January - It's a Wrap! (a 14 in 2014 update)

This strange month that was January, 2014 is finally over, and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go.  Looking back, my overall impression of the month is C-O-L-D.  I know I'm being a whiny baby, but we just don't get cold like that here in Northwest Florida very often, and I'm just not prepared for it any more - emotionally or otherwise.

But it hasn't been without its upside, and after spending the first half of the month with my head stuck in my Kindle, I finally got some motivation to get back in the sewing room and finished two quilts for my 14 in 2014 goal. 

The first was the Starflower quilt that I started last August.  The fabric is Beechwood Park by Janene Morrison, and the pattern is by my very own Amanda, whom you may know as A Crafty Fox or the owner of Westwood Acres Fabrics.  Having some tutoring in spray basting at the quilt guild meeting last month really helped push this one along.  My friend Marcy, who is an amazing long-arm quilter, was kind enough to suggest some quilting designs, and so I was really inspired to get quilting when I got home from the meeting.

I'm hoping it will be warm and dry today so I can head out to the park and get some "after" photos today.  If so, I will share them soon.

Here's a "before" picture of the other January 14 in 2014 finish.  This one I affectionately call the "Circles" quilt, although it's official name is "Spot On".  The fabric is Juggling Summer by Zen Chic, but I always think of it as more of an autumn color mix. 

And here's the "before" back.  (Yup, I've cut off all the little dangling pieces now!)

And this one is now quilted and bound and folded, and looking pretty on the shelf.

Come on, February, warm up!  I just haven't wanted to be outside at all.  Brrrr!  I need to get out and take pictures!

So, that's two of 14 finished in January.  Not a bad start, really.


Here is the list for 2014:

1.  Breath of Avignon  - no progress
2.  Basket Blocks  - no progress

3.  Citrus Quilt - no progress
4.  Single Girl - no progress

5.  Starflower - finished! January, 2014

6.  Modern Maples - no progress

7. Spot On - finished!  January, 2014

8.  Bookshelf Quilt - no progress

9.  Faux String Quilt - no progress
10.  Fat Quarter Shop Block of the Month Club quilt - no progress

11.  Grandmother's Flower Garden - no progress

12.  Shiny Brite - no progress

13.  Christmas Quilt - no progress

14.  2011 Craftsy BOM - no progress

Well, it was kind of discouraging writing "no progress" after all of those, but I'm trying to tell myself that finishing two quilts in January wasn't a bad start.

In addition to the 14 in 2014 quilts, I made:

 Two pillows to go with the Wallflowers quilt...

A quilt for the Riley Blake MQG Basics Challenge...

And two adorable little pin cushions.

Not a bad start to the year, I think.

How was your January? 

WIP Wednesday... Um... Thursday

Well, as is often the case around here, I am a day late and a dollar short.  I woke up yesterday morning determined to take some decent pictures of all of the quilty stuff that's been going on around here and get a blog post written, but I made the mistake of taking a detour into the sewing room to gather everything and got... um... distracted.  I barely made it out alive!  Well, not really, but by the time I finished up in there and gathered my stuff and went out to find a suitable location for my photo "shoot", it was 4:30 in the afternoon.  Whew!

As you might have guessed from the photo above, I finally got the edge pieces and borders sewn onto the Starflower quilt from Amanda's Starflower QAL.  I had been putting it off, but I'm not sure why.  This looks like a difficult and intricate quilt, doesn't it?  If you try it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.  Amanda's instructions are superb, well written, and very easy to follow.  Even better, the results are fantastic!  Would you look at those points???  And they're not a fluke.  Every.  Single.  Point.  Matches.  Perfectly.  It's so nice to create something that turns out so well.  And it was easy.  Really.  I am truly amazed and excited by this quilt.  Now to find the perfect backing!

I finished up the top of the Spot-On quilt late last week.  Spot On is another of the patterns in Camille Roskelly's Simplify book, so this is one more toward my goal of making all the quilts in the book.  I ordered fabric from someone other than my favorite shop, and I must have gotten spoiled by the same-day shipping because it seemed to take forever.  I ordered this on Thursday, but it didn't ship until Monday, and so it was Thursday before it arrived.  A whole week!  I admit that was a bit impatient and frustrated.  I will say, however, that when it arrived the fabric was perfectly cut and nicely wrapped, which was very pleasant.

I had the leftovers of the layer cake, plus a charm pack, some scraps, and the leftover yardage, so I created a really scrappy back for it.  It's kind of fun.  Notice anything unusual.  Yup.  Totally outside my norm, I used tons of gray.  Still, I have to admit that it works really well with Juggling Summer and really makes the colors pop.  I thought it was ironic that the front is all circles and the back is mostly squares...

I took my Modern Maples quilt along on my photo shoot...

Because I made a back for it as well.  I was going to do just the one big leaf, but then the charm pack called to me, and I couldn't resist doing this "falling leaves" motif.  Seemed appropriate for autumn, don't you think?  And I don't think there has ever been a time in my life I've bought 4  yards of Kona Coal in a two week period.   Don't worry though.  There's plenty left at the store!

I'm glad to finally get some decent pictures of the Quilts of Valor.  I have to admit that I really like this one.  The process of creating this quilt was really interesting to me.  I usually either use a pattern or have a really good idea of what the quilt will look like before I begin.  This one just kind of *grew*.  I started out with the flag idea from some scraps that were left from the star QOV, and it built itself, row by row.  And after all is said and done, I really like it.

I had a pretty good idea of what this one would look like when I started.  I wanted to do a large wonky star as a Quilt of Valor after being inspired by this quilt.  And I wanted the color scheme to be somewhat less traditional than red, white and blue.  The khaki in this quilt reminds me of the desert fatigues that so many of our troops wear now.  I'm pretty happy with this one as well.

Finally, I made a back for the bookshelf quilt I started last July when I was moving my sewing space and needed a quick sewing fix.  My friend had given me a few Santorini layer cake squares and some yardage so I decided to use what I had, and this was what I came up with. I honestly really like it.

The layer cake squares remind me a bit of cubbies, where you might place  your belongings at school or even stuff books into, and the pinwheels are sort of symbolic of the excitement and surprises one might find in books.  (I love to read, can you tell?)  Anyway, this was what distracted me so much yesterday.   It was a really fun quilt back to create.

So, even though there are no finishes to report this week either, I am making progress.   I love the idea of using what I had on hand to create an original quilt back to go with the quilt.  I'm sure I won't do that every time, but it was a fun challenge. 

Now, to get these sandwiched!  Let the quilting begin!

WIP Wednesday

I am sorry to report that I have made virtually no progress on any of my WIPs this week.  I have been sewing - a little - but these are not what I have been working on.  I had hoped to get several quilts sandwiched and ready to quilt at the ECMQG meeting last Saturday, but since I didn't get the backs made, I wasn't able to get that done.  I love the big floor in the fellowship hall of the church where we meet.  It has a lovely indoor/outdoor carpet that holds the quilt very well until I get basting pins in it to hold it together.  So, the Modern Maples quilt is still in the WIP pile, waiting to be finished.

The good news is that I now know exactly what I'm going to do for the back of this quilt, which I didn't know on Saturday, so maybe it's a good thing that I waited.

The bookshelf quilt is also languishing in the WIP pile, and for the same reason.  Since I took this picture I have added borders to the ends to make it just a tad bit bigger.  My friend Leona gave me a bit of this fabric (I think I have called it by several different names, but it is Santorini, by Lila Tueller) that I plan to put on the back, along with a coordinating solid, I think.

I decided that the Wonky Cross quilt needs borders too, since it's just not quite big enough to be useful.  Oddly enough, the borders will involve gray!?!  I'm going to get that done very soon (I hope) and then make a back for this one - maybe one large wonky cross?  It could be cool.  We'll see.

The Bento Quilt top is done too, and just needs a back.  AFTER I finished this quilt top, I found several blocks that I missed because they weren't in the bag with the other and which didn't make it into the quilt.  It's kind of a shame, because if I had seen them before, I might not have needed borders at all.  But, rather than take it apart again, I think I will use the extra blocks on the back for a little pizzaz.

Oh!  I almost forgot this baby...  This one still needs the fill-in piecing around the points of the stars, and then maybe borders.  Amanda says she put borders on one of her quilts of this pattern but not on the other, and I think it is almost big enough as it is, so I may just leave it, as it is quite large without borders.  We'll see when I get that done.

I actually dug these ancient (from 2010) blocks out of the basket last week.  This was one of the very first modern-ish quilts I ever started.  The fabric is Breath of Avignon by American Jane.  The pattern is a Moda Bake Shop picnic quilt called - oddly enough - Avignon.  These were among the first charm packs I ever bought.  In fact, it was kind of my return to quilting piece, and I started making the blocks on my old machine before I realized/remembered that my foot was not 1/4".  Putting this one together may be a bit of a challenge.  The good news is that the blocks have finally seen the light of day again, and I hope to put the top together soon.

So there's what's going on in my WIP pile this week.  We;ll see if I make more progress than I did last week.  I'm hoping I do - maybe it will get me motivated again.

Meanwhile, I have a question (well, technically, several questions, but they are all related)...  Do you use pins to baste your quilts?  If so, what kind?  Or do you spray baste?  (I've never tried spray basting.)  What are the pros and cons, as you see it?

Inquiring minds want to know.

WIP Wednesday... 4 finishes and a WIP

I'm not exactly sure how it got to be the 10th of October already, but here we are.  It is officially fall, the weather is cooler, the leaves are changing, and here in Florida, the humidity has dropped to reasonable - even pleasant - levels in the wake of quasi-Tropical Storm Karen.

I finished the string block quilt which was my October goal in my 13 in 2013 challenge.  It went a lot faster than I thought it would.

Barely an afternoon's quilting and it was finished!  I was amazed.

I tried a wood-grain quilting pattern, and I have to say, it was kind of fun.  Certainly nowhere near perfect, but I'm satisfied with it.

I did a herringbone design in the first border.  Looking at it now, it might be further apart that it should have been, but I don't dislike it at all.

And the outer border is kind of a wonky diamond design.  And frankly, I really like the stripey binding.

So, this one is a wrap, and I'm ok with the results.

And I finally sat down and finished the last of the scrappy trip along blocks.  I really love the combination of dots and solids that Leona chose.  So happy!

Since Leona only wanted a quilt top, this one is a finish also.  I love how the square blocks look like they are on the diagonal.  I love how the colors play together.  It took me a bit to decide how to lay this one out, but I'm glad I chose the traditional layout.  The quilt is 7 blocks square, or 84" x 84"  Glad I'm not quilting this one myself!

I finished my latest Weekender Bag.  This is the one I started as the demo for my class at Derrel's of Pensacola in September.  I did this one in blue, and used Lizzy House's Castle Peeps as the focal fabric.  I must be into stripes lately.  I really like the stripey piping on this one too.

I had a lot of fun with the Castle Peeps in making this bag.

And I finally took photos of the last of the citrus quilts.  This is the one I kept - mostly because Abby liked it.  It may yet be a Project Linus quilt, but somehow I just couldn't part with it.  I love how the blues in this quilt make the citrus colors pop.

I tried a leaf design on this one, and it was a lot of fun to do.

Yup!  I kinda like this one.

I got the rows put together in my Starflower quilt.  Would you just look at those points???  Amanda's method for perfect points is, well....  perfect.  Honestly, they all look like that.  How did my daughter get to be so smart?  Now all I need to do is to cut and attach the borders....

So, that's what's been going on around here in the last week or so.  I'd love to know what you've been up to. 

Progress?

At the Emerald Coast MQG meeting on Saturday - our 2nd birthday, BTW - I was lucky enough to win the block lottery... 41 luscious wonky cross blocks in shades remiscent of days (and nights) at the beach, befitting our Emerald Coast heritage.  So, Sunday night, while WH was watching football, I decided to head into the sewing room and putter around.  I messed around with arrangements of these blocks on my design - um... - floor, pinned them in rows, stacked them all up and put them in a pile.

Since I wasn't really into the football game, I dug around in the WIP basket and decided to put together what I thought was my September goal for ALYOF - my bag of string blocks. 

Having those pinned in rows and piled up ready to sew, and knowing I was behind on my 13 in 2013 goals, I decided to get out the bentos and lay them out.  Done and done.

Football still taking over the den, I laid out my starflower quilt.  It took up the entire floor, and I even had to weave blocks around the legs of the ironing board, but I ended up with a layout I liked.  (It's gonna be awesome!!)

Then yesterday, starting about 8 am, I decided I was going to make it happen.  I sewed for about an hour and a half and the string blocks became a quilt top.  Easy peasy.

Another couple of hours, and the bentos became a quilt top.  I was cookin'. 

After a fun lunch date with my friend (and former co-worker) Shandra, and a nice long nap, I came back and put together the wonky cross quilt. This one was a bit more of a challenge since I had to make an extra block and fix a couple of size issues, but eventually it was done also...  And it was still light outside.  (I should have gone out immediately to take photos but it was getting dark and threatening rain, so these blurry, poorly lit I-phone shots are all I have at this moment - sorry.)

Ha!  Three quilt tops in one day!  I was pretty pumped so I decided to try putting the starflower quilt together - especially since I was afraid to pick it up, so it was still on the floor, being walked on, rolled on, and stepped over.  Amanda's directions are easy to follow and my first hexagon/star combo went together like a dream. 

So I decided to put the first two stars together.  Definitely NOT as hard as it looks.  Amanda's instructions are really quite good, and stars and hexies went together perfectly.  I ended up with the first row entirely together (which was good, because now I won't have to roll over blocks with my chair any more.)  And it was only 8 pm. A truly productive day. 

It wasn't until this morning that I realized that there was just one problem...  My goal for September was Bow Ties.

Oops!