March Goals Update

March is coming to a close. Will it go out like a lamb? 

After mild weather for most of winter, which spoiled us, Mr. Winter came back just  a week before the official end. We got quite a bit of snow!

March was a short sewing month for me as we headed to visit our kids for 10 days in warmer weather!

However, I did work to accomplish my goals! 

My first goal was to complete my leader/ender baby quilt for donation to 

Project Linus. 

This quilt used squares that I over cut for my niece's 1st baby quilt and sat around my sewing room for way too long. She is 2 1/2 years old. 

The pink is very light so I emphasized the greens.

The quilting is concentric squares around the mini pieced squares and loops in the border. 

It is labeled and ready for donation! Finishes at 34" x 39 1/2"

My second goal was to finish piecing the Elephant Parade quilt and get it to the flimsy stage. 

I love how this quilt is turning out. I just had to add a unexpected pop of color. It is Kona cotton Wasabi. Lorna over at Sew Fresh Quilts does a great job with her tutorials. These blocks are fun to make!

I ordered this fabric for the backing. It just arrived! I have some work to do!

My third goal for March was to decide on the pattern for the modern wedding quilt I will be making. I'm going to use a pattern from this book. 

The couple lives in the city so....

I will be making the quilt using the City Bank pattern. 

I am linking up at Elm Street Quilts: One Monthly Goal.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge for March

March's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is green red. Not the expected color for March! Angela did a random choice of colors from her crayon box. 

So this month we play with reds! 

My red scrap bucket is overflowing Ü

My mini spools do not use many scraps...but they sure are cute!

I'm linking up at So Scrappy. Join me over there to see all the amazing red projects this month.

I'm also using the RSC color of the month to make my Milky Way QAL block. This month the star block is Alpha Centauri.

Here it is with Sirius. The first star in the series.

This QAL is hosted by Blossom Heart Quilts.

New over at Blossom Heart is mini blocks of these stars. 

Maybe a few minis will be in my future.

April is just around the corner...what will April's color be?

Project Quilting #6 Time is Up

The final challenge for Project Quilting Season 8 is Time is Up. The challenge is anything related to time. I found that to be so broad that it was difficult narrowing it down. Do I go with the standard clock or calendar? 

What about seasons...spring time?  

Then there are all the sayings or idioms related to time.

Have a whale of a good time, Once Upon a Time, time out, most wonderful time of the year, running out of time, time flies, time is money...

Then there is time management and Time magazine. 

You get the idea...we use time for many things. I knew I couldn't ponder this too long as this is a short week for me as we are leaving to visit our daughters tomorrow. 

I decided to go with Tea Time. A mini quilt that I could use. I got started and while I was paper piecing my mind kept going...maybe I should do a play on these words...tee time...

No! I didn't have TIME to play. So here it is: Tea Time

This mini finishes at about 14" square. The tea pot and tea cup are paper pieced  using this pattern and I FMQ around the pot and cup as well as the background. I FMQ straight lines to represent the table. I used a doily under the tea pot.

This is the final challenge! Voting next week. It has been fun!

Linking up to Project Quilting @ Persimon Dreams.

Project Quilting #5 Well Dressed Man

The 5th challenge for Project Quilting is the well-dressed man!

Immediately I thought of pin stripes or hounds tooth or herringbone...all patterns in mens wear that are classic. 

Then I did a search through my husband's closet where I found a few more patterns...stripes and plaids ties and shirts. I rummaged through his sock drawer and ...

I remember that for my daughter's wedding, my son-in-love wanted the men to wear argyle socks! 

This is not a picture from their wedding as it didn't get captured by their photographer.

The color scheme for their wedding was purples but my SIL didn't care what color argyle socks the men wore. So my husband bought these 

(he couldn't find purple). 

Using an argyle pattern - Argyle Sketches by QuilterChic available on Craftsy, I created this mini quilt.

 

Using the dimensions of the argyle diamonds in the pattern, I cut out 3 diamonds (2 blue and 1 gray). I used a darker charcoal gray for the background. I flipped the diamonds on their sides instead of upright like in the pattern to look like the socks.

I backed this with a print from my stash.

I quilted around each diamond in the ditch and extended the quilting into the border following the argyle diamonds. Then I hand quilted using big stitch quilting with pearl cotton, the white argyle lines. 

This quilt finishes at 15" x 22". Created by me in Des Plaines, IL

I'm linking up to Project Quilting over at Persimon Dreams.

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March Goals

It is now March 3rd and I am just getting to set my goals. February proved to be a busy month and looking forward into March, it will also be a short month as we head down to Texas to spend time with our daughters and son-in-love.  

I also became aware of some quilts that I must get done...one for my niece's baby shower in April and a wedding quilt. 

So my goals for March will put a few things on the back burner like my Sail Away quilt and my Go Cubs Go! quilt. I will complete my leader ender baby quilt for donation. This quilt has a little bit more quilting and the binding to be completed. 

For my niece's baby quilt the theme is elephants in greige (a new neutral color. Have your heard of it?) I am making the elephants from the pattern Elephant Parade by Sew Fresh Quilts. This was from a quilt along that Lorna did in 2015. I choose this pattern because not only are her patterns cute, Lorna does an incredible job at clear and easy to follow instructions.  I recently did her quilt along Modern Bear Paw and I loved it! 

My goal is to complete piecing the top of this quilt.

I also purchased fabrics for the wedding quilt. The colors are plum with silver and a touch of green. 

I choose Kona silver for the background and several Kona purples and one American made brand and 2 Grunge, a Tula Pink print and a green from my stash. I haven't quite figured out what pattern to use yet. It needs a modern feel and I'm leaning towards a hashtag quilt. I don't have a specific deadline for this quilt as the couple was married in October at Disney World. We weren't invited (only immediate family) but it is for my close friend's oldest son and his new bride. In March, I will finalize my decision as to the pattern and start cutting out this quilt. 

As always, I will continue to keep up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and the Milky Way QAL. This month's color is red!

I am linking up my goals at OMG-March goals at Elms Street Quilts.

I hope to be better at giving my March goals update at the end of this month. In the meantime...Happy Quilting! 

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February Goals Update

I blinked and February was gone!

Although I got some work done of my OMG for February, I didn't finish everything. Good thing that it is One Monthly Goal because I did finish 1 of the 3 projects that I had hoped to finish. On the bright side, I did work on the other 2 projects...just not to completion. 

The project I finished was the Halloween wallhanging for my daughter which I will bring to her in March. 

Before sandwiching the quilt block I added the word EEK! to the spiderweb. 

It will be a cute wallhanging for her to celebrate Halloween and I finished a UFO!

WIN-WIN!

I also worked on quilting the baby quilt that came together as my leader/ender project.  In the beginning of February it was a flimsy. I managed to sandwich it and start the quilting but haven't quite finished.

I have one more row of concentric squares to quilt, then to bind it.

Last, I wanted to move forward my Sail Away quilt. I only took a baby step in moving this one forward. I wanted to piece an anchor block into the backing. I did manage to piece the anchor block but didn't get it into the backing. 

I did keep up with my RSC and the Milky Way QAL, and added 2 mini houses to my blue and white neighborhood. Progress there!

Well, it seems I'm a little late for the finish up link up this month. 

So onto March...