What am I working on this Wednesday? Week 46 11.14.12

This has been a very productive 2 weeks! I have gotten a bit more rearranging done in the bedroom and set up a temporary work space that I've been able to sew in pretty regularly. I finished up this UFO of 2 ribbon blankets. I made one with ribbons and one without. They are from a Wrenly charm pack.

I gave the ribboned one to my co-worker Jody when she brought her new baby Laura Ann in to see us yesterday. It felt great to get these made and finished!

I also finished up these three mug rugs and gave them to my co-workers. I've had them made for over a year, just hadn't put the binding on and it took me less than 2 hours to do the binding on all 3! So 2 UFO's finished and out the door! It feels awesome!

On Saturday the 3rd I taught a lone/radiant star class to a couple friends. They both got half their stars done. Since there were just the two of them, I took my machine and piecemealed this back together for my star quilt. It's all the leftovers from the quilts my mom and I made. It's so not my style, but it will be a fun back for a kids quilt. The green at the bottom probably won't be in the quilt back, but I needed enough room to attach it to the frame, so I added it on.

Last week I started to freak out about having no receiving blankets for our baby boy who is due in 4 weeks. I made about 8 baby receiving blankets on the serger and have a few that need topstitching, but I also pieced together this top. It is just an 8" wide border with mitered corners. It went together really quick... like less than hour. I have a backing ready for it, so when I get a chance I can get it on the frame.

Last night through pure determination, I was able to get my quilt frame set up! I am so excited that it set up, but I couldn't just let it set. I wanted to check tension and make sure I was having good luck, so I pulled out a UFO of table toppers/ runners that just needed quilting and the backing fabric I had for it. Mom made these 60* table runners a couple years ago, or had them cut out and I pieced them together last year, but didn't get them finished. I only finished the red ones, so these all have green backing.  I pulled out some scrap batting and set to work.
I quilted the top three with a green/gold/maroon Rainbows thread and the bottom left one with a King Tut in the same colors. I wanted to be able to show the difference in polyester and cotton thread and how they make a difference in your quilting. I have the two on the left with binding partially on, so I can show how to finish putting on the binding in the class I teach tonight.

Finished this week:
3 Mug Rugs
2 Ribbon blankets
Quilted 4 table runners
Top of farmyard baby quilt
Ongoing projects:Sign Language Diaper Clutch
baby boy receiving blankets 5 done, 3 need topstitching
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Pink/Green Jungle Animal Baby Quilt - Need to make backing
Confetti Top
Twisted Heart
Merry Go Round
Autumn Star Quilt
Briar Rose
Farmyard Friends
Cowboy Star Quilt
New Projects: NONE!
No progress:
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt

Friday Finishes!

This week was really productive for me. I finished the hand sewn binding on this quilt at lunch and we had the baby shower last night for our co-worker Kristen and her daughter Emmaline.

This is really busy, but I just love these fabrics. It makes up so quickly. I had it cut out and pieced in less then 3 hours.

Isn't this the cutest baby cake. I just love the little bloomers and feet!

At the shower, showing the new mom the quilt. She love it, since she has nothing pink. She has a little boy.


Monday I stayed home with a sick little Mikaela, so while she slept I worked on this little wall hanging growth chart for her. I've had it for a while, but just hadn't done anything with it. I love how it turned out.

Last night after putting Mikaela to bed, I set to work to make a couple of these cute blocks. I just love how they turned out and I think I would like them more if they were even scrappier. Ohhh that's a big thing for me to say. I just don't do scrappy, but I do love this block. I had enough to make 2 like this. What should I do with them. I think they are to small for wall hangings, but does 2 look wrong for a tablerunner? They are 16" squares.

After finishing those I set to work to put together another friendship square. I made the one on the right last night and had the other one done. I'm kind of torn which I like better. I have enough fabric/HST's pulled to make one more. Then I'm to the end of my Pink/Brown Buggy Barn fabric. I just love trying these modern blocks and have been really inspired by the HST's. I cut out a Valentine HST table topper last night and hope to work on it this weekend.

I have another paper due for my graduate class this week, so if I get it mostly written, the main part for sure, I'm going to my friend Jenn's to sew on Sunday. Sewing with friends is really better motivation then a midnight deadline, so you know what I'll be doing Sat. night! Hope everyone had a good week. I'd love to know what you think of the HST blocks.

WIP Wednesday Week 3 1/18/12

January is flying by very quickly! I've had a lot to get done and I feel good about what I've accomplished so far. I've put in 55 hours so far this month, most of which was on quilts for samples for the store. This week I worked on the Sweet Treats sample. I finished up all the pink blocks on Wed. night of last week.

Thurs. night I got a slow start on the red blocks and finished them up on Sat. night.

Thanks to a football game on TV, hubby, MIL, and friend watched Mikaela and I got to sew. I finished putting the top together just as the game was over.

Never fear though... in an attempt to put off going to bed and waking up Sun. I spent half the night putting borders on. I stumbled to bed around 2AM, but it was finished!!

I actually finished it a bit earlier than that, but I wasn't tired, thanks to a nap, so I pulled out my pink/brown scraps and made another Friendship block. I hope to have enough left to do one or maybe even two more of these. They'll be a bit different than the first 4, but the friends they are going to are definitely worth the work! I want to have them ready to take to dad's the next time we go, which will probably be in Feb.

Sunday was spent writing about the colonial history of American higher education, real thrilling as you can tell. I put the paper off forever and did not know what to write about. I finally got it done though and turned it in early, about 3 hours before it was due!
Monday night was our live session, in which we have to listen on our computers while the instructor lectures. I moved my laptop to the sewing studio and cut out two quilts while I listened! I had her last quarter so the first hour of rules/regs. for the course was the same as last quarter.
I cut out this cute baby quilt from the scraps of Dilly Dally and with the 3 yards I bought on clearance on 1/2/12, I had enough for borders and backing. I'll even have enough for binding. I made this one about 41"x46", so a nice baby size. I have a co-worker who just had a baby girl and she wanted pink, so I think this will go to her if I can get it quilted before next weeks baby shower. It's really more pink than it reads in the picture. I loosely use a pattern I've used before with charms and half charms, but I just used 5" scraps and cut them up as I went and mixed and matched. I made it bigger then the other one as it was more like 36"x40". I sewed this top in about 3-4 hours last night.


I also cut out a bag, but need to find some batting scraps so I can make it. I reorganized my thread last night and put a lot away that had been floating around. It's really accumulated! I looked and have as many as 4 regular spools and one cone of at least 4 different Masterpiece threads, several in unopened or brand new spools! I have at least 2 of every Aurifil thread I use for piecing and several unopened quilting colored threads. I have a hard time keeping my Aurifil bobbins separate, so I'm really hoping for the pink Janome bobbins in the case for my birthday, that way I can use those only for Aurifil thread. A girl can only hope that hubby listens to my hints! Otherwise I'll get them as a little gift to myself. I'd been looking at the pink ones since they came into the store just before Christmas and I was telling Paul about them, but I just couldn't justify spending the money when I have a lot of bobbins. Then I realized they were the answer to my constant issue with keeping the Aurifil bobbins separate. I have about 15-20 spools of Aurifil thread and keeping them on pink bobbins would make it easy to distinguish between the "GOOD" thread and the other piecing threads I use.  Right now they are in a small pink ribbon case and the spools are in a bigger pink ribbon case.
We don't even want to count the King Tut or Bottomline threads as I think I have pretty close to all of them! The serger thread is mostly put away, since I so rarely use it and the cones are huge. Let's say I LOVE thread and what it can do for a quilt. Anyone else love thread as much as I do? I'm thinking I need to take pictures of my thread containers, just so I know what I have.

Finished this week:
Sweet Treats- Sample
Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them)
Winding Ways Schlep Bag - Cut Out
Jim Shore Quilt - Quilted and binding machine sewn on -  1 1/2 sides done - No Progress
Pink/Brown Friendship Quilts - 1 top made, 2 more in progress
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks- laid out and ready for sewing
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt 
Charmed Dilly Dally Baby Quilt
No progress:
Pokey Little Puppy Book
Prayers Book
3 Mug Rugs
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - 2/3 of the way done, on the last set of blocks
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks

This week's stats:
Completed projects -8
New projects -1
Currently in progress -13
Finished this year - 5 , 4 Samples

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

December Quilting Accomplishments

December was a fairly productive month, even though I spent one week visiting at the hospital and the last week not doing much of anything. My goals for the month included:
Baby Bag - Bought instead of made, couldn't find fabric I liked.

BOM Setting Blocks - No progress, no motivation!

Quilt OBW - Done - including the binding. It's amazing how much hand stitched binding can be done in an ER room for 7+ hours!

Quilt Sewing Themed Quilt aka my hospital quilt - DONE! So excited to get to use it, but baby is just not ready to make her appearance yet.

In addition to my goals I also accomplished several other smaller projects:

Quilted Christmas throw for Karen's holiday party. Love how the metallic thread on it turned out.

Finished the quilting and binding on Aunt Vi's second Double Knit quilt. Hate quilting DK - it stretches all over the place!

Made a Christmas Margo out of Figgy Pudding. It really doesn't look all that Christmasy which I love about it.

Made 4 Java Cash and Carry wallets for my co-worker friends.

Made 10 coasters from the 2 charm packs Sew Cindy sent me for her giveaway. Gave them to my 10 co-workers in the registrar's office.

Finished sewing all the hexi's together into a Valentine's table runner while spending evenings at the hospital with mom. I am now in the process of appliquing it by hand to the background.

Finished an iron holder for a sample of travel totes for Groovy Girls.

Made the Large bag for a Groovy Girls sample.

On New Year's Eve we were snowed in with a blizzard, so I made the backing and loaded Aunt Vi's third and last quilt on the frame. I was able to get 3 rows done before calling it a night. It's a huge quilt! I did quilt a bit more on it last night, so hopefully if I do a little every night I'll have it done by this weekend.
All in all I had 80 hours for December. A lot of those hours were hand sewing! I have my next Hexi project cut out and ready to work on, since I forsee lots more waiting in Drs. offices this year.
I'm working on a re-cap of 2010, but there's a lot so it will have to wait for another time.
My January Goals include:
Finish Laminated Travel bag
Quilt Vi's last DK quilt
Snowflake Table Topper
Have Baby!

Gifties for my Co-workers!

Tonight I stopped at Fabric City and picked up 3 fat quarters and 6 zippers. I wanted to make 3 cash and carry style wallets and figured I probably could get 6 out of my fat quarters. I just love this new Java line of fabric and since my walking buddies are also my drinking buddies (hot chocolate and coffee) when it's too cold to walk, I figured it would be perfect for them. I got 3 made tonight and they turned out super cute. I kind of used the pattern, but really made them the way I wanted.

They turned out super cute.

The inside lining fabric is coffee beans.

I love the marroon/read color and how well it goes with both black and brown.

I decided to use the two charm packs I won from Cindy last week to make coasters for my office mates. I hadn't planned to make anyone, any gifts for Christmas, but tonight I was inspired. I got 5 done before I called it a night. I have the rest sorted and ready to sew, but they'll have to wait until this weekend. I have a co-worker that will be gone next week, so figured I'd give her one tomorrow.

I actually really enjoyed making these gifts for my co-workers. By next year we'll probably have double the staff again and then I'll have to figure out something else. It takes some creativity to make 10 gifts instead of 5. If we have 15-20 next year, I may not have time to make gifts for all.

Wall Quilt Guild Show

Saturday afternoon I headed to Wall, where I met up with my parents. After Mass, Mom and I headed over to the Wall Quilt Guild Banquet and trunk show. We have gone several years as mom and I used to be members as did my grandma. I love this group of ladies and it's always so fun to see what they do each year. I was the lucky recipient of a new bag in the door prize drawing. It's an over sized bag so it works great for taking my things to work.


At each place setting they had little pin cushions made from English Paper piecing, as their theme this year was Grandmothers Flower garden.

This is the raffle quilt they raffled off this year. All the members worked on the EPP for it. As part of the door prizes I also won a couple sets of EPP papers.

To end the evening they showed the Quilts of Valor quilts they made and the ladies from Quilt Connection showed some of their quilts. I visited with Jen the whole drive back, so it made for a great evening.


Wall Quilt Show

Sweet Escape Tablerunner

The Sweet Escape tablerunner took priority this weekend, since I need to get it to the store as a sample for my class coming up in April. I put the blocks together and half of the top on Friday night. Today I was able to finish up the top and get it quilted. I made continous bias binding which went together very quick and easy, though I don't think it was really necessary for this tablerunner. The runner calls for a charm pack, but I used a layer cake, so I have a lot of charms left!

Here's a closeup of the tablerunner/quilting. I used a plum verigated King Tut on top and plum Bottom Line in the bobbin. The top picture shows the true color better, the center and background are a deap cream/tan color.

The tablerunner is from the On the Run book by Heather Mulder Peterson of Anka's Treasures. The fabric is Essence by Sandy Gervais for Moda. It's one of my favorite fall lines.

Objects of Desire Tablerunner #2

The 2nd Objects of Desire tablerunner is actually the third one I've made, but 2nd right now. I made one several months ago, like back in August, but I didn't finish these other 2, so they were in my UFO stack. Tonight I was able to practice quilting on this one. I tried 2 new patterns for flowers. I'm not sure which one I like better, but I think I'm ready to quilt the Wildflowers tablerunner I also got the binding on this tablerunner, so a second finish for March!

This is my Pajama Quilter version of a flower. It's not half and actually pretty easy to do. One of my goals with my new machine is to step outside the box and try some new quilting techniques and so far I've jumped in head first.

Here's a close up of the daisy on the left and the wonky flower on the right. Which one do you like better? I guess we'll see what I come up with tomorrow when I quilt the next tablerunner.