a marathon sandwiching session.  I hate sandwiching.  Can I just say that?  Is hate too strong a word?  Abby says, "We don't say 'hate', Grandma."  Well, of course she's right, but nothing is being hurt by my "strong dislike" for this process.  Anyway, I do it and it gets done, so it's all good, right?

Once it was sandwiched, it was fun to actually sit down and quilt it.  I decided to try something totally new to me.  I did giant 8-petal daisies in the middle of each bow tie motif with herringbones across each of the bow ties themselves.  Once I got a rhythm going, it was pretty easy.  There is no standardization to this at all - the motifs only loosely resemble each other - but I kind of like it.

So, there's one more out of the WIP Basket and off the to-do list. 

Feels pretty good.