What happened while MIA?

For just about the last quarter of 2017, I went MIA from my blog. I keep saying that I'll get better at posting to my blog but I can't seem to find a time that life isn't busy! School has been busier this year from the start. 

I was doing a pretty decent job of keeping up with challenges and QAL's until November, then I was fell behind on all of them. 

However, I did get some quilting and other projects done during this time!

I did finish my 15 minutes of play quilt which is now named 

Thank Your Lucky Stars. 

In my last post, I had started quilting around the 20 different colored blocks and star points. I finished that quilting and started the negative space quilting. 

I quilted a swirl inside each star block and a braid between the blocks. 

The backing is a multi-colored print I found at Joann's. 

The binding is scrappy. The finished size is 54.5" x 68".

This quilt will be gifted to someone special.

I also made a gift for our nephew's baby boy. This traveled to Norway and was well received!

The blanket is fleece with a crocheted edge and the bib is made from a recycled men's shirt. The bowtie used scraps from a previous quilt. The pattern is found here. 

I spent a week in Austin with my daughters and SIL for Thanksgiving. My hubby and our oldest daughter flew down on Wednesday. It was fun to all be together. 

My DD2 has been learning indigo dyeing. Together we did a batch of tea towels and napkins. This is a fun but bit complicated process. I'm thinking of trying to do some fabric dyeing come summer and warmer temperatures.

Here are the folds we used.

My napkins.

My daughter's tea towels.

It was night by the time we finished the dyeing.

Christmas was around the corner and I needed to make my ornaments for the year. Based on a log cabin kit we bought while in Vancouver, I made these from mini wooden logs I found at a thrift store. 

I also made some hoop quilts for 2 special sister friends in my life. 

 The pattern for the gnome was found here. I made a slight adjustment to eliminate the ears. Hand embroidered, God Jul! (Merry Christmas in Norwegian)

I shrunk the pattern and added the tree from here. 

Another quilt that I made and gifted to a good friend was Flight.

This is a wall hanging quilt. Size 13" x 20.5"

The pattern is found on Craftsy.

I quilted around the plane and then I added some night sky constellations.  

And finally, yesterday I worked on my little spools for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and the last stars for the Milky Way QAL.

Blacks and browns!

All the little spools, neat and orderly...arranged by color. 

Acrux star in peach.

Deneb star in gold.

9 Milky Way stars!

I added a scrappy star with fabrics from some of the previous stars. 

I like this a lot however I ran out of the gray background fabric. I need to go and look/shop for a gray that will match. I don't remember if this was a Kona or...? 

I still have a few blocks to finish for Grandma's Kitchen.

Linking up to ScrapHappySaturday over at So Scrappy.

Thanks for reading to the end! I know it was heavy on the pictures and words but that what happens when you go MIA for a couple of months. 

In the next few days, I will be contemplating what projects, QALs, and challenges I will be doing in 2018! 

What will you be joining! I'd love to hear! 

Hope everyone will have a warm and prosperous 2018!

October goals update

My October goal was pretty light and in hind sight, for good reason! Life just doesn't seem to slow down. My goal was to decide on and start the quilting on my 15 minutes of play blocks quilt. 

Unfortunately, I didn't make the bonus of finishing. 

I did decide on the quilting for my 15 minutes of play orphaned blocks quilt. In the 'made' fabric squares I decided to quilt each on with a matching thread color. I made a twisting log cabin pattern in each. There are 20 different squares so I had 20 different thread color changes. I also decided (about half way through) to stitch in the ditch around each star point in the color of the point. 

There is a lot of negative space in this quilt so I needed to decide what to do. In looking at the whole quilt, I decided to go back and quilt echoing squares around the 'made' fabric squares in the color of the square. Yes, it would have been more efficient to have decided to do this while I had the specific colors threaded but I don't always do things the easy way. 

I am currently working on going back to changing threads 20 times to finish this part of the quilting. 20 thread changes adds a bit of time to the quilting process!

I have a few of them done and I do have a plan for the remaining negative space with white thread! Inside the stars, I am planning a swirl or concentric circles and in the space between the stars, straight line quilting in a chevron pattern. IT"S GETTING THERE!

I did keep up with my RSC blocks and Milky Way QAL blocks and I'm only one block behind on Grandma's Kitchen. 

Also my charity quilt is almost a flimsy! 

I linking up to October Finish Link Up over at Elm Street Quilts. 

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Falling Behind

It is Fall and I find myself falling behind in my quilt alongs and challenges. School has been busy, we took our annual trip up to Door County, and the Chicago Cubs are in the playoffs. All these have contributed to minimal sewing time.  Yesterday I took a day off from school thinking I would have time to catch up but I found that I really needed to get some household duties done first. This  only gave me a couple of hours in my sewing room. 

I was able to complete my pink little spools yesterday 

and this morning I worked on my Milky Way QAL star called Sol. The QAL is sponsored by Blossom Heart Quilts.

These challenges/QAL will soon come to an end. Here are all the little spools together. All arranged neatly in rows with the purple and reds spools stacked. How do you arrange your threads in your sewing room?

Here are all the stars so far in the Milky Way quilt.

Now to get caught up on my Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along blocks and my October goal for OMG. 

I am linking to So Scrappy Saturday Parade of Pink.

October Goals

It is time to set some October goals! Since I finished my Sail Away! quilt, I can now refocus on my quilt using the orphaned 15 min of play blocks that I had finished the flimsy as part of my August goals. 

On Saturday (still officially September) this happened!

I found some time to sandwich this quilt and it is now ready to quilt! I'm not sure how to quilt it yet...should I match the thread colors to the blocks, use a variegated thread, or a neutral? What do I do in all the negative space? 

Decisions to be made! Ideas? 

My goal for October will be to make a final decision on the quilting and get it started. Bonus would be to finish!

I also have been working on a charity 2 color quilt. It is a basic bear claw block with lots of HST pieces. I found this technique that makes 18 2" finished HST and it really speeded up the process. 

Have you ever used this technique? It was new to me!

The papers did not come big enough for the large HST piece so I did these using a traditional technique.

October brings a new color for the Rainbow Scrap challenge and a new star for the Milky Way QAL. This month's color is pink and the star is called Sol. 

I am also keeping up fairly well with the Grandma's Kitchen weekly Sew Along. 

Here is last weeks block.

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal October Link-up over at Elm Creek Quilts.

We are heading up North mid~week to experience the trees showing all their glorious Fall colors! It is such a beautiful time! Hope we have great weather!

September Goals Update

I'm happy to say that I accomplished my goal for September! I needed to finish the quilting and bind this quilt.

I had started the quilting with the little sail boats following the tutorial by Lori Kennedy over at The Inbox Jaunt. I needed to finish those and then add waves to the borders following another tutorial by Lori. 

I bound this quilt with a blue and white fabric I bought last year while vacationing in the Pacific Northwest with this quilt in mind. 

Here is my finished Sail Away! quilt. I made this quilt with different nautical prints and other red, white and blue prints in my stash following the pattern called Nautical News by Busy Hands Quilts. I replaced one of the blocks with a sail boat block. 

I also added a paper pieced anchor block to the back.

It does feel great to use fabrics from my stash which I had collected over the years! 

The finished size for this quilt is 59" x 79"

Even the label is nautical themed!

I also kept up with the quilt alongs that I am following. See my orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and The Milky Way QAL here.

The newest finished blocks for the Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along are 

Kitchen Door 

Sunday Dinner

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal September Link-up over at Elm Street Quilts.

Block finishes

September brought a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ~ ORANGE!

I was able to get busy this week and make a few mini orange spool blocks.

Only a few months to go before we put this scrappy quilt together! I will link up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at SoScrappy!

The other monthly QAL that I'm participating this year is the Milky Way QAL. I have been using this same color (for the most part) in this QAL as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So this month's star is Betelgeuse and here it is in orange!This QAL is by Alyce over at Blossom Heart Quilts.

There are 3 more stars in this QAL before we put it together!

Finally, I'm been doing the Sew Along with Pat Sloan, Grandma's Kitchen. This challenge is weekly so it is a bit more of a challenge to keep up. Here are the last 2 weeks blocks.

This is Recipe Box. For this block, several alternate layouts were suggested. I chose this layout because it reminded me more of a recipe box. My dark fabric forms the box around the mint green fabric which actually has recipes written on it. This is from the fabric line Domestic Diva by Riley Blake. Link up here.

The 11th block is a appliqué block Peppermint Swirls. 

Pat adds stories of her grandmas in each pattern. It is fun to reminisce about my grandma! My grandma didn't have peppermint swirls but she did have candy! Reeses peanut butter cups were her favorites and she always had plenty to share with her grandchildren and great grandchildren! Link up here.

Are you caught up with your QALs?

New Goals

We had a nice Labor Day weekend camping and hiking in Devil's Lake State Park but now it is time to set some goals for September!

After completing my scrappy star top, I set it aside and started the quilting on my Sail Away! quilt that I completed the top for in 2016.  

Sandwiched and with the quilting started, 

my goal for September is to finish the quilting and bind this quilt!

I'm quilting little sail boats in the blocks and waves will be in the borders. I'm following the tutorials by Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt.

Also, the color for September is ORANGE! I will work on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks making little spools in orange. This challenge is sponsored by SoScrappy.

I will also make the monthly star, Betelgeuse, for the Milky Way QAL over at Blossom Heart Quilts. 

And I will catch up and continue the weekly sew along over at Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen. 

I will link up to OMG September goals at Elm Street Quilts. 

Go on over and read other goals and give some encouragement!

Do you set monthly goals?