WIP - Another Baby Quilt

I love having a leader and ender project going at any given time. In fact, I usually have a regular project and a paper pieced one going at any given time so that I can pick the project to work on whether I'm working on a regular quilt project or a paper pieced on. At retreat, I started a new leader and ender project - a baby quilt for a family member having a baby boy this summer.

I cut up four Sweetwater Pure charm packs using my Accuquilt Go! tumbler cutter. While at retreat, I sewed them into pairs. As I've begun working on other projects, I've been sewing these together, first in pairs and then sewing those pairs together.

This one should go together pretty quick, pending I actually have time to quilt and don't have machine issues again. I'm really trying to be random here and not spend too much time figuring out where fabrics go.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

Getting Ready to Retreat!

Our annual BMQG retreat is upon us and I've been very busy getting ready for it. With my longarm out for service for 14 LONG weeks and my domestic in for regular maintenance and to repair the broken handle and thread holder for the past four weeks, I've been spending most of my time cutting. Throw in the craziness of working full time and going to grad school full time, and I'm going through some serious sewing withdrawal. Four days of sewing sounds like pure bliss right now.

One of my big projects will be to make a quilt using this bundle of fabrics. I'm using a dozen different Liberty of London prints with a coordinating Textured Solids fabric from Andover and a neutral chambray from Robert Kauffman for the background. Let's just say this quilt will be full of different textures. If all goes according to plan, I hope to enter this quilt at QuiltCon and possibly a few other shows with modern quilting categories.

I'm also hoping to work on a bunch of WIPs including my Meadow quilt, which I started at the Philly SewDown. I have four of the 20 blocks complete. Below are the first three blocks. I finished cutting the remaining 16 blocks last week, so I might be able to finish this one, depending on how much time I spend sewing vs. talking.

I'll bring a few other WIP's with me to work on, but I don't know if I'll get to them or not. Maybe I'll get to my quilted tote, also a WIP from SewDown.

And if that's not enough, I brought a few smaller projects to make some zippered pouches and such for some upcoming birthdays and baby showers. Let's just say I'm going to be busy. But that means I'll actually have something to show since I've been so quiet lately.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

WIP Wednesday: The Meadow

Now that the fall weather is starting to creep in, I feel like I'm starting to do a bit more sewing. It helps that I have a TV in my sewing room so that I can watch football while sewing on Sundays. Over the weekend, I decided to work on my Meadow blocks from Lizzy House's class at SewDown.

I have three blocks done and a fourth all cut out and ready to sew together. There are 20 blocks total plus the border, so I still have a ways to go. Once all of the pieces are cut, the block itself goes together pretty easily. There are some gentle curves, which are great for someone just learning curves.

 

Drunk Fun

I've been working on a new quilt for the past few weeks here and there. I decided use my drunkard's path die for my AccuQuilt to make a more modern curved quilt. In addition, I thought that curves would make a good class topic for my next class at Quilter's Way.

I started by making a bunch of drunkard's path blocks and tried a bunch of different layouts. I finally settled on the one you see here by adding some squares to the pattern.

Here you can see the teal block before it's sewn together and trimmed down. I added 2" borders to the edge of the squares to match the white background width from the drunkard's path block. Before sewing the "petals" together, I trimmed them down to 1" and 1.5" inches. I left the spacing larger on the outside to leave a little more space between the blocks.

These blocks are HUGE and take up most of my design wall right now. Each block finishes around 26" square! Yikes. I'm planning on making nine blocks in a rainbow of colors. Above you can see the first five blocks. I have the yellow, orange, red-orange and red blocks left to make. Once I have all of them made, I'll probably lay all of these out on a floor or the grass outside to try a few different layouts.

Here you can see some of the other colors waiting to be pieced into these petal/flower blocks. All of these fabrics except the Lizzy House Pearl Bracelet white on white came from my stash! All the more justification to buy fabric for my stash. This is proof I actually use it!

Here's wishing everyone here in the states a happy 4th of July!

WIP Wednesday: A Whole Bunch of Stuff

I've been all over the place the past few weeks in terms of quilting. I've been working on a little of this and a little of that.

Remember this pile of fabrics?

Well I'm in the middle of turning it into a quilt. I just finished making all of the cross blocks and am testing out a bunch of different layouts.

I've been very busy making binding. On the right is the binding I picked for my 8-year-old quilt that I'm determined to finish. On the left is a whole lot of binding for some Quilts for Boston quilts. To give you an idea of how much binding that is, the binding on the right is 250" long and is for a quilt that finishes at 52" square. Hopefully this binding will help finish several Quilts for Boston quilts.

Up next, I have several more quilts to quilt for Quilts for Boston. I think this one will be going on my longarm next.  (Someone else pieced the top, I'm just going to quilt it.)

WIP Wednesday: Quilts For Boston and a Bee Block

The past few weeks have really been focused on trying to get quilt tops pieced together and starting to quilt them. I'm excited to see more of these get finished in the near future.

Last night I finished quilting this quilt that I'm pretty sure was pieced by Alice.

You can sort of see the quilting better here.

We have another sew-in tonight at Quilter's Way to continue to piece tops, backs and bindings. If you're in the area, come join us.

In addition, I also finished my Simply Solids Bee block for the month of May over the weekend and sent that out to its recipient.

WIP Wednesday: Playing With My New Toy!

For a while now, I had been thinking about getting a longarm. While at MQX, I test drove several, finally purchasing a Handi Quilter Avante. 

Last Wednesday, my new toy was finally delivered and set up. It had been sitting in the shop for two weeks while I was traveling for work, eagerly waiting for me to return and play. 

I began by putting some old fabric that I never plan to use on the frame to get the hang of it. On Saturday, after I was somewhat confident, I took that off the frame and put my first quilt on. I had to go back and see when I made this quilt top. I blogged about it back in June 2009 and at that point, I stated that I had made it 3-4 years prior. I made this quilt during my first paper pieced class while I was still in college, probably in the 2005 timeframe. The workmanship is far from perfect. I figured why not make my first paper pieced quilt my first (okay, third - I did some simple stippling on a longarm that I rented twice) longarmed quilt. 

As I've been working on this quilt, I have come to really like this block and this quilt, despite the fact that it's not really my style anymore and the workmanship isn't up to my current standards. Who knows, maybe someday I'll make a more modern version of this quilt. 

Here's a picture of the quilt top from several years ago. 

WIP Wednesday: A New Challenge

Quilter's Way is hosting a new color challenge and I decided to participate. Participants can pick from four different fat quarter bundles and make a quilt using a selected pattern - a criss cross quilt this time around. The challenge will be all about how folks arrange the colors and execute the pattern.

I picked the summer popsicle color way for my quilt.

Over the weekend I broke apart the bundle and separated them into pairs in order to make the criss cross blocks.

I managed to get the main fabrics cut as well. Now I just need to cut the background - a really nice light gray - before I start sewing them together.

Stay tuned for more progress!

WIP Wednesday: MSMS Round 3 Progress

The shipping deadline for the Modern She Made Swap is fast approaching, and I'm rushing to finish my mini quilt for it.

I designed a paper pieced pattern a while ago, and when the theme of the swap was announced - stars - I decided to use this pattern for my project. I made 36 three inch blocks (above) which were turned into nine six inch blocks, below.

I finished piecing the top and quilting this mini quilt this week, I just need to make the binding. I'm leaning towards the blue for the binding, but I'm waiting to see what my partner prefers before settling on one. For the quilting, I just did three diagonal lines together around the yellow squares. It's a little wrinkled below because I haven't ironed it after having the quilt all bunched up while quilting it, but you get the idea.

I'm really liking how this is coming out and I might just have to make another for myself. Can you see the stars that emerge as a secondary pattern when you put multiple blocks together?

You can find the pattern in my Craftsy and Etsy shops.

WIP Wednesday & A Somber Note

I swear, it is going to take me forever just to finish this quilt. I lamented on what fabric I would use for the binding, as I don't really have many of the colors of this quilt in my stash. Finally, I found a great piece of FMF that I deemed perfect for this quilt. This weekend, the first time I've had a free minute in a while, I managed to cut the binding and get it sewn onto the quilt. 

I still need to tack it down to the back, but it's one step closer to being done with the quilt. 

On a more somber note, I am heartbroken by the events that occurred at the Boston Marathon this week. As a life-long New Englander, I've gone into Boston too many times to count. I've been to numerous Boston Marathons as a spectator - three times going to the 11:00 Red Sox game and walking to the finish line of the Marathon at the end to cheer on the runners. I knew a number of people running or watching the Marathon, so needless to say, Monday afternoon was a very emotional time for almost everyone in the Boston area trying to figure out if their friends and loved ones were safe. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this cowardly attack - this hit so close to home for everyone in the area. If you are looking to help, there has been a fund set up, The One Fund where you can donate to help everyone affected by this tragedy. 

Secret Projects

I've been pretty quiet on the blogging front lately, but that's because I have a couple of secret projects in the works that I can't reveal just yet.

One includes using this stack of fabrics:

And the other project uses these yummy solids:

Oh, and I'm working on my Modern She Made swap item using these pretty fabrics (with the gray as the background, not the white):

Hopefully I'll have some pretty quilts/projects to share with you soon, but for now, you're stuck looking at some pretty fabrics. 

WIP Wednesday: Mod Hex 2 Quilted

This week I finished the final stitch in my Mod Hex 2 quilt.

I still need to make and attach the binding, but overall, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Once again I did a concentric circle quilting design, which I really love.

I really want to use something from my stash for the binding, but I'm not sure I have anything that goes with this. These aren't the typical colors I work in - they're much more earthy than I'm used to.

WIP Wednesday: Machine Quilting

It's not uncommon for me to make a quilt top and leave it unfinished for a decent amount of time. Hoping to break that habit a bit, I decided to piece the back and begin quilting my Mod Hex 2 quilt.

And after the spiral quilting I did on my Sunrise Delight quilt, I knew I wanted to do the same quilting on this quilt.

The center is the hardest part because you practically take one or two stitches before turning the quilt. That's the one part that I could really use some additional practice at.  The rest of the quilting, I think, looks really good.

Once you get going, and out of the very center, it starts to quilt up pretty quick.

But then it slows down a bit when you get to the outside of the quilt, when it takes longer to make a full circle.  This is how far I got after two hours of quilting.  I'd estimate I have another two to three hours left to go on this baby.  

WIP Wednesday

For my March goal in the Lovely Year of Finishes Challenge, I would like to finish this quilt that I have been working on.

This means that I need to trim all of these remaining HSTs.

This means I still need to trim all of these down to 4.5" square.

And then I can add those trimmed HSTs to this pile of HSTs and finish piecing the top.  It's a good thing I have retreat coming up to help me finish this quilt.  I'm going to need some good sewing time ahead of me.

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