Monthly Archives: December 2014

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My final finish of 2014! I bought the fabrics: 7 light fat quarters (black on white), 12 dark fat quarters (reds), accent and binding fabric (black on black), border (white on black) and backing... eight and a half years ago during the 2006 Shop Hop by The Bay. I had no idea what I was making, but loved the mystery of it. (I had pieced the mystery quilt from the shop hop two years before using bright, bold colors and I'd loved watching the design emerge.) I started it immediately, but back then I wasn't sewing very regularly. I worked on and off over the years and this year I finally tried to really focus on finishing since I was able to carve out regular sewing time. There have been so many progress posts about my mystery quilt over the last year. It's so great to finally have a 100% finished quilt to show you.

I've come a long way in my skills since starting this. I think this is one of the frustrations of working on a really old WIP. My piecing has improved (yay for a nearly perfect 1/4" seam allowance), I can free motion quilt now, and my understanding of value has improved, to name a few. I've also started using Aurifil thread to piece and quilt and I press my seams open.

I quilted in Aurifil 50wt grey #2605 I like to match my top and bobbin thread and decided anything more bold would fight with the fun backing fabric and I wanted it to just blend. It finished at 65" by 83". I'm really looking forward to wrapping this up and giving it to my dear friend.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and ALYoF December Finishes. By the way, I'm a little jealous of all of you aren't feverishly trying to finish your December goal today because yours has been done for a while already. ;-)

Also linking up to Finish Along 2014 Wrap Up Party. Here's my full list of (mostly still incomplete) Q4 goals.

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Mystery Quilt

Here's my progress on my December ALYoF goal... a mystery quilt I started in 2006! I have just under 48 hours to crank out a finish with some uncomplicated free motion quilting. I'm so excited to have the quilt top finished. I'm looking forward to giving it away, but I might have to spent some time looking at it first. :-)

completed red, black and white mystery quilt topdetail view of red, black and white mystery quilt

 

Little Letters

I finished piecing all my letters for my two little letters quilts. I need to cut about a million (okay 84) 1.5" corner squares for the sashing. Then I'll be able to get these all pieced together. Little Letters blocks in brightsLittle Letters blocks in blues and greens

 

do. Good Stitches

Here are my December do. Good Stitches blocks for the Promise Circle. These scrappy domino blocks went together very quickly. I was even able to raid my 2 1/2" strip scrap pile for some of the pieces. They are on their way to Diana in New York. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished quilt.   scrappy domino block with low volume backgroundscrappy domino block with low volume background

 

Drawstring Bag

My mother-in-law does embroidery and a while back I noticed that she was keeping her supplies in a plastic shopping bag. Then I saw this adorable fabric and I decided that she needed a large lined drawstring bag for her project and supplies. This one is the Artist Bag size of Jeni Baker's Lined Drawstring Bag.

IMG_6167

lined drawstring bag with red and white fabric featuring embroidery diagrams

 

#disneyminiswap2015

I started making progress on my Disney Mini Quilt. I won't be able to show too many progress pictures, because I think it would give it away to the recipient, but I'm very excited about my plan and hope she'll love it!

pieced striped background

 

Cookies

I made 10 dozen holiday cookies... Here are the quilt block cookies I brought to my guild's holiday party and a selection of the 7 dozen that I brought to the annual cookie party that I attend.

quilt block royal icing cookiesChristmas royal icing cookies

 

 

I guess I've been busy. We also celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas with family. I hope the holiday season was enjoyable for you and your family.

Dozens of hanukkiahs lit for the 4th night of Hanukkah.
Hanukkah celebration with our congregation (4th night).

Hanukkiah with candles for last night of Hanukkah.

 

 

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Welcome to those of you who are here to share a finish with TGIFF or to check out what everyone else has been up to. I'm really excited to be hosting Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday!Rush Hour close upI've been trying to finish up some older projects and stash bust some of my older fabrics... many from when I started quilting in 2002. I recently decided to put together this baby quilt. The feature fabric was leftover from a pillow case that I made for my nephew a few years ago. I decided that the cars would make a cute baby quilt and pulled two fat quarters from my stash to go with it.

I did a little measuring of my leftover car fabric and found that I could get twelve 5.5-inch squares out of it (leaving very little waste). I decided I'd make 4-patch blocks with my red and yellow fabrics. For those I cut 3" strips of each fat quarter and strip-pieced them.

strip piecing step 1

Then I cut these into 3" segments, to piece the 4-patch blocks. (Strip-piecing tip: When cutting be sure to square up the edge, and line your ruler line along one of your seams.)

strip piecing step 2strip piecing step 3strip piecing step 4

Now, I didn't like my options for border fabric from my stash, so I picked up the lovely green dots at PIQF. I used a striped fabric from my stash for the backing and binding. I love the effect of the striped fabric used as bias binding with the diagonal strips. The whole project went together very quickly.

Rush Hour full

Rush Hour backingRush Hour folded

 

Make Your Own

This could be done with any size block. Start by determining an optimal size block for your feature fabric. This might be determined by how much fabric you have, what size your pieces are, or the scale of the print. Then to determine the dimensions of your small squares just divide by two, then add 0.25 inch.

For example if you had 4-inch squares that you wanted to use for the feature fabric,dividing 4 by two equals 2 inches, then adding 0.25 is 2.25, so the small squares should be 2.25 inches. You could strip piece by cutting 2.25-inch strips, then crosscut into 2.25-inch wide pieces.

Once you've pieced your 1-patch and 4-patch blocks together, you can add one or more borders to reach your desired quilt size.

 

If you're new to my site, here are some of my favorite finishes:

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I've linked up to Cynthia's first Oh Scrap! linkup at Quilting is More Fun than Housework... And linking up to Finish Along 2014 Wrap Up Party. Here's my full list of Q4 goals.