January recap/February focus

Sewing progress for the first month of 2015..

left to right
# 1 Stick shift quilt front/back
# 2 little Red in the Woods quilt front/back
# 3 Fall Frolic quilt front/back
# 5 butterfly effect quilt front/back

Quilt  # 6

Todays finish,the first for Feb is my Mellow Yellow Stick Shift quilt.  The spot where I usually hang my quilts for photos at the Steam Plant (which used to actually be a steam plant back in the day,but is now a theater and art mecca) had a large pile of snow in front of it.  So the stairs were the photo spot today.

The back side,is a lot more pieced than planned,but then the quilt is two rows longer and three sticks longer than originally planned.

These are the fabrics I am hoping to use for my January BOM bag,if there is enough,if not it will be back to the stash to find something that will work.  There is still some hardware needed for this bag,so we shall see if it gets completed this month.  The fabric for this months bag has yet to be pulled…

Sew Worth It

Sew the Library (twofer)

Have you heard,or are you participating in Sew the Library?  It is a monthly link up hosted by Fabric Mutt and I think a few other bloggers will be hosting throughout the year too.  This is not one of my usual link up party's,but this is a New year and time for New things...

So I am participating.  For this month (the first link up)  my project is a quilt,from the book Fabulously Fast Quilts.  This book was a Christmas gift from a very special friend.  Jamie and I decided to have our own little sew along this month.  The pattern we chose this month is butterfly effect.

The prints in the quilt came from a Color Me Happy jelly roll,the solid is Kona Nightfall,which is actually a darker blue.  The binding strips are two grey prints from the jelly roll mixed with a green with white polka dot Dear Stella print.  The name of the book holds true,as this was pretty fast to sew up,and turned out fabulously!

You are probably thinking this is a crazy back side for a quilt called butterfly effect right?  well,having my own "style"is one of the things that makes my quilts unique,and this one is no exception.  As you know I love things that are reversible…

Finish #5 for January!
Sew Worth It

Dizzying Diamonds Re~Visited

November already,what???  This year is snowballing to an end!  With that in mind,it is time to set some goals for this 11th month.

Remember the quilt pattern tested for Melissa last year?  You can read the review in this post.  Since the weather has turned to the chilly side lately it has me thinking of another quilt for the bed.  For some reason Mr. P has an aversion to any type of comforter and throws a major fit if I even suggest getting/using one.

My A Lovely Year of Finishes goal this month is to add boarders tie,and bind this.  It will then become my "comforter"shhh,don't tell  Mr. P ;)!

Although I would love to quilt this instead of tying it,that just will not be happening with my little Jamome b/c the throat on her is only about six inches.  Which is just way too much frustration for me,as the finished quilt will be pretty close to a proper queen size.

My other goals for the month will be listed in another post.

Half Vintage Modern

We have been having storms most afternoons into the evenings here lately.  Which cools things off considerably.  So I have been taking advantage of that and working on another quilt top!

The majority of the fabric used in this one is from some fabrics that came from my mom's stash.  If you remember,I had raided her stash a couple years ago,and then made her this Quilt from her own fabrics.  I have no idea how long these have been in her stash,but my feeling is at least the nineties for the strips and,the little squares are much older.(I am thinking 60's or maybe 70's)

They have been in my stash for the last two and a half years.  Recently I found a couple prints on a clearance rack at a quilt shop in the next town over.

I also found this book on sale!  After looking at the fabric requirements I decided that with the two sale prints there would be enough to make this quilt.  Although the larger squares in the book are charms and mine are only four inch squares.  So I decided to skip the charms and just frame my squares to make them appear to be charms.

I used Steam-A-Seam2 lite to fuse the squares to the quilt top.  Sunday I went to the LQS to see if they had anything to use for the vertical strips and the frames.  The arrow in the photo is pointing to the color I was trying to accent or bring out.  I came pretty close!

This quilt is called Dancing Squares,(mine is called Half Vintage Modern).  I plan on mixing up the quilting on this one.  Meaning that I will be doing some machine quilting and then also some hand quilting or tying with embroidery floss.

A scrappy start...

After the craft fair on the 4th I took a couple days off from sewing and just relaxed.  It was a nice and needed break.  So far this week it has been fun to pull out my scrap bins and,

look for fabric to go with these squareish (I say ish because they are never really square) panels/blocks. There are four different blocks and the piece with three sets of four has been in my stash for about 5 years!  High time they were sewed up into something.

Before the sun slid behind the mountains this evening I was able to snap off a couple photos.

They are a little out of focus,as there was a breeze and it kept flipping the strips around to the wrong side.  

Some of the scraps are pieced together to make them large enough.  Two of the pieced blocks were not to my liking,so they were ripped out and re-made.  My first thought was to put the piece on the left in the center of the other two strips but,in the end I decided against that idea and sewed it the way it is.

My plan is to add a strip of solid fabric to the right,I am thinking of using a gold or yellow gold.  Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated!

Linking up with Lets Bee Social #28 (today) & Fort Worth Fabric Studio (on Friday)

Birdie quilt Finish!

Now this is the way to start off a month right!

When I last posted about this quilt it looked like this,the binding still needed to be attached and there was some hand stitching to do around the birds.

A few nights ago the hand stitching was finished.

This evening Mr. P went to Denver with some friends to see a Rockies game.  So,that left me the entire evening to play in the sewing room!  I started off by making the binding.

Binding in progress...Before starting to sew on the binding I decided to try something that Amandajean over at crazy mom quilts talked about in her Machine Quilting 101 post yesterday.  She said to sew a basting stitch all the way around your quilt before attaching the binding.

This was the first time I had ever heard of doing that,and I wanted to see what,if any difference it would make.  Let me just say that I am sold!  It really made a big difference,it was so much easier to attach the binding.  I will be doing this from now on,and am looking forward to what tips and tricks she has to share  in the coming posts.

All bound and ready for the washer!  Where it is as I type up this post.  You can't really see the binding very well,but since it is way past dark...

Although there is still a Lot of room for improvement when it comes to bindings on my quilts,they have come a long way recently too.  Practice and some wonderful tips/tutorials have helped me tremendously,so Thank You to everyone who takes the time to share your knowledge!  Because I for one would still be ripping out stitches if not for your wonderful tips and tutorials.

Tomorrow will be the Big Reveal of my Secret project from last month!  So stop by tomorrow evening to see what it is.

ALYOF March Mid ~ Month check in

Yes it is that time again,already!  Are you playing along,and if so,how are you doing?

My three goals for the month were...

1. to finish my tumbler quilt started last summer  (which has been named International Tumblers)

Here it is!  All finished,as of last night!  This and the following photos were snapped off in a hurry today after work as the wind was is still blowing like crazy here.

A closer shot of my first ever FMQ on a quilt!!  Pretty excited about that :0)

The wind just about blew the quilt off the fence right as I was taking this one.  I am hoping to get some much better shots between now and the end of the month.

2. make a few items to donate to the bake/craft sale... no progress on this one but I will be starting on that after this post :0)

3. make some new tote/messenger bags for my shop... also no progress yet,those will be next up after the things to donate.

Linking up over at the Mid ~ Month check in at Sew BitterSweet Designs & also over at busy bee quilts because Jamie is hosting Monday Link Up this week!

A Lovely Year of Finishes ~ Mid-month check in

It has been another busy week here,mostly getting caught up on my sewing projects :0)  Which is a good thing since it is once again time for our Mid-month check in over at Melissa's blog!

Here is what I have accomplished so far,which is pretty good since it was all accomplished this past week!

Get caught back up on my row along quilt (all caught up)
Make Stash Bee block for this month  (made & mailed)
Start on Pin Cushion for Swap on FB (started)
 Posted about that Here.

Although this was not one of the things on my list for this month,it has been on my list since purchasing the pattern last year.

                                          A peek inside.

These will not be showing up in my shop,they are way to much work,but I am making one for myself.  When it is finished I will post a picture for you :0)

Three new items for my shop (not even started,yet)

The most important item on the list Gothic Windows Quilt...

This is what it looked like at the beginning of the month...

This is what it looked like this afternoon!  Super Excited about that :0)))  The center has been my only focus this weekend,what a job that has been!  Let me just say that math is not only not my best subject,it is my worst subject!!  Needless to say there are numerous pieces of fabric that went into the the scrap basket.  Some of them were used to make the top and bottom strips wide enough.(since I had cut up all the fabric figuring out the correct dimensions)

You can just see that the center strip is all quilted in the photo.  Earlier this evening I was able to get the bottom strip about 80% quilted!  There is still a lot to do,but now that the math is done it doesn't seem quite as daunting a task to get finished by the end of the month :0)

Also was able to finish both my skill builder blocks for this month.  The one above is the EM Dash.

This one is called The Mood,later this month or early next month they both need to be quilted.  Along with the first two blocks.

Hope you all had a great weekend,whatever you did :0)  Have a great week!

Mid ~ month check in (a tad late) for A Lovely Year of Finishes

Well here it is Sunday night again,I am thinking 3 day weekends would work much better for me.  How about you?  Yes it is a bit past the middle of the month,but since the Linky party at Melissa's is open until tomorrow evening (Monday)  not too late!

If you remember I am making a quilt for my mom this month,due to be finished by January 31st.  The original plan was for the blocks to be Granny Squares,then I thought,it would be nice to have more than one block used in the quilt.  So the top block on the stack in the above photo is the second block I chose to use.  At the moment the name eludes me,but it is something like Patchwork Star.  It is one of the blocks pinned on one of my pinterest boards.

The Granny Squares blocks work up pretty quickly,especially since the squares are 3 inches,the extra little border is to make the block the same size as the Patchwork Star block,which on the other hand is taking quite a bit more time to make.  However,the end result is very worth it!

A closer look at the yellow Patchy Star block.  It kind of strikes me that although yellow is not normally one of my colors of choice,this and the granny square in yellow are two of my favorite blocks so far :0)

The twelve blocks that are finished!  This is turning out a lot better than what my mind had pictured,which is way cool!  The plan was to have 16 blocks done by the end of the weekend,however due to some sewing issues (that will be another post this week) that didn't happen.  Guess 12 is good enough for now,since there is still a couple weeks to go.

Enjoy your week!

A little Christmas...

Just a quick post to show some quilty/crafty goings on :)

Twice the Flurry!  What you can not see is the Flurry of snow flakes outside :)  Yes I know I am a slacker for not having the tree decorated,but shortly after this photo was taken,that situation was remedied.

Inspector Midas, giving the Christmas Tree the once over ;)

Every year one of the ladies at work always asks me to make up some Christmas Ornaments that she can give to her grandchildren.  Here is a sample of what I made for her this year.

Another lady at work asked if I would make her a little pouch to hold a couple cc's and snack $$.  The only requirements were it had to be small,and it had to be black.  She was thrilled to get it today!

Hope everyone is on track and getting all those Christmas projects wound up ;)  I am off to work on some more myself!