Finish-Along Q2

I finished NOTHING on my FAL list for Q1… my most substantial finish, my Starburst quilt, was not on my list. Oh well. :( Here's to quarter 2 being better!

1. Red bubble quilt

Quilted and ready for binding.

2. Giant granny square quilt

This is quilted and ready for binding.

3. Ten Little Things I Spy quilt

I would like to get this finished in time for my cousin's baby shower on the 20th. Quilted and ready for binding.

4. Sew.Happy.Quilt quiltalong

Maybe putting it on the list will spur me to get out the bag and actually work on it.

5. Garden Squares

Ditto. I actually started making a few more blocks, and I think I'm up to 15 now.

There are also a number of long-term things that I know aren't going to get finished this month, but I just want them detailed somewhere.

1. Chevron quilt

Of the 25-ish strips, I've sewn 5 or so together and need to start sewing more.

2. Bowtie quilt

I swapped 105 more bow tie blocks and now have about 180. That's enough for a 6' by 7.5' quilt, but I think I want it to be bigger. I could start laying them out in blocks, though.

3. Granny square quilt

I finished trimming them all, but I have 46 more coming in from my beemates in the Granny Block Bee this month. Then I have to figure out how to put them all together, given that some of them are as small as 8.5 inches and others are half an inch larger.

4. Scrappy Trip Along

5. We Bee Learning quilt

I've decided to request this block for my month in the Simply Solids Bee too, so that I'll have more blocks to work with and will be able to make a larger quilt.

Linking up to:

Fresh Sewing Day and Traveling Stash Giveaway!

Is it worth linking to Fresh Sewing Day if I have nothing to show? I guess I did get my blocks mostly done for the Starburst Quilt Along, and my Triple Zip Pouch. So here are those again:

The last two blocks are almost done, but ever since my husband got me started playing Final Fantasy VI, I amazingly haven't had much sewing time… One of these things, however, was my goal for the February Lovely Year of Finishes, so I will be linking up there.

The most exciting thing that happened to me this month was that I won the Traveling Stash giveaway! Are you familiar with this? There are a number of large Priority Flat Rate boxes traveling throughout the US, absolutely jam-packed with fabric, patterns, notions, and other goodies. I won one of them a few weeks ago, and got some awesome stuff from it!

That's about 5 FQs of assorted fabrics, plus in the back is almost a yard of a print dedicated to New York City! So cute. I also grabbed a few spools of thread.

Part of the fun of Traveling Stash is that you put in an equivalent amount of fabric or whatnot so that the next person to receive it has just as much to choose from as you did! So here are the items I added.

It's hard to see, but that is 4 assorted FQs, about a yard each of the Moda flower print and the sort-of-batik-ish Michael Miller print, two packages of Solvy stabilizer, a spool of Sulky thread, a Kaffe Fassett charm pack, and two appliqué quilting patterns. Not pictured is the stuff that I left in the box--tons of fabric, patterns, thread, and notions! It's packed!

Want to win the Traveling Stash? Here are the rules.

1. Be an active blogger. Post about receiving and the giveaway on your blog in a timely manner.
2. There is a note in the box that logs where the box has been. Please add your info and place the note back in the box.
3. There is a list of Rules and Guidelines in the box. Please read and follow these and return the list to the box.
4. You may take anything you like from the box. Just replace every item with comparable quilt shop quality items equal to the amount taken. See guidelines below.
5. Ship the box to the next person in a reasonable amount of time.
6. Due to the amount of postage shipping is only within the USA.

Just leave a comment to win! I'll choose a winner using the Random Number Generator next Friday.

Linking up to:

- See more at: http://lilysquilts.blogspot.com/2013/03/fresh-sewing-day-and-small-blog-meet.html#sthash.kWV5KYPK.dpuf

- See more at: http://lilysquilts.blogspot.com/2013/03/fresh-sewing-day-and-small-blog-meet.html#sthash.kWV5KYPK.dpuf

Starburst and Triple Zip Pouch

I got two major goals for the month accomplished tonight!

So when I decided to make the middle size (32" blocks) I really didn't have a clear idea in my head of JUST HOW BIG that was. Just to give you an idea, my Nook is in the first picture as a size reference. Freaking ridiculous. That said, I'm very pleased with how they have turned out thus far, except that I wish I'd used something other than white for the background. White was just the only thing i had 4 yards of and I am trying to avoid buying additional fabric. Kona Ash would have looked better but was not available locally. :(

The other two blocks will have the same colors of burst points--red for the umbrella centers, green for the polka dot center. The FQ bundles I'm using only came with 5 prints total, so I'm making it work despite the fact that the tutorial calls for 12. 

I'd also like to thank Melissa and the Fat Quarter Shop--I won last week's giveaway! I won a charm pack of Honey Honey, which I'm super excited to use. 

So pretty!

I also was able to complete a Triple Zip Pouch tonight.

The main pouch is Anna Maria Horner's First Impressions from the Innocent Crush collection (LOVE this fabric, found almost a yard of it I didn't know I had!). The accent fabrics are Bella Solid in light blue and one of the prints from Lucy's Crab Shack.

The lining is one of the Riley Blake chevrons. 

This was quick, but not easy. I had some difficulties, exacerbated by my missing seam ripper. I kept getting the lining caught in my stitching, and I'm really not super-good at sewing zippers in the first place. I also have one little area near the top zipper where I wasn't able to stitch close enough to the zipper while sewing up the sides, and so the fusible fleece shows a bit. Once I find a hand-sewing needle, I'll fix that. In the meantime, not too bad a job for my first effort, and I plan to make several more of these at some point. I just need to figure out what I'm going to use this for--it's a little small for most of my pouchy needs.

Linking up to:

January Blocks and February Goals

I had a somewhat productive January. Here are the blocks I made:

 

These are for We Bee Learning. We were asked to make two Rocky Road to Kansas blocks in shades of blue and green with a gray background. When I saw that this was the block for January, I was a little bit nervous… I hadn't done any paper piecing before this! But these blocks looked a lot easier than the Lucky Stars practice block, so I jumped right in. Unfortunately, my first attempt looked something like this:

Actually, this is more like my 9th or 10th attempt. After I sewed the background in the wrong place, I ripped it out, tried again, set it aside, and made 7 more quarter-blocks successfully. When I came back to this piece I realized that there were no pieces of my background fabric remaining that were big enough. Oops. To the fabric store I  went, and successfully finished both blocks. They are on their way to their owner!

Here's my practice block for Lucky Stars BOM.. I did this AFTER I successfully completed a Rocky Road to Kansas. Unfortunately, I did not note the seam allowance on the paper piecing templates, and thus this happened:

Fortunately, it is a practice block, which means it doesn't have to be part of the final quilt if I don't want it to be. (I really don't feel like remaking it.)

January's block turned out pretty well, except I think that when I piece the blocks together, the tips of the stars will be cut off. Oh well--it's a learning experience.

Here are my flying goose blocks for the Starburst Quilt-Along. I've made the goose in the corner blocks too, and started the HSTs, but do you know how long it takes to make 64 half-square triangles? Freaking FOREVER. 

I also have made 4 or 5 blocks for the Scrappy Trip Along (not pictured), about 7 scrappy string blocks, and a bunch more bow ties (I think I'm up to 71 for the next round of the swap, and about 60 for me to keep, the goal is around 224 total). 

So, goals for February, so I can link up with A Lovely Year of Finishes:

1. Bind Giant Granny Square quilt--I quilted it right at the beginning of January.

2. Bind my friend's rail fence quilt--in exchange, she's knitting the second sock of a pair of Jaywalkers I started several years ago.

3. February bee blocks--two wonky house blocks and a wonky log cabin block.

4. Modern Scrappy Bits Swap--I should get my partner assignment next week!

5. Triple-Zip Pouch-Along

Linking up to:

Planned Quilts

Though I'm participating in the finish-along and making progress, I also have a LOT of quilts and quilt-alongs that I'm planning and starting this month, and I wanted to document those here. 

I've already mentioned that I'm participating in Elizabeth's Lucky Stars BOM club. I'm making these blocks with a variety of prints from several collections, including some by Heather Bailey, Sugar Pop, and a couple of others that coordinated. The background is Kona Peony.

So far I've made the practice block and January's block, and paper-piecing is much less scary than I thought. I doubt it'll ever take the place of regular piecing for me, but it's definitely an option now!

I like this quilt because of the oversized blocks--it reminds me a bit of Swoon, though they're not quite the same. I'm making the middle size out of a FQ bundle of Rainy Days and Mondays from Riley Blake. I got these fabrics for Christmas, but my mom found the bundles at Tuesday Morning! That's one of her favorite stores and on several occasions when I've stopped in there, I've found older collections of quilt shop quality fabric at very low prices. 

I've cut most of the fabric for the blocks but not the background. I'm a little bit unsure of what I'm going to use for the background--I think white, because that's all I really have a lot of...

This pattern is so cool! I'm only going to make 12 blocks, which will perfectly use up a 20-strip jelly roll I have in my stash (another Tuesday Morning find, a Tanya Whelan collection of pastels) and will be a perfect baby-sized quilt.

Taking Turns quilt

I made this block as part of We Bee Learning this past year, and I really like it. So I'm going to make a quilt using this pattern and my stash of Tula Pink Prince Charming. My local yarn shop changed ownership this year, and the old owner was liquidating the yarn and fabric stocks in preparation for closing, so I was able to get about 7 yards of Prince Charming for half price! Since it's such a large scale print, I think it'll look really good in these oversized blocks (18.5 inches unfinished).

We Bee Learning 2012 quilt

My month in We Bee Learning was December. I requested that my bee-mates make this block. In the pattern it looks boring and retro. But in bright solids...

So much better!

I'm missing two blocks that are en route from Saskatchewan, Canada. I'm also planning to make probably 8 more blocks in order to size this up to 4 by 5 instead of 3 by 4. 

Finally, I'm hopping on the Scrappy Trip Along bandwagon, and I'm participating in a strip swap in order to make my blocks even scrappier. I'm also swapping 6.5" string blocks, which is a fantastic way to stash bust--my stash bins are (VERY SLOWLY) being emptied! 

So that's, what, 4 completely new quilts, plus the bee quilt? I think I TOTALLY deserve to link up to

Liebster Award!

Heidi at Red Letter Quilts has very kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award! Thank you so much, Heidi!

The Liebster Award is for blogs with less than 200 followers or that are less than 6 months old. Each nominee must do the following:

 

1. List 11 random things about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions posed by the nominator.
3. Choose 11 blogs to pass the award on to and link them to your post. 
4. Create 11 questions for those 11 people to answer.

So, here we go!

11 random things about myself:

1. I read, on average, about 5 books a week. More if I have to spend a long time on a bus. Getting my first e-reader made my life SO much easier.
2. Why do I spend a long time on buses? Because I coach my school's math team! We travel to about 10 competitions a year throughout the state and nation, which results in a lot of time on a bus. Fortunately, we pay for the good buses.
3. I have been dancing for almost nineteen years--on and off since I was three! I've done ballet, jazz, and lyrical (contemporary) mostly, but have also dabbled in gymnastics and tap. 
4. I love watching college football and am almost completely uninterested in all other sports. Go Noles!
5. I have a massive collection of t-shirts. I counted a couple of months ago and I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or so.
6. I spent the fall semester of my junior year of college in Hong Kong studying abroad. It was AMAZING. I also got to spend that semester with my then boyfriend, now husband, which made it even better!
7. My husband and I have two dogs, Izzy and Peanut, both of whom came from our local animal shelters. They are on the larger side, both about 60 lbs. We baby them and treat them like our kids. :)
8. Other than the semester I spent in Hong Kong, I have never lived outside the state of Florida, which means that my current location (Tallahassee) is the farthest north I have EVER lived! 
9. I have been a Mac user for my whole entire life--I have NEVER owned a PC (though my husband owns several, and I'm forced to use one for work--our IT guy refers to Macs as "fruit"). My whole family is the same way--my parents bought their first Mac around the time I was born. Two Christmases ago, my mom bought us all t-shirts that say "I was a Mac user when Apple was doomed."
10. My favorite color is pink, and my friends in my knitting group make fun of me because I pretty much exclusively buy pink yarn.
11. I hate cooking but I LOVE to bake! I spend most of December baking Christmas cookies.

And here are the answers to the questions that Heidi asked her nominees:

1. Cats or Dogs?

DEFINITELY dogs!

2. AM or PM person?

PM. I hate waking up early!
3. Sand or Snow?

I'm a Florida girl, so definitely sand!
4. Floral or Plaid?

Floral
5. Warm or Cool colors?

Cool colors
6. Favorite Flower?

Pink roses
7. Who would you like to have lunch with if you could?

Hmmm… not sure. Maybe Hillary Clinton?

8. Hotel or tent?

DEFINITELY hotel. I am not a camping person.
9. Your first quilt pattern?

The first quilt pattern I followed? Sunkissed Squares, from the Moda Bake Shop.
10. How many UFO's do you have stashed?

Ummm… too many to count… around 12 or so?
11. What is missing in your fabric stash?

Neutrals and text prints. 

I'm nominating the following bloggers:

http://fairlymerry.blogspot.com/, one of my buddies from the Cochineal group of the Simply Solids bee this year

http://www.squawkthat.com/, another buddy from the Cochineal group

http://www.nitadances.com/, who has been buzzing along with me in We Bee Learning for the past year

http://throwawenchintheworks.blogspot.com/, who I've followed for a while and is a fellow teacher

http://archiethewonderdog.blogspot.com/, who is absolutely hilarious!

http://recipeforsanity.blogspot.com/, a real-life friend who does not blog about quilting, but instead about recipes and her path towards her masters in counseling and eating disorder recovery

http://busybeingfancy.com/, another real-life friend whose blogs about her and her husband's efforts to renovate their 85-year-old house (which is amazing!)

http://www.knottedcotton.com/, whose blog I've just discovered, but I'm a new follower as a result of reading her Slow Blog Manifesto (one could look up "slow blog" in the dictionary and find my picture)

http://fosterreviewsit.blogspot.com/, who I discovered in the Let's Get Acquainted! blog hop

http://sewquiltexplore.blogspot.com/, also from Let's Get Acquainted

http://spoolhardygirl.blogspot.com/, also from Let's Get Acquainted

And the questions for them:

1. What made you start your blog?

2. What is your favorite dessert or sweet treat?

3. What is your favorite beverage?

4. What are your favorite and least favorite things about blogging?

5. If you could be an expert in one area, what would it be? Be as general or specific as you'd like!

6. If you could have lunch with anyone, who would it be?

7. Who do you look up to?

8. Who is your favorite author and/or what is your favorite book?

9. Where do you do your crafting?

10. How long have you been a crafter (quilter, knitter, etc)?

11. What is your favorite color?

Finish-Along 1st Quarter 2013

We will see how many of these get done. 

1. Red bubble quilt

This is basically a whole cloth quilt (with a pieced border) with appliquéd circles. The circles were attached with basting spray and then I'm free-motion quilting over them to stitch them down permanently (inspired by this quilt at from the blue chair). I have to say, I'm not enjoying it super-much. This is destined for a child in foster care. It's about halfway through the quilting process, and could get finished in a day or two if I had enough room on my sewing table to manipulate it...

2. Giant granny square quilt

These granny squares are all made from charm squares from an I Spy Spoonflower swap. I still have tons of these charms and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of them… This quilt is basted, but I haven't started quilting yet.

3. Chevron quilt

This is becoming a REALLY long process! For this quilt, I sewed 2.5" strips of Connecting Threads Urban Odyssey with 2.5" strips of Kona white. Then I cut each strip into 4.5" squares and then arranged them in a chevron pattern. At their longest, these rows are 20 squares long! And I have a VERY small living room. I'd love to get this top finished this quarter. I don't even remember when I started this. FYI: I started doing this with a pack of 2.5" strips. That was not nearly enough fabric. Once I realized that, of course they were out of 2.5" strip packs, so I had to buy quarter yards of every fabric I wanted to use (about 16 of them, I think). I ended up using 2 strips total for each fabric.

4. Sew.Happy.Quilt quiltalong

 

I think I might have finished one more block for this one that's not shown.

5. Garden Squares quilt

I need to start making some more of these.

6. Bow tie quilt

I'm swapping some more bow ties this month or next, but I'm getting close to the number I need!

7. Granny square quilt(s)

Need to trim and sew these together. I ended up with 45 or so in total.

8. We Bee Learning 2012 quilt top

My month for We Bee Learning was December, and my bee-mates made me this block with any 4 bright solids they chose for the boxes. I'm still waiting for a few of them, and I need to make mine.

Linking up to:

Happy New Year!

I have neglected this little blog sorely over the past few months! I've been crafting (not necessarily sewing) a lot, but not taking pictures or writing anything. So I'm going to post my 2012 accomplishments and 2013 New Year's resolutions here (both crafty and non) and show you a bit of what I've been up to.

1. I finished three quilts this year!

Supernova quilt

Skill Builder Sampler Christmas quilt

Across the Sea quilt

I would have liked to finish more, of course, but I have a baby quilt mid-quilting, a baby quilt basted, and a long-time WIP that I've finally made some significant progress on, so I'm pretty pleased with these three finishes.

2. I participated in my first quilting bee!

 

 There are only 9 pictures for two reasons--I forgot to take a picture of one, and I am a TERRIBLE bee-person and haven't made my last two blocks. Admittedly, one of the blocks I haven't made is for me. So that makes it ever so slightly better, but still bad.

I will be continuing to participate in We Bee Learning for 2013, as well as participating in Simply Solids-a modern {bee}. I loved getting out of my comfort zone for these, and I'm happy I'm continuing to participate.

3. I got, and learned how to use, a Silhouette Cameo!

I have the best mom and dad in the whole entire world, and they bought me a Silhouette for my birthday in August. I immediately jumped into learning how to use it, focusing mostly on vinyl projects. I've made a bunch of stuff, including Christmas ornaments, wedding presents, tumblers with vinyl, and onesies with heat transfer vinyl. I have plans for oh so much more, and I will try to post stuff as I make it for those of you who might be interested. 

4. I made a billion wreaths

And by a billion, I actually mean about 6, which somehow I have NO pictures of. But I have wreaths for winter, spring, football season, and Christmas of course! And I just keep making more… on the list is a burlap bubble wreath and a Valentine's day ribbon wreath. 

5. I got more comfortable with free-motion quilting

Though I didn't follow the challenges I'd planned to do, you can look at the Skill-Builder Sampler quilt to see my most extensive free-motion quilting endeavor to date. I feel much more confident now, after taking a class at my LQS and completing that quilt, and I'm planning to continue using FMQ for my quilting projects.

And now for some goals/resolutions… .

1. Quilts for charity

After making two quilts for charity in 2011, I didn't complete any in 2012. I have two in progress that will be part of my finish-along list for this quarter, so I plan to get two done early in 2013. I want to contribute to Newborns in Need again, as well as passing these two along to a friend who works with children in foster care. 

2. A bed-sized quilt

This one is well in the works. My goal is for it to be a twin-sized quilt for our guest room/office. Eventually I may get started on a king-sized quilt for my bed, but probably not soon.

3. Learn to paper-piece

I'm participating in the Lucky Stars Block of the Month Club. I'm excited about these blocks, and want to get started (although first I have to find a way to print out the templates… maybe a goal for this year should be to buy a new printer?)

4. Open my Etsy shop

I'm hoping to open it soon! It will include Christmas ornaments, onesies, canvas signs, etched glasses, tumblers, and other items that I'm making using the Silhouette. I had really hoped for it to happen before Christmas, but I just had too much going on with work. 

5. Blog every once in a while 

Because really, I have so much fun making all this stuff, the least I can do is document it for myself and share it with others!

2013 may have a bunch of changes in store for me and my family--I'm hoping so, at least, but we shall see as the year progresses. Happy New Year to all of you! I wish you a wonderful 2013! I'm going to enjoy watching some football (go Noles!) and perhaps work on organizing my closet. :)

Linking up to: