WIP Wednesday Week 13 3/28/12

It's WIP Wednesday, a great day to look over the past week and make some goals for the next week. I actually feel like I accomplished a lot this week and hopefully the next week will be just as good. Lots to do, so little time!
This week has been focused on samples I have to have made by Saturday for our teacher preview party. I'm doing a couple new classes, so have had to make samples this time around. I made the Twisted Heart pattern from Let's Twist Again as a baby quilt class using the Lil' Twister ruler. I had it all laid out and sewed it together Monday night.


Tuesday during lunch I cut it all out and kept it neatly stacked. My friend Gaila showed me an awesome way to label my block stacks, so it was really easy to keep them neat and organized. Last night after Mikaela went to bed, I sewed together my Twisted Heart. I wasn't sold on the background, but kept going with it.

I cut out and added the borders and now I actually like how it looks. It needed the bright borders from the Twirl line to really make it work! Another top done and ready to quilt. I also picked up my stitch regulator on Friday night and installed in Sun. I quilted a piece for a sketch book cover and I'm excited to be able to do more detailed designs now!

Saturday night my friend Gaila invited a few friends out for a Swoon party. We've all just gotten the pattern and decided to work on them together. Emily couldn't join us, but we started the Swoon blocks at Club Sew last month. The one on the left is the one I had done, the one on the right is the one I did on Sat. night. Boy can I see a huge difference. I've decided to do all of them with the color like the one on the right. I think it shows off the Terrain fabric way better and that's my "focus" fabric.

This is the quilt I quilted last week for Heather. I got her permission to show it. Doesn't it look awesome? It's a photo quilt she did with the Happy Hour block and put photos in that were printed in brown/white to look like old time photos. 

The Swoon party blocks at Gaila's. I just love her lime green and pink walls. She put the string up, so we could show them all together. I also used her huge living room floor to lay out my Merry Go Round quilt. It's all in stacks and will be pieced on Thurs. night.


New Projects this Week:
Twisted Heart
Book Cover for my Sketchbook - quilted
Finished this week:
Twisted Heart top
Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them) 
Merry Go Round - Stacked and ready to put together
Swoon - 2 Blocks done
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt 
Pink/Brown Friendship Quilts
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks
Pink/Green Jungle Animal Baby Quilt
Confetti Top
Friendship Block Swap Top
Twisted Heart
No progress:
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks- Together, needs 3 borders
Jim Shore Quilt - None
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - Started sashing
This week's stats:
Completed projects -2
New projects -1
Currently in progress - 6
Finished this year - 25 , 6 Samples

I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

WIP Wednesday Week 12 3/21/12

This was a productive week, even if I didn't feel like I was in the studio sewing much. I couldn't motivate to sew late at night, so I started cutting out my batik scraps. I had some of mine and my moms and I spent about 3 hours Thurs. night cutting and about 2 hours on Sunday. I cut 2 - 2.5" strips to begin with, then if there was enough I cut a 6 7/8" strip and if there was any left I cut a 3.5" strip. The 2.5" strips below will probably make one of the Lazy Angle ruler quilts.

The large strips and 3.5" strips below are being cut during lunch time at work to make a jewel box quilt. You may remember the one we made as a friendship quilt for Regina (1I) last year. I loved the pattern and had placed it with my tote of batiks so I could cut them up when the time came. Well, this was the week.

Sunday and Monday nights I quilted this quilt for Heather. It's awesome and really looks incredible, but more pictures will come after it's given. It's a photo quilt using the snapshots block pattern.

Last night I made my MIL a new bag for work, so she'd have a place to carry her wallet and 3 cell phones. I made it an inch bigger both ways. This is one of her favorite fabrics and we're finally down to the last yard of it. We originally bought 9+ yards and she made a king size bed and pillowcases.

I also made her this quick cash and carry wallet, with vinyl on the outside pocket for her drivers license.

I've been slowly sewing the Merry Go Round blocks together. I have about half done. I laid them out to see what they will look like. It's going to be interesting that's for sure! I have such a hard time with scrappy!


New Projects this Week:
Runaround Bag
Cash and Carry wallet
Batik Jewel Box
Finished this week:
Runaround Bag
Cash and Carry wallet
Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them)
 Twister - Cut out and ready to piece. 
Jim Shore Quilt - None
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - Started sashing
Merry Go Round - Half the blocks done.
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks- Together, needs 3 borders
Swoon - 1 Block done
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt 
Pink/Brown Friendship Quilts
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks
Pink/Green Jungle Animal Baby Quilt
Confetti Top
Friendship Block Swap Top
No progress:
Pokey Little Puppy Book
3 Mug Rugs - Binding
Winding Ways
Twister Baby Quilt
This week's stats:
Completed projects -2
New projects -1
Currently in progress - 6
Finished this year - 25 , 6 Samples

I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

WIP Wednesday Week 11 3/14/12

This has been a slow week, mostly because it was finals week and I had a very lengthy term paper, a power point, and another summary paper all due on Sunday. Thank goodness this term is OVER! I'm just waiting for my final grade, it's an A , g. I had my last live session on Monday night, so I worked on cleaning my sewing area up while I listened. It was pig sty since I hadn't put everything from retreat away.
Friday night Emilee and I planned to start Swooning together at Club Sew. We picked out our 3 fat quarters and decided we would make 1 each month. We didn't follow the pattern though. We took the Lazy Girl way and made our flying geese and HST's using the Lazy Girl Flying Geese ruler. It worked slick and everything matched up well, but it did require us to think a bit! We'll have a good handle on it next month. Neither of us finished, but we got all the pieces made.
Monday during lunch I couldn't get it out of my mind that I wanted to do all my Swoon blocks with the Terrain fabric, so I went back and bought the rest of the bolt, along with the Organic Robert Kaufman white, and a variety of fat quarters for my other color. I'm loving how they are all different prints and no two are alike.  We are planning to do them together, so if you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you be part of the Swoon party!

My MIL was on call this weekend and while she doesn't carry a purse, she does have to keep track of 3 phones for work, so I thought I'd make her a runaround bag to use. I pulled these fabrics to make it for her.

She loves this Asian butterfly fabric and I have enough of it to make her a purse. I'll get it cut out and hope to get it made yet this week.

Monday night I also started cutting out the sashing for the Crown Royal quilt. I don't know how it will turn out, but I wanted to see what it would kind of look like, so I made one big block to check it out. I think it's going to be pretty neat. Now I just need to stay motivated to finish it.

Monday night I also finished my first Swoon block. I'm really impressed with how well it turned out and I think I'm going to really enjoy making this quilt. The more I look at it though, I'm wondering if it would be better to switch the colors around?  Any thoughts?I bought another pink fat quarter to try it the opposite way.


New Projects this Week:
SWOON!!
Twister - Cut out and ready to piece. 
Finished this week:
1 Swoon block
Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them)
Jim Shore Quilt - None
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - Started sashing
Merry Go Round -  All the stratas cut, ready to match up into blocks
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks- Together, needs 3 borders
Swoon - 1 Block done
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt 
Pink/Brown Friendship Quilts
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks
Pink/Green Jungle Animal Baby Quilt
Confetti Top
Friendship Block Swap Top
No progress:
Pokey Little Puppy Book
3 Mug Rugs - Binding
Winding Ways
Twister Baby Quilt
This week's stats:
Completed projects -13
New projects -1
Currently in progress -4
Finished this year - 23 , 6 Samples

I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

SWOON!

Emilee and I decided to make the Swoon blocks during CLUB SEW on Friday. I had fallen in love with Terrain, but didn't know what to do with it. When I was looking for 3 fat quarters to make it, I just fell for the pink/terrain, white combo. Emilee and I made the Swoon block using the Lazy Flying Geese ruler. It made making flying geese and HST's so much easier, but we did have to do a bit of figuring which wasn't easy considering there were about 15 sewing at Club Sew on Friday night. Now that I have it together though, I'm wondering if the pink is too overwhelming in that position and maybe I should be using the terrain and pink in opposite positions. Any thoughts or ideas? I'm thinking I could pick up a fat quarter tonight and try it the other way? What do you think?

I went to the shop on Monday at lunch and picked up the rest of the Terrain, all the Organic white they had, and a fat quarter of each of the other colors in terrain that I want to use for the blocks.

Lots Accomplished By the Quilters Are Crazy Retreaters

All the quilters accomplished a lot at the retreat, though I did miss getting pictures of everything.
Tammy finished the first quilt of the weekend, a scrappy charm plus 1 yard of fabric quilt.


This is Cindy's 1600 quilt. She's making it a bit bigger and hopes to have it for her grand-kids one day.


Tammy was working on the same quilt, only she added a charm pack. She was working on the borders.

Michelle put binding on this super cute baby blanket she quilted. She was using it for practice to learn to quilt on her frame.

Emilee made several black/white blocks!

Jane made this cute baby quilt with paper pieced hearts. She was learning to paper piece with the Carol Doak beginners book.

Michelle made this placemat and worked on her quilting. She did a scallop throughout it. It turned out so cute.

The back shows the quilting well. She used the Easy Scallop tool to draw on her placement lines before she began. Darlene was working on a table runner in the same manner.

Darlene worked on quilting her grid table runner and getting it all squared up.



Lois made this baby quilt and worked on quilting it throughout the weekend.

Jenn made several bags for her kids during the weekend, when she needed a break from her big quilt.

Bev was making purses all weekend. The runaround bag was her first zipper and she really enjoyed making it.

Michelle made this fancy pillowcase with the scalloped borders out of French General.

Cindy made a Zippy Strippy bag. Darlene and Michelle joined her in making them as well. They used their fat quarters and zipper that were gifts during the retreat.

Jenn spent a majority of the weekend working on this quilt for her grandpa. It's made with all his old shirts. It turned out so neat!

Jane paperpieced this tablerunner and added the pink piping in to make it stand out. Aren't the bunnies so cute?

This is Emilee's Snapshots quilt fro the class she took from me a few weeks ago. We were discussing borders or no borders.

All in all everyone seemed to be extremely successful and get a lot done. I always enjoy seeing what everyone is working on throughout the weekend.

Quilters Are Crazy Retreat - Day 3

Sunday morning started off bright and early I cut out the setting triangles for my Mocha Meringue quilt before anyone else got up. We had delicious breakfast burritos for brunch. My dad stopped by for a visit. I showed him all the bright/black/white blocks we made during the weekend.

Before everyone left we used the timer on my camera to take a group photo.

Emilee and Darlene, who had never met before found they had someone in common. Emilee's grandma and Darlene were best friends in high school. So all weekend they were BFF's and when we found the magnet at Peterson's it just had to come back with us.

Just before we left I finished the setting triangles on the Mocha Meringue quilt. I plan to add a couple more borders, but needed to get some of the gray first.

My shopping experience added a few more yards to the stash. I picked up these two pretty purple batiks.

Here's all the fun door prizes and gifts I brought home from the weekend.

One of my favorite door prizes was the fat quarter pack of Central Park.

I did bring a few fats home with me as well. I'm sure they'll get put to good use!

This is one of the black and white blocks we made. We were able to make 60 blocks and Jenn, Cindy, and Emilee each took home a set of 20 blocks.


The weekend was tons of fun and we really enjoyed sewing together. Next year we hope to do it again and have even more friends join us. I'm so excited to start planning!