A Lovely Year of Finishes - March Goal

I had a goal in mind for March.   It would be so great if I could finish up my pinwheel sampler in time for the Quilt retreat back home, wouldn't it?

I even received my order from Mad About Patchwork this week.

So I even had my backing fabric for it.  The quilt top is made with Flea Market Fancy and I'm thinking the turquoise stripe would be just what I was looking for.

My order also came with a half yard of this because I liked it.

I have no idea what I'll use it for, but it's awfully cheerful isn't it?  Plus, I never have enough fabric with a white background.

But then I was chatting with a friend on Facebook.  She found out earlier this week she has cancer and she goes for surgery next week.

Last fall, I started work on this quilt during a quilt retreat.

I got all the blocks done, but they need to be trimmed and sewn together.

And then I have red and black and red borders to be added.  I'll be honest, I'm not sold on the hexagon print in this quilt.  Everything else is organic rather than geometric, but whats done is done.

Anyway, the thing is this quilt was in my mind for her.  And now that she's undergoing surgery, it's moved up the list significantly.  I'm not sure I can get it done and mailed off to her as soon as I'd like, but I would like to have it done by the end of March.  Worst case, I deliver it in person over Easter.

log cabins and some stash busting

I've been working on this a bit.  It's using up some remnants of a jelly roll from another quilt.  It'll be a great, bright table runner.And it's part of my efforts to bust some stash.  Although since I bought the black batik you see in the picture and have about a 1/4 yard left of it, I don't know if I can consider this successful stash busting.  But it used up some of my strips.

And cutting into all of these bits of fabric has created MORE strips.  Some I'm still hesitant to chop up, especially if there's quite a bit there. 

All of this started when I decided to clean up my quilt room.  Scraps were overflowing the several areas they were stored in, fabric was slipping and sliding off the shelves, and I keep losing and finding the same owl applique quilt.  And I have some of the ugliest fabric ever created (not pictured above).  So it was time to do something.

So I started cutting.

It started with an hourglass quilt.  Hourglass quilts are so pretty, right?  I need 332 (I think it was) 4.5" squares for the one I'm planning.  And I think that's just a twin size!  Although since the pattern called for 4.25" squares and I didn't realize that until it was way way way too late, I'll get a size gain there. 

As I was cutting, I realized I had more scraps that I could use in that one single quilt.  So I started cutting for the second quilt I was dreaming about - wedges. 

So that took care of 8" strips and 4.5" strips of fabric.  Sometimes I was left with smaller strips of fabric though and I couldn't leave those out, right? 

So I dug out a pattern for a Thousand Pyramids-type quilt and started cutting 3 and 5.5" strips.

I've spent the last two weekends basically cutting out fabric.  Shattered was quilted because I needed a break from cutting.

The log cabins at the top were pieced because when Mom was up, she needed to use the cutting board too sometimes.  And I really liked those batiks.  Now I'm stalled because I need sashing and border fabric and I can't imagine going out to buy MORE fabric when I've got all these quilts cut out and ready to go.

Well, ok, not completely cut out.  I still need another hundred or so 4.5" squares, probably about the same in triangles and the 8" strips haven't been cut into wedges yet.

Cutting.  I've been doing LOTS of cutting.

Shattered - another Finish

 I kind of went a little crazy on this one with the quilting

I decided because the blocks are less structured, I'd do some random straight line quilting.  I kept thinking of Austin Powers "frickin' laser beams" as I was doing it.

I started out drawing lines until I thought I had enough coverage.  Then I quilted and added more lines to fill in some of the empty spots.  In the end I'm really happy with it. 

This quilt, while one of my oldest UFOs (2001-ish), is really representative of my quilting - a strange blend of traditional and modern.  Even the fabric on this is a blend of modern and traditional as you can see in the pictures above.

And it's bound with a tan solid from my stash.  Actually, finishing this used up quite a bit of stash for me, between the tan binding and the chunk of wide width backing fabric I used.

Score another Finished Object from the UFO pile.

Linked to Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.

February's Lovely Finish

I decided to quilt this one with diamonds, something I haven't done before and I love how the picture above shows the texture created by the quilting.

I've also finished up two pillows

And a beach bag from the tutorial here.  I used Sunbrella fabric I had laying around and lined it with some green quilters cotton.

WIP Wednesday

I thought this week I'd make a bit of a proper WIP post. Although the one on the top of that stack really no longer counts - it was my lovely finish for January.

1.Grandma's Geese are still a WIP though.  I'm actually doing them as a leader/ender project right now because I'm struggling to sit down and just do it.

2. This was my Quilt Retreat project a couple of years ago. I now have backing for it and it's on the list to be layered and quilted.  I'm slowly making my way through my quilt tops.

3. Stack and Slash.  Let's not discuss the age on this one.  I have the backing cut out for this so it's probably up next.

4. Snowball Quilt (maybe I should call it snowballs and fireballs?)  Another retreat project that needs to be quilted. At least this one is just from last Oct and not 2000.

5.  Look!  It's layered AND quilted.  And another undated one.  Baby quilt and it's my Lovely Finish goal for this year.  Better get cracking.

6.  Simply Spring.  A new-ish project this year.  Sort of. 

7.  Scrap Triangles.  I was due for some stash busting.

8.  And last, but not least, another project from the October quilt retreat.

9.  Batik scrap table runner, split log cabin.  Just started this, no pictures yet.

10.  9 patch and rail fence quilt I just cut out last night.

I guess I have 10 current WIPs.  Yikes.

Posted for WIP Wednesday at Freshly pieced.

Finished - Clay's Choice Pillow

Now that I've given it to Mom, I can post about it.  I think it turned out great.

I first considered this layout for the secondary patterns that are created.

But then settled on this one after taking pictures.  

I think this is one of my favorite pinwheel blocks.

What's up for the weekend

Last weekend I finally got around to cleaning up my sewing room and this is one of the results - a stack of 60 degree triangles cut from scraps.

The room started out looking like this with fabric falling off the shelves, scraps strewn everywhere and current projects just hanging out.  That lump of stuff under my cutting table is actually burlap covered with an old piece of flannel because one of my cats claimed that as her bed.

I found fabric in all sizes, colors and shapes.

Which I then cut up for three different quilts - 4.5" squares for a hourglass quilt, 8" strips for a future wedge quilt (or dresden plates)

And two sizes of triangle (3" and 5.5") for a triangle quilt. I even chopped up leftover blocks from the quilt I posted about yesterday because what else am I going to do with them?

Larger pieces of fabric were either left alone or cut into 10" squares.  Smaller pieces were cut into 2.5" strips or thrown in the string basket.

All in preparation for this weekend.  Today (weather permitting) my parents are coming up.  Mom has stash issues so she's bringing along her scraps (I suspect it'll only be a portion of) and we may go through and do what I did above to her stash so I can get more triangles.  She's going through that bag of larger cuts of my fabric looking for 10" squares for a class she's taking.  I guess we're having a mini quilt retreat, at least until the grand kids (and my brother and his wife) show up Friday afternoon.

This is why I'm hoping for only a small portion of Mom's scraps.  This is only a small portion of the bits and pieces she had last time I went through her stash and I understand that in their new house, her stash has overflowed her sewing room and is now plotting a takeover of the storage room. The above doesn't even begin to include the fabric she has bought with specific projects in mind.

In her defense, this is accumulated from her own purchasing, fat quarters won at quilt retreats, my grandma's quilting fabric (possibly both Grandmas) and random bits she's acquired as friends have quit quilting.

Let the games begin!

WIP Wednesday - Simply Spring

Have you ever started something and hated it?  A few years ago, I bought a Strawberry Fields jelly roll.  When a friend was pregnant, I figured it'd make a great baby quilt, so I started out making roman square blocks. (sew strips in groups of three, cut into 6.5" lengths).

And I laid it out on the floor and hated it.  So it all got thrown into a bag and left for dead.

At some point, as regular readers know, I chopped some of them into 2.5" lengths and made postage stamps.  I quickly lost interest in that as well.

A couple of weeks ago, I pulled it out and started to make a table topper from the roman square blocks.  And this time I liked it.  Go figure.  But I didn't have enough for a full quilt, so out came the postage stamps.  And some yellow yardage.  And it turned into this.  From left for dead to a quilt I absolutely love.  Strange how that works, isn't it?

Posted for:

Baby Quilt Finish

This one is over a year in the making.  I know this, because the girl it was meant for turned a year this month.  So now it has no home, but at least I've got it finished.

I quilted it in straight lines approximately 1/4" from the seamlines.  I eyeballed it, so I know it isn't exact. I'd say this is my favorite fabric in the quilt.

Backed with some Winnie the Pooh flannel.

And bound in the fabric used for this block.

All of the colored fabric in the blocks was part of my existing stash. The white stripe was a remnant from the quilt shop and the sashing I picked up on sale at Fabricland.  I'm pretty happy with it as a small stashbuster.

New month, new goals

Continuing on a theme, I'm aiming to have this quilted and bound by the end of the month.  It's another quilt top that's been hanging out foreEVER.  I'm pretty sure this one has been a finished quilt top in five different houses now.  I've moved 4 times since I pieced this.

You may have noticed a vacuum hiding under my ironing board in that first picture.  That goes with my second goal.  Tidy this place up.  Mostly in preparation for my nieces and nephews to sleep in here over the family day weekend.   But also so I can find things when I need them.

This includes deciding whether or not I'm ever going to use that bag of denim I have hanging out there or if I should just go donate it to the thrift store in town.

And finally, this stack of fabric is going to be made into at least one pillow for a housewarming gift for my Mom.  She painted the basement in adobe-type colours and this group of fabrics jumped out at me from the remnant bin at my LQS.

And since I'd perfected my half square triangles and pinwheels with the pinwheel sampler, I figured why not keep going.  I need 3 more of these 9" blocks.  And then I need to figure out if I'm going to do a zipper or something easier for the back.

So that's what I've got planned for the month.

Shared for the Lovely year of finishes challenge and The Girl Who Quilts February Challenge