Sunday's Summary

It has been a week and it is time for my Sunday Summary of what's been happening here. I got a good amount done this week (at least in my sewing room) but the most exciting is....a finish! The baby airplane quilt is finished...quilting, binding, labeling, and washing. I'm named this quilt Wings!

Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating today...so no pretty outside pictures.

Besides quilting in the ditch around each airplane... I  FMQ in the negative space to resemble isobars or wind currents. The squares formed where the 4 propellers come together, I quilted a twirling circle to give the concept of the propeller movement. In the border, I FMQ the saying..."Give me wings and I will fly." The font is long and wispy to give the feel of a sky writer and I added a little plane. 

Finished in time for next week's baby shower!

Purple is the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here is my block! To see some inspiration, click on the button on my side bar and it will take you to the challenge and link up. 

February is also the final month in the BOM with Quilt Story. This month the block challenge was 4 patch. I decided to do a disappearing 4 patch. 

Since I made all my blocks 6" instead of 12"...I will be framing each block in Kona Snow to give the quilt a more modern feel...a lot more negative space. 

Next month is the reveal!

I have also almost finished the quilting on my Craftsy BOM quilt. 

All the blocks are now done and I am quilting the border. 

Stay tuned...it should be finished soon!

Progress Report

 My DH was out of town on business all week which gave me time to spend in my sewing room. However, Monday is Knitting Club so there was no stitching done...but I have finally finished my first sock! I have barely started the matching pair.

I did work diligently on completing the Airplane blocks I showed last week. I had a lot of fun paper piecing these blocks! Then I arranged and rearranged the blocks to decide on the layout of the quilt. I tried 4 different layouts...and the winner is...

I really like the fun secondary design shape that emerged with this layout. I  also had to make a decision on the borders. Since the blocks are 6" finished...the quilt was only 24" x 36"...a bit smaller than I wanted. I added a 1" gray inner border, then a 1" scrappy border with small squares of the fabrics used in the planes, and finally a 3" outer border in Kona Snow (the background fabric.) The quilt is now 34" x 40"...a nice size for a baby quilt. I will sandwich and quilt this week! 

And since this week closed out the month of January...here is my completed pages of my Art Journal ~ 365 Challenge.

I am not an artist...my lettering needs a bit of improvement but I did jot down an event from every day...which in itself is an accomplishment. I have tried keeping journals before and have failed so I'm pretty happy with it. 

What have you been working on? 

Soon it will be time to enjoy the Superbowl! Maybe I'll get some knitting done but probably not Ü.

The Weekly Progress Report

Although I feel like I spent a bit of time quilting this week, I am at that stage where there isn't much to show...yet. 

I started quilting my Craftsy BOM quilt and have worked on 10 of the 20 blocks. Since this is a sampler quilt, each block is quilted differently. For the most part, I am straight line quilting using echo quilting 1/4" from the edge. Here are a few of the blocks.

Sorry for the poor lighting but the weather hasn't been cooperating for good photos

 Due to some time issues, I am putting the rest of the quilting on hold for a short while. Even though I have known about this deadline, it is quickly approaching. So on Thursday night, with graph paper and pencil in hand, I started designing a baby quilt. 

Yesterday I made 10 of the paper pieced blocks...14 more to go. I'm loving this block and can't wait to put it together. Aren't they just too cute?

On Friday night I attended a lecture and trunk show by Karen Combs at my LQS. Karen is known for her quilts of illusions as well as being an author, pattern and fabric designer.  Here are some of her illusion quilts using her fabrics. The illusions of 3D are created by the color values used. 

I apologize for the poor quality pictures.

Each quilt took on a different look when you turned it 90° or more. Here is an example of a 180° turn.

This was one of my favorites. I love how this cube is floating. 

Until next time...

Weekly Progress

Life is busy and I don't always find time to post on my blog. Instead I spend my free time actually quilting, knitting or creating in some manner. That is my outlet for busyness/stress. 

With that said, I am going to try to, at least, post a Weekly Progress update. 

This week I worked hard on finishing the top for a baby quilt I have been working on. The pattern is Building Fun by Geta's Grama. 

 It reminds me of these wooden blocks we had for building so I wanted to use similar colors. 

Remember these?

Here is my interpretation using Kona colors:

I did eliminate the borders around each block and made the borders 2 1/2" instead of 3 1/2".

I have a few quilts to work on before this one gets quilted Ü

I also worked on my February Art Journal for the 365 day challenge. 

I am having so much fun creating these calendars with mixed media. Since I am a quilter, for the most part, I am using fabric (from my stash Ü). The hearts in the balloon bouquet and the 2 hanging hearts are scrapbook stickers and the lace bow is from my stash left over from my doll making days. I am stamping the days of the week and the numbers. For writing on each day I have been using micron pens. 

If you want to be inspired, go here to see more.

And finally I sandwiched my Craftsy BOM quilt. Yay! Pictures soon!

What have you been working on?

The week's progress

I have been slowly working my way through my back log of sewing. 

As the new year gets under way, new challenges are always tempting.  There are so many new quilt alongs, BOMs, quilt challenges, etc. to choose from that it takes me a while to decide what I should join this year. 

This week I was able to work a little on some new challenges. I choose to join the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at soscrappy. January's color is Bright Pink. After deciding on a pattern, I dug through my pink scraps and came up with this block. 

This was a fun block to make. I can't wait to get next months color. The block finishes at 12". 

 Another monthly challenge I joined is Art Journaling 2013 ~ 365 Challenge. I was first inspired by Annie from Freezeframe. She is so talented! She makes the most amazing post cards. In one of her recent posts, she linked to The Kathryn Wheel blog where you will find amazing art and the challenge. This struck an accord with me because I have wanted to try art quilting on a small scale (I don't consider myself an artist by any means) and I have tried and failed at journaling, so I thought that I could try this. Not to say that I will have some fantastic, wonderful, exciting things to add each day...but to record one highlight from my day seemed doable. So after sketching out a calendar on paper, one evening I pulled some fabric from my stash and started creating. Here is my January journal. 

I used fabric for everything except the snowflake buttons. The days of the week and the numbers are stamps. My pages are 8 1/2" x 11" and each month will have 2 pages. I have an idea for binding them that I saw on Pinterest. 

Hopefully I will get more creative as I gather scrapbooking supplies, etc. I invested in a set of micron markers in several colors so that I can be more creative in my entries. We will see where I go with this but for now I am really enjoying it. February is already in the planning stage Ü

Easy Street Mystery Quilt is now a flimsy finish! I finished the last 3 blocks after cutting the additional pieces from each step. I am not always keen on adding borders to my quilts but this quilt needed them. There are so many pieces and the colors are bright that your eye needs a place to rest. The borders framed and calmed the quilt. (Sorry the picture is so bad...the colors are not true) Here it is!

It will be on hold a while until I decide on a backing and work on a few other projects Ü

 I also made a few blocks for the Quilting for a Cause flickr group. The I Spy blocks are for Lubbock Ronald McDonald House and the purple Greek Cross is for Domestic Violence. Both are simple to make and for good causes.

Now I really need to work on some baby quilts. One's in process and another in the planning stage.

BOM updates and Easy Street

Well, it seems that I have forgotten to show you my September block for the BOM with Quilt Story. The theme for September was paper piece and I decided to make the Circle of Geese block by Forest Quilting.

I also finished the December block - Star and the January block - Squares and Rectangles. 

Only one month left to go...February's theme is 4 patch and March is the reveal. Looking forward to putting this one together! You can hop over to Quilt Story to see Heather and Megan's blocks and here for the monthly link up. 

Easy Street is coming along but boy are there a lot of pieces. I just made half of the blocks because I didn't want my quilt so big. Without knowing the mystery layout, I figured I may need to add blocks in the end. Sure enough now that we know the layout, I am cutting a few more from each step to complete the layout. Instead of 4 x 4 blocks on point, mine will be 3 x 3. 

Here is what I have so far.

3 more blocks to go and then I need to do the borders. I don't think I have enough of any of the fabrics for the borders seeing that I used fabrics from my stash and scraps (except for the black on white and the gray) so I will probably need to buy something. (To see all my pieces for each step, go here.) This is my first Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt and I am excited to see it all put together! I'm linking up here.

I'm back...

graphic by Madame Samm

Welcome 2013! 

I hope this year will be blessed with peace and love around the world. Have you made any New Year resolutions? One of mine is to go to the gym...got a gym membership for Christmas! Another is to work out of my stash as much as possible...limit fabric purchases. That is always a challenge.

It has been a struggle to find time to post about what's been happening around here for several reasons. Besides it being the holidays, I was having trouble with uploading photos and also needed to update my blog interface as it couldn't be read on mobile devices. Took me a while to figure things out but I think I works now. 

I did do some sewing for gifts. I saw this cute bag on Pinterest. It is called It's a Cinch Bag by Katy @ Sweet Verbena. I made it for my mom.

The main fabric is linen and the lining and handles are a heavy weight cotton, all from my stash! It has a zipper closure and a zippered pocket in the lining.  

It is quite large! Plenty of room for lots of stuff.

I also made 3 new Christmas ornaments. It is my family tradition to make and exchange an ornament each year. 

I saw so many cute ones I couldn't just make one. 

Gingham stars and Homespun Candy Canes were found on Pinterest. 

A Spoonful of Sugar

Eyeballs By Day, Crafts by Night

I found Scrappy Stocking on Threadbias.

Jenny @ Stumbles & Stitches

I also have been trying to keep catch up on the Easy Street Mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. 

I never was able to catch up enough to actually link up but I was poking along. I only made half a 'recipe' since I didn't want the finished size so big. I will have to make a few more of each block once I consider the layout. Here are my complete steps.

4 patch

flying geese block

shaded 4 patch and green triangles

 more flying geese and green squares

 house block

double bar and large squares (waiting to be cut into quarter triangles)

Tomorrow I will start putting together the blocks and layout. 

I also have another baby quilt started and I'm waiting to find space/time to sandwich my completed Craftsy BOM flimsy. That's for another day.