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!

Lots of activity (finally!) Not. One. Finish.

I have been in a bit of a creative funk lately.  For a couple of weeks I've been having trouble getting anything done.  I am here to say that I think my little funk was an aberration and I'm back in the groove.  Maybe.

Last week I posted photos of all the stuff in my to-be-quilted pile.  It is all still there.  Every last bit of it.  But it's funny how I got back on track...

A few months ago, my friend gave me this Juggling Summer Layer Cake to go along with the Juggling Summer FE bundle she gave me for my birthday.  (I have very generous friends, don't I?) 

So, last Friday, I was sitting here feeling all guilty about the stack of quilts that only needed backs so they could be sandwiched and quilted, and inspiration struck.  Finally.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the back of my Modern Maples quilt.

I dug into the back of that layer cake and pulled out 5 black squares and made this giant modern maples block.  It measures 27-1/2 inches.  It's gonna be the focal point on the back of that Modern Maples quilt.  I ordered some yardage to go along with it.  I think it's gonna be awesome.

And while I was digging around in that layer cake, I remembered a quilt pattern I've been wanting to make for-ev-er as part of my goal to make every quilt in Camille Roskelly's Simplify book at least once (there are several I've made more than that), and the rest of this Juggling Summer layer cake seemed like the perfect fabric choice.

So I grabbed the Wonder Under and started drawing circles.  And by Saturday afternoon, the layout was done...

all the circles were fused and appliqued onto the layer cake squares....

And by Monday afternoon, I had an almost-finished quilt top.  I'm still trying to decide what to do about the borders.  I used Kona Coal for the sashing (totally out of character, I know) because it really made the colors pop.  Yes, I admit it.  Gray has it's place.  (Speaking of gray, I'm sorry for the weird glary inside pictures, but it's been gray and gloomy here most of this week.  The weather seems to be more agreeable today, so maybe I'll try to get out and take some pictures later.)

I was catching up on my blog reading the other night and I noticed this quilt and it occurred to me that a giant wonky star would make a wonderful Quilt of Valor.  Our MQG has had an urgent request for Quilts of Valor  recently, and I've been planning to join in.  Yesterday, I dug into my newly purchased stack of fabrics and came up with this.  The problem is that the QOV Foundation has very specific rules for quilts to be accepted as Quilts of Valor.  They need to be a minimum of 50" x 70".  I wasn't there yet, and I was determined to work from my stash and not to buy any more fabric.

So, after some strategic fabric additions, here is the quilt I came up with.  It measures 60" x 75".  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I'm not sure I don't regret using Kona Putty instead of Kona White for the background fabric.  The putty has the advantage of matching the background of the light colored prints, so it won out over white.  Hopefully I will like it more once it's quilted.

The original center of the star quilt was supposed to be this bright blue square, but it just didn't work.  It was way too bright for the rest of the fabrics in the quilt.  But that fail gave me another idea.  The inspiration for this quilt seemed to come just one piece at a time.  It isn't finished yet, and I still don't know exactly what it will look like. 

I added a Kona snow panel (I had the Kona in my stash) with cornerstones.  (Here I was auditioning this red floral fabric for another row.  Nope!)

Next I added a row of red and then a row of 6" squares with nine patch cornerstones....  It's coming.  It measures 48" x 54" right now.  But I think I'm going to have to break my rule and go buy some fabric for the outside rows.

So now I have 8 (count them! E.I.G.H.T.) unquilted quilts, all needing backs, all needing batting (sounds expensive!), all needing sandwiching (yuck), and all needing quilting and binding.

Guess I had better get busy!