Design Wall Monday – January 19, 2015

Alex's Quilt 011815Well I’m FINALLY working on Alex’s quilt again! I got all the blocks put together last week and ironed on Friday. After my sister cleaned on Saturday I laid everything out on the floor in the living room – this thing is a lot bigger than I thought! I like the way it looks with all the different colored strips on the blocks, hopefully he likes it too! I have the top half of the quilt webbed together so I don’t lose any blocks or turn them the wrong way.  I’m using my Good Night Irene quilt blocks as leader/enders so that I can get some work done on that one too. I’m glad to finally be sewing again, I need it these days for stress relief! Hope to have these blocks put together by the end of the day – depends on if the kids nap this afternoon. I think I’ll be doing a thin black border and then I was thinking of doing a piano key border with the 4 solid colors from the blocks, but I might need to get some more!

Linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday – January 19, 2015

Alex's Quilt 011815Well I’m FINALLY working on Alex’s quilt again! I got all the blocks put together last week and ironed on Friday. After my sister cleaned on Saturday I laid everything out on the floor in the living room – this thing is a lot bigger than I thought! I like the way it looks with all the different colored strips on the blocks, hopefully he likes it too! I have the top half of the quilt webbed together so I don’t lose any blocks or turn them the wrong way.  I’m using my Good Night Irene quilt blocks as leader/enders so that I can get some work done on that one too. I’m glad to finally be sewing again, I need it these days for stress relief! Hope to have these blocks put together by the end of the day – depends on if the kids nap this afternoon. I think I’ll be doing a thin black border and then I was thinking of doing a piano key border with the 4 solid colors from the blocks, but I might need to get some more!

Linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

Odds and Ends

Well since I finished the baby’s blanket this week I’ve been working on hexies! Don’t have any pictures of them yet, I’ll probably wait until I have all the diamonds for the row completed.

2014-03-09 10.24.24Alex spent the night at my parents last night so I pulled some pink fat quarters and set to work cutting everything out for baby girl’s signature quilt.  This morning I managed to complete 22 of the 36 blocks I need for the top.  I need to make a run to Joann’s so I can get more Kona white for the rest of the blocks. I thought I had more than I did!  Hopefully I can buy a whole bolt and be set for awhile, I do have a 40% off coupon to use.  If I do go to Joann’s (which I probably will), I’m planning on getting the yarn to start another blanket for Kimmie’s friend.  I think I’ll be able to work on that while I take care of everyone else – it might just be my sanity check!

2014-03-09 10.24.18I also managed to finally iron and put together the first 2 blocks in the Good Night Irene sew along.  I’m SO far behind on this SAL!  It doesn’t really matter, I know I can catch up pretty quickly since I already have all the pieces cut out, I just need time (and energy) to sit at the machine to work on it.  I’m hoping I’ll find some time once I can sit at the machine better – there’s no a whole lot of room between the table and my stomach right now!

We’ve now completed 3 EQ sessions with the other quilt guild in my area.  I’m loving teaching again, even though I am now taking a month or so off for the baby.  Everyone says they are learning a lot on how to use the software, which is wonderful!  Can’t wait to see what they do with the assignment I gave them for April while I’m on “maternity leave”.

Gotta run, need to get 2 months worth of newsletters posted for our guild!

Applique update

2013-11-29 15.33.19I haven’t done much work at the machine this week, with some semi-sleepless nights and running errands getting ready for the holiday (both requiring afternoon naps) I just didn’t have time. I have managed to get 11 of the 12 flowers appliqued down to the background blocks. I love how they all look!  Now to start working on attaching the scrap blocks around the flowers!  I have all of the 3 block pieces ready to go, hoping to get them all attached today and then hopefully start working on the 5 block pieces.

Accuquilt has had some nice sales the last few days for Black Friday and yesterday was the sale I was waiting for! I found the 4.5″ square multi die on sale so that I could use rewards points to buy it and only pay $8 for shipping!  Now once I get the fabric I can start getting things ready for the Good Night Irene SAL that starts the first of the year.  Not that I should be working on that one yet, I need to finish the other 3 quilts that are in progress!  Or at least finish the guild challenge top and the scrappy 9 patch – both just need 2 borders added to them!

Lots to get done today, worked on some Xmas presents (not sewing related!) and still have a few more that need to be worked on, but tonight we are meeting my cousin and her kids to go to the Holiday walk in the Metroparks by us.  We took Alex last year and he had a ball!

Guild Block Exchange & New Project

2013-11-21 16.34.47

Well I am ALMOST done with my guild block exchange quilt!!  I just need to do the borders.  I had to do a little fixing on some of the blocks, including some of my own!  I just added strips of my background fabric and then squared them up to 12.5″.  Made it quite easy to add all the sashing and finish putting the rows together.  I really like how it’s turned out, and I can’t wait to see what everyone else has done.

Scrappy with applieque hexiesI know, I need another project like I need a hole in my head! I saw a few rows of a quilt on Facebook and really liked the idea of the scrappy 25-patch blocks mixing with a scrappy block that has an applique on it.  I’ve already pulled all the pieces I need for the hexie flowers and started pinning them to my 1″ papers.  I just happen to have the 6.5″ square die for my Studio so I can cut the white squares I need to applique them to.  By the time this is done I’ll have used up 517 2.5″ squares!!!  Quilt will end up being 58″ x 58″ with the border.

Good night irene quiltI mentioned the other day that I was joining another SAL over at Terry’s Treasures.  I designed the quilt in EQ so I could play with sizes and decide how big I wanted to make it.  With a border this quilt will be around 58″ x 58″. This will be entirely made of scrap pieces as well, using 2.5″ squares (or triangles) and 4.5″ squares.  I need to see what whites I have to use, I may have to make a trip to Joann’s to get a white of some sort to use.  I just figured it out and this quilt (in the size I’ve chosen) will use 192 2.5″ squares in the 16-patches, 96 4.5″ squares, 144 2.5″ squares (or triangles) in the X blocks. That will use 336 2.5″ squares in the quilt!  Between the 2 quilts I’ll use up a lot of scraps!!!!

I still need to cut 40 black 6.5″ squares for the scrappy 9-patch quilt.  I will most likely cut the white and black squares at the same time since I’ll have the Studio out from under the sewing table.  I just got the larger tray and the large Go adapter for the Studio today, so I’ll be able to use my 2.5″ strip die now.  Definitely having fun working on scrap quilts, even though I have LOTS of other quilts I need to finish!  I’ve also been slowly working on pieces for my hexagon diamond quilt, still haven’t put the row together even though I finished the diamonds, I will need to work on that soon, but I did start working on the black hexies I need for fill in on the top and bottom. Although now I’ll be working on the hexies for the applique instead!

Alex is up from his nap, so I better get him up and it’s almost time to start working on dinner anyway.  Laters!