Design Wall Monday April 30th

What's on my design wall today?

It's something perfect for the season, a row for my Spring row quilt.

I am making a row quilt with a group of other quilters and my first row was to be done in April. Since today is the last day of April, guess what I'll be doing today? It's a rainy day here, so a perfect sewing day!

Everything in the above photo is just pinned on my design wall. I wanted to see if the design and colors was going to work before I started sewing things together.

I've sewn the background pieces together and appliqued the fence rails on. Now I'm working on appliqueing the fence posts. My row is 42" wide, I had to have seams in my background pieces and fence rails. I placed the seams so they would be covered as much as possible by the end fence post.

 My daffodil pieces are all backed with fusible. I used my applique pressing sheet to assemble the cluster of daffodils so now they are easier to decide where to place them on my row.

I think my row needs a little more color and I am planning to make some tulips too, I just have to decide  which color. Of course a little butterfly or bee may fly by and I shall have to include them too!


You can head over to http://www.patchworktimes.com/2012/04/30/design-wall-monday-april-30-2012/

and see what fun projects others are working on too.

Time for me to get off the computer and head to the sewing room!

Distracted by Spring!

Goodness, I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I last posted. I guess that means I've been too busy doing "Spring" things, planting in the garden and greenhouse, packing up the winter gear and pulling out clothes for sunnier days. And enjoying the sunshine, at least on the days it shows up!

I have been quilting too, of course.
I finished my Scrap Squad quilt a few weeks ago and today my post went "live" on Quiltmaker's blog.

And here's the quilt that has finally been brought out of seclusion!

You can read about it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170716215344/http://www.quiltmaker.com/blogs/quiltypleasures/2012/04/qm-scrap-squad-jackies-ladder-of-success/

I've also been working on some quilts for Project Linus. I like to do this for several reasons. First, they don't need to be complicated or really big, and it's rewarding to get a quilt top made in an afternoon or two. Second, I have a lot of fabric and it's a chance to use up some of my less favorite or older fabrics to make room for new ones. 

Here's two very easy and quick quilt tops I've recently made.

                                              

And one made from left over's from my scrap squad quilt.
I volunteered to donate a quilt for a Silent Auction for our church's youth group, I think this one may be headed there.












I think I will welcome the rainy spring days with a smile and recognize them as a great opportunity for a sewing day!

April's UFO, A tug at my heartstrings!

When Judy over at http://www.patchworktimes.com/ drew this month's UFO, it was #10. When I looked at my list this was an easy, but special project for me.

Here's what I have so far

                                                        60 of these appliqued hearts.

But now for the rest of the story...................

I had a dear quilting friend who passed away. After her death a large quilting yard sale was had with all the bounty of her sewing room, there was much to choose from! After selecting many items I paused to look through a bin of scrap bags. I discovered a bag of squares with hand appliqued hearts.............for only $1. All that handwork and love put into that project and it had been valued at only $1. Something pulled at my heartstrings and I felt I needed to rescue this project and finish it in honor of my friend.

Back at home I pulled the contents from the bag and found 30 completed heart blocks, a few more hearts cut out, and enough background fabric for 30 more blocks!  So last summer this was my take along project for camping trips, etc and by summer's end I had completed them all. This brings me to where I'm at today, 60 appliqued blocks.

So what to do with them?  I'm thinking simplicity, making the quilt all about the hearts. I played with them on the design wall and have figured out a placement that uses all 60 of them.

Today I'll be auditioning border fabrics, and maybe even sew rows together.


It will feel really good to finish this project!

A UFO becomes a Snowman quilt top

March's UFO project was my snowman quilt, started about 2002. It was a block of the month and I had 3 1/2 blocks made when we decided to move from California to Idaho. It got packed in a box and never had another stitch done until last year when I pulled it back out. When I wrote my UFO list for this year I had 8 blocks completed and knew I was motivated to finish this, one of my oldest UFO's.

Worried about completing this UFO in 1 month when the number was chosen, I continued working on blocks so when Judy pulled #8 for this month I was very pleased, I had just finished the 12th block, What perfect timing!

I knew I wanted to change this quilt from the original pattern, it made an 80 x96" quilt and I wanted something smaller.

First I started auditioning fabric for the sashing. I liked the first one I tried, but it was maybe a little dark.

I tried a lighter blue. I pulled out some strips to try for a tiny border around each block.

I liked the red and the gold, but the yellow was a little bright. I just wasn't liking this blue for the sashing though, and even with all my fabric, I just didn't seem to have another blue that would work. Should I go shopping for another blue?
Well I decided to give the first blue another chance

It didn't look too bad with the red, I decided to just go with what I had. I figured out a plan on some graph paper so I could figure out the sizes for the sashing pieces.

Trimmed my blocks and added 1" strips of red for a skinny border. I put the blocks on the wall and started adding sashing pieces, figuring out the order to sew them in as I want along. It went pretty quickly and soon looked like this

Almost done, just needed a border. I was just about out of that red fabric, but that gold had looked pretty good too, so I gave it a second chance in the border.

TA-DA.............A completed Snowman quilt top!

10 years to make this quilt top, I sure hope it won't take me 10 more years to get it quilted!

A little of this, a little of that!

I've been working on my scrap squad quilt and can't show it to you  :-(

But I can show you some of the parts!

A LOT of these red squares 

                                       
  And a WHOLE BUNCH of these little units ( about 300!)



It's turning out to be a very colorful quilt.
 I'm currently working on the border, actually thinking about the border. I'm back to stalling and getting distracted while I figure out the perfect fabric combo for that border.


So what am I working on while I stall?     Several projects of course!

Some cute little 4" basket blocks from temeculaquiltco.blogspot.com/  They are posting a basket every Thursday in March, so 5 baskets total that will become a little wall hanging.

Also 3 more blocks for the Just Takes 2 quilt. I'm still behind here, but making progress!

As well as another block for my Harry Potter Project of Doom quilt. I can tell this quilt is going to be the spot to use up lots of those strange and unique scraps! Here's the first 2 blocks.

And then one great accomplishment I achieved on Saturday, St Patrick's Day. My Hubby was off snowboarding and the kids got 2 new Netflix movies in the mail. Sounded like a sewing day to me!

I got out my Shamrock quilt top (started 2 years ago, made into a quilt top last year), and decided today was the day it was going to get FINISHED!
I got it pinned and quilted, fed the gang lunch, and got back to work cutting binding. A few interruptions came my way but I kept at it and I finished the hand sewing part of the binding that evening shortly before bedtime! What better way to celebrate St Patrick's day, A completed Shamrock Quilt!

The instructions quilt can be found at http://kimsbigquiltingadventure.blogspot.com/
If you scroll down you will see Quilt Tutorials and it's the St Patrick's Day quilt.

Now I need to get back to that scrap squad border!

Sew many projects, sew little time!

How does it happen, you vow you won't start any more projects till you finish up ones you've already started, and yet somehow you just keep starting more!

Oh but they are so tempting, and just the project you always wanted to do, or just the perfect quilt for someone. There's always a good reason for starting another project I'm sure.

OK, so I'll admit I started another new project. 'sigh' So many projects going on at one time, but I love them all.

So what's the new one?  It's the Project of Doom, A Harry Potter paperpieced quilt.
You can see a photo of a completed one here
http://hp-paperpiecing.livejournal.com/tag/project%20of%20doom
I can already tell this quilt will be made with a lot of input from my 10 yr old son and I think that is great. And here's our first block.

My crystal ball was appliqued rather than paper pieced.

This is going to be a fun quilt to use up all my 'cool' scraps!

Here's March's blocks for the Craftsy BOM

 And the 3 month's blocks together.

Not sure who this will be for yet, but I'm liking these fabrics together.

 I started the Just takes 2 quilt late so I guess I shouldn't be surprised I'm behind on this one, but here's  block's 12 and 13.

And the other quilt I've been working on this week, My Scrap Squad quilt. I made a ton of 4 patches and cut a bunch of squares. I arranged them on my design wall, but wasn't quite sure if I'd keep that layout or change it around. It seemed like a lot of work to rearrange all those little squares, but my 3 yr old son helped me make up my mind. One evening he gleefully knocked all those pieces to the floor! So now I'll be trying out a different arrangement. Luckily I had taken a photo of what I had tried the first time.

My March Ufo goal

The UFO for March is #8

I was pretty happy about this one. This is my snowman quilt, started about 10 years ago.

When I wrote my UFO list it looked like this

                                   
                                                       8 blocks made
                                                        and kits for 4 more

               Knowing this would be a big project, more than I could probably get done in one month, I had already pulled this one out. My snowman blocks have been my hand work project while waiting for kids from the school bus and while watching TV. Just last week I just finished the last block!

First I fused all the pieces in place and then I sewed buttonhole stitch around each shape. If I started this quilt today I would have done the buttonhole stitch by machine, but when I started this quilt I didn't have a sewing machine that could do that stitch.

This quilt was a block of the month kit. However there must have been a finishing kit that I didn't buy. I just have blocks and a picture of the finished quilt, but no directions to finish it. That's OK because I'm not very excited about the original quilt design.

Here's all my blocks on my design wall.
 This week I'll be auditioning fabrics, perhaps a small red border around each block and blue sashing?
We'll have to see what these blocks have to say!