I have finished my blocks the December block of the month with my local guild. As a treat for the guild, I did an extra variation this month!
Want to see the rest of the blocks we have been working on? Check out the guild page here for each of the blocks and the guild flickr here for some of our member’s blocks!
Well I didn’t finish all my projects last quarter (I actually did better than I thought I would, which is great). This quarter is all about getting ready for the holidays – for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to make a lot of gifts this year (smart right). Most of these projects are presents for people, so I am not posting too much detail (I doubt most the recipients read this blog, but just to be careful).
1. A Coastal Cruiser pillow. (Finished – Nov. 20th)
2. A Pillow (this one will go with the Coastal Cruiser house, so it has the same background, but will have a different subject) (Finished – Nov 24th)
3. Stockings – With the new addition to our household this year we need another stocking. As my husband and I don’t have any at our house (Christmas was usually spent with one set of parents or the others) I need to make us some as well – at least they will all match! (Finished – Dec 19th)
4. Baby quilt – This quilt is for a special little baby that decided to arrive early – guess she couldn’t wait to meet her parents! That being said now her quilt really needs to done and it is still in pieces (all the pieces have not yet been cut either!). (Finished – Oct 27th)
5. This quilt from my Guild’s Mystery Quilt series needs to be quilted and bound so it can go to its new home this Christmas.
6. A custom quilt for a friend! I have made several baby quilts for her (she loves to give them as shower presents) and I finally get to make on for her to keep! 
7. Why not through this on (would be nice to have it for Halloween) as it just needs to be quilted and bound! I would love to be able to snuggle with my Ghastlies soon!
8. I also have a Ghastlies mug rug that needs to be finished for a present (no pic sorry as I am sure this person looks at the blog!).
Oh dear, 8 projects in less than three months – I better get to work! Hopefully I don’t get distracted with too many side projects over the coming months, although I am sure there will be a few of those as well.
I can’t believe that it has been over a month since I last posted! Things have been a little crazy here for the last few weeks – Little Girl is awake and playing more, we did a road trip to visit family and friends and my Husband managed to break his foot. He is on crutches for about 6 weeks and then a walking boot after that. Poor guy can’t carry Little Girl right now and it takes him much longer to get anything done with the crutches. Needless to say not a lot of sewing has been done here recently.
I have managed to get some things done though. Back in July I offered to organize a block of the month for my local quilt guild. I have been spending time planning blocks, making blocks and writing instructions for those. So far 3 blocks and 1 set of instructions done. I am loving the way that they turning out and can’t wait to get working on the rest of the blocks.
Also before the broken foot incident I told a friend I would make a quilt for her for a baby shower. I picked up this cute pattern at Sew Fresh Quilts and love the quilt. Thankfully it comes together fairly easily so I am able to get some put together during Little Girl’s naps. I can’t wait to see it finished and may just have to make another one for Little Girl!
Well, I am trying to make 2014 the year for getting some projects finished – my sewing room has become smaller, so I just won’t have the room for all my unfinished projects, nor the time I used to have to dedicate to them! In an effort to keep working on projects and holding myself accountable for finishing them, I am joining in the Finish Along again! I only completed about 1/2 my list last year, but that was better than finishing nothing and starting a bunch of new ones!
So for this quarter I have a couple of leftover projects and some new ones.
1. Hexagon pillow – I started this pillow over the summer and only have 8 more hexagons that have to be attached, then quilted to make the pillow cover. As I am supposed to being doing a small demo on English Paper Piecing at my Quilt Guild Meeting in February I am hoping to have this mostly done to show as part of the demo (adding borders, removing paper, ect).
2. Star Pillow – I need to get a pillow cover finished for this so it can go down on the reading bench to lean against! My husband was nice enough to custom build the bench, so now I just need to finish up the pillows!
3. The baby Textures quilt – this still needs to be quilted and finished. It has no real recipient, but it would be nice to be able to put it in the finished pile (and to have on hand for a last minute present, the number of people I know having kids seems to grow each week!).
4. Mom’s Pillow – After some renos last year, she is need of a pillow for some new furniture. I am thinking a nice dresdren plate pillow would look great with the other grey and yellow flowers she has going on in the room.
5. Mystery Quilt – I made this quilt with the local guild this year and need to get it basted, quilted and bound. I am hoping to use it as a Christmas present.
6. Star quilt – this is all nicely bound, it just needsto be quilted, in which case I need to pick a pattern to quilt it with.
7. Star of Bears – This quilt needs to be done in the next couple of weeks as the baby this is a present for is due Aug 5th!
8. Christmas Monkeys – this poor quilt keeps getting pushed behind other projects at every stage. All that is left at this point is to bind it and remove all the basting pins!
That seems like a good list with a new baby in the house!
One more baby quilt top done! I feel like I am finally getting some things accomplished in the sewing room these days, which is good as the deadlines (and due dates) are quickly approaching.
I am making this quilt for a cooworker of my Mother’s. The soon to be Mom grew up with the Berenstain Bears, so what better fabric to pick then Moda’s Welcome To Bear Country! I happened to have a couple charm packs around still and found this great pattern on the Moda Bake Shop. It came together quickly in a single afternoon!
I now have the quilt basted and am going to have start quilting it as soon as I can figure out what I am going to do. I am thinking of trying out some stippling with loops or possibly some swirls.
I am working at finishing up the top for the mystery quilt that I am doing with my local Modern Quilt Guild. I have now finished all the individual blocks and am getting ready to put them together! I can’t wait to see how this all comes together!
I have also started cutting into my Micheal Miller Fabric for the Modern Quilt Guild fabric challenge. It is such pretty fabric that it took a bit for me to be able to cut into it, but I am liking how the design is coming together. This is the next quilt on my “must finish soon” list as the contest ends June 23, yikes!
It feels so good to be back in the sewing room (and no longer marking exams!). I have a few projects that I am not juggling as the deadlines are all coming up fast – one of these babies needs to be done in a little over a week for pick up and delivery to an expecting Mom in early May! Apparently I know a lot of people having babies right now, so there are going to be a few baby quilts in my future.
First I am working on yet another Dr. Seuss quilt. This time I am using a pattern from Jaybird Quilts – with my brain still a little tired from marking the last couple months, I wanted something easy with directions to follow! I just finished basting this quilt, and have been starting at it for a day or so trying to decide what quilting to do on it (I have not been able to get a decent picture of the top due to the sewing room still being a disaster – not sure how I am getting anything done in there). Due to timeline, I am thinking an all over stipple might be the way to go, but was debating using the interlocking squares like I did on the Seuss Pods quilt. Oh the decisions!
Next on the list of projects to get done in the next week or two is another baby quilt – this time a grey and yellow quilt using the Breezy pattern from the book Growing up Modern. I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw the book and couldn’t wait to make one!
I am hoping to get one of these moved into the finished category soon, so I can move onto the third baby quilt that I need to have made this summer and get caught up on my Quilt Guilds Mystery quilt (I am only 2.5 clues behind, lol). Hopefully posting this and linking up to Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation will keep me on track and motivated this weekend! There are some great projects being worked on linked up this week!
So 2013 has finished (well that was a few days ago actually….) and sadly I was not able to finish all the things on my list. Christmas, travel and life seemed to take over all that free time I thought I was going to have once exams were finished.
I was able to get 3 finishes check off the list:
The mug rugs were finished and sent off with my friend on her Christmas travels
The Seuss Stars quilt was finished 2 weeks before the baby was born and able to be gifted to my coworker before she left work for the holidays (she ended up having a little girl on Christmas Day!).
The Pods of Seuss was finally finished as well and while it is at the house still, I know of a little baby on the way that I have in mind for this one as well now.
While the Christmas Monkey quilt was not finished this during 2013, it is basted and now 1/3 of the way quilted. It took me forever to decide how to quilt it – I don’t want to know how many days I sat and starred at this quilt trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it and drawing out sketches. I am happy with what I have picked – now I just have to finish it!
During the entire year of 2013 I was able to finish a total of 11 quilts! I am happy with this as the fall turned out to be way busier than I had expected. Not included in that count is all the other projects I worked on during the year, including a Quilt Bee (more on that later), a few rounds of the Scrappy Trip Along swap, a few pillow covers, mug rugs and pin cushions, finished quilt tops and started quilt tops that are sitting in various states of “in progress”. All in all 2013 was a great year and I am looking forward to an exciting 2014!
It is the time of year when the marking is piling up and I am counting the weeks until finals are over – well mostly I am counting the number of assignments until the end of term. As things get busy I need something to keep me accountable for a few projects. For these reasons I decided to join up with the last quarter of the 2013 Finish-A-Long. My list of unfinished projects is really a lot longer than this, but I thought I would try to be reasonable with what I might actually be able to accomplish (along with the blocks for the bees and block swaps that I am currently in).
1. First up is this cute little quilt (the top is actually complete as of yesterday). It is made from some Dr. Seuss scraps and solids for a college at work who is due in December. It needs to be finished before she leaves on maternity leave!
2. Mug Rug sets. I promised a friend I would make some of these for her Aunts for Christmas. She needs six sets of two before Christmas and so far I have 2 basted, 2 more tops pieced, pieces cut out for 4 more and patters/fabrics pulled for the last sets. I also have one quilted that is a Christmas present for my brother.
3. Textured Baby Quilt. I have been working on this little baby quilt for a while. I love the colours and the different textures in the quilt (hence the name). I have no plans for this quilt other than I wanted to try a project with texture magic. I am sure someone will have a little girl soon who needs a quilt.
4. Pods of Seuss. I first posted this baby quilt months ago. Since then it has been quilted and the then it sat for another month or two. I then made the binding and again it has sat for weeks. I really want to get this quilt into the finished pile for no other reason than it has been patiently waiting its turn long enough.
5. Christmas Monkeys. I love Sock monkeys and made this quilt top back in January after getting my hands of some of this adorable fabric. The top is finished and I have the backing pieced, I just need to find time and space to get it basted. I would love to have it finished to snuggle under for the holidays.
6. Last but not least is a bit of an ambitious project, but I thought I would put it on here so hopefully I get some progress done. All these little squares are cut out for an Anchors Away quilt designed by Tula Pink. I know I probably won’t get this quilt finished (it is a queen sized quilt), but it is always good to aim high!
Well that is my goal, in reality I think I will be happy if I just get the presents finished.
Joining up to the 2013 Finish-A-Long at She Can Quilt.
Sadly while the weather is still warm here, I have had to go back to work recently after having the summer off. I don’t mind being back at work – the routine is good and it is nice to be back doing what I love, but that also means that I have a lot less time for quilting. After a summer of trying to get some of my WIP pile down (and I did a great job in August) I am left with finishing up the last couple of projects that are close and a still growing pile of WIPs.
I am currently working on trying to get this little mini quilt/wall hanging finished. It has been an idea in my head for months now and last week I decided I just had to get going on it.
I did manage to finish quilting two quilts this week as well (thank you long weekend). The LOVE quilt and Pods of Seuss have now been quilting and are waiting for bindings. Pictures of those will be coming soon!
Lastly, I have finished up the blocks for my quilt bee this month. I am happy with the way they turned out and have sent them along their way in the mail. I am looking forward to seeing how the quilt top looks.
I also foolishly decided to take stock and make up a list of the currently in progress projects in my sewing room. For some reason I thought this would help – it only made me mourn the lack of sewing time i will have to work on these projects for the next few months. Anyways, I do hope to be able to cross at least a few more off this list before the end of year, so I am putting it here to keep myself accountable.
2 quilts to bind
2 quilts to baste (tops and backs are pieced)
2 finished quilt tops (with no backing as of yet)
5 quilt tops in progress
1 quilt waiting to be cut (all the fabric is there just calling to me)
1 Bee quilt
1 Block swap quilt (Scrappy Trip)
More projects than I would like to count in the planning stage
Crossing my fingers I can get a couple more crossed off that list before Christmas (and I know that there will be more added too it).
Miss Muffet Quilts 