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After finishing her first quilt, Rainbow Swift 2, my daughter decided that she would make a doll quilt as a gift for a friend. I think she was inspired by the fact that my son's second quilt, Rainbow Swift, was a doll quilt that he made to her.

While on our family vacations to Portland and Southern California this summer, she chose some fabric to start her own stash. For this project, she picked solely from her stash. Her first choice was to use the cat fabric for the backing. Then she chose the "stripes" of fabric for the front of her quilt.

She opted for simple lines of quilting (similar to her brother's quilting on Rainbow Swift, but going perpendicular to the stripes of fabric) and wanted to add the quilting of her handprint like we did on her first quilt. I traced her hand and free motion quilted that part.

She hand wrote her label. (First name removed in pic.)

I keep remnant binding pieces to use on small projects and for scrappy bindings. She initially chose two pieces of binding from my remnants, but when I was making additional purple binding for my own project I offered to make enough extra purple so hers would be all one fabric and she liked that option. Last weekend we were finally able to finish up the quilt by attaching the binding. Now to deliver it to Ellie!

Thank you for visiting!

Linking up to the Q4 Finishes Link-Up. See my Q4 list here.

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Finished Quilts

I had two small finishes this week. They'll be featured on the blog soon. I turned my improv curves from last week into my Disney Mug Rug and shipped off my swap package this week. Once I get confirmation that my partner has received it, I'll share it with you.

My daughter and I finally sat down to put the binding on her doll quilt. It's all done and ready to deliver. She's so pleased. Today I got the report that at school she said, "I just want to sew and sew and sew." I totally know what you mean, kid!

 

New Focus

I have a goal to finish this one by the end of the month. I thought I had nearly all the blocks complete and just had to trim them up and stitch them together. When I opened the box with less than two weeks left in the month, I found I only have 92 complete blocks out of my planned 144! Eek! So step one was to create a new slab of scraps that would coordinate with my original scraps. I'm hoping once this slab becomes 40 more blocks and they get sprinkled throughout the quilt that it will all work out. It uses a bunch of fabrics that were used previously, with quite a few new ones. I'm worried about that green on the top of the right edge.

 

Bee Blocks

And because I really have an inability to focus on just one project, I took a break from the above project today and finished up my four blocks for this month's do. Good Stitches for Serenity Circle. They will be trimmed down a smidge to 8 1/2" by 16 1/2" each.

We're using this Craftsy tutorial. They went together in less than an hour and a half total, but a couple are wonky in places. Ailish may need to starch them into submission when she puts the quilt top together. ;-) The tutorial is pretty straightforward, but I'd recommend that at the start of each seam, you offset the edge by about a half inch (see below). I only did this on the last (smallest) seams and I think it would have helped on the other seams as well.

 

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up to Midweek Makers and Needle and Thread Thursday.

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Once again, I finished 5 projects off my goal list for last quarter. Three baby quilts, my oldest WIP, and I helped my daughter finish her first quilt.

Moving forward, there are a lot of projects I really want done right now. I have a couple swaps coming due this month. Plus submissions to finish for QuiltCon. Plus my kids' bed quilts. Plus holiday gifts. Okay, I'm gonna just throw this out there. I'm gonna finish TWELVE quilts this quarter. Go big or go home! ;-) If you need me, I'll be in my sewing room. (By the way: Eek! I'm up to 33 WIPs!) I also want to spend some time thinking about passing on some WIPs that I'm not as in love with anymore. It would be good to start the year fresh heading into 2017.

Quilts

  1. Disney Rug Mug. Shipping real soon. 
  2. Heather Ross Mini Quilt. Shipping first week in November.
  3. Heather Ross Mini Mini Quilt. Shipping first week in November.
  4. Striped Quilt (my daughter's second quilt). I just need to help her get the binding on. 
  5. Creative HST project from Jeni Baker's class at QuiltCon. I'm close to 144 units. Here are some of them.
  6. 9-Patch Challenge for QuiltCon. Designed. Fabric purchased.
  7. Michael Miller Fabric Challenge for QuiltCon. Fabric selected.
  8. Star Light Star Dark. With Quilty Habit. I'm having a lot of fun quilting this one! It's 25% quilted.
  9. Very Hungry Caterpillar twin quilt. Same pattern as Caterpillar Fizz. Finished quilt top.
  10. DONE. Quilt my 6-year-old son's most recent quilt top and help him bind it. He's making a twin sized bed quilt for his sister.
  11. In the Middle quilt. From The Bee Hive #beehiveswarmtisha.
  12. Cotton & Steel (and low volume) HST Quilt.
  13. Meadow Mystery. With Meadow Mist Designs. Join us!
  14. Ocean quilt for my daughter. This was take one on appliqué and my blue fabrics bled. :-(
  15. Midnight Mystery Quilt. Finished Quilt top. 
  16. Color Strata Quilt. My stratas are made. 
  17. Patchwork City Metro Area Quilt. 
  18. Little Letters in Blues/Greens Quilt. I might need to change gears on these two to make them faster finishes.
  19. Little Letters in Brights Quilt.
  20. Very Hungry Caterpillar small lap quilt. Quilt top finished.
  21. Batik SCVQA philanthropy quilt. I just need to quilt it.
  22. Roman Stripez with butterfly backing. Some blocks done. (see #23)
  23. 2nd Roman Stripez.
  24. Memory House Vol. 1 Quilt (2 houses complete) 
  25. Swoon Quilt. 
  26. Primary mini quilt. Same pattern as my Cotton & Steel mini swap. Hoping to get better at adding those bias edge triangles to finish it. 
  27. Rainbow Chain. The pattern is Autumn Chain from The Bee Hive quilts. 
  28. My Floating Squares improv project. (from The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood.)
  29. Rainbow Remix from Rebecca Bryan's class at Quiltcon. Blocks are all done. Next up, the big job of piecing together irregular blocks.
  30. Wonky Cross quilt from Rossie Hutchinson's class at QuiltCon. I added a second palette of fabric that I thought worked with the first. Here are the blocks I've completed so far.
  31. Quartered Log Cabin quilt from Rossie Hutchinson's class at QuiltCon. 
  32. Purple Royalty quilt. 
  33. La Passacaglia. No way I'm finishing this anytime soon, but including it so my list is complete. 

Other Sewing

  1. Zippered Pouch with my EPP hexies from Johanna Masko's EPP class at QuiltCon.
  2. Frog shirt for my son. Bowling Shirt (pattern by Scientific Seamstress). 
  3. Winnie the Pooh Skirt/Shorts for my daughter.

Stats: I love data. I think I'll try to start showing the following graphically, buy I think it's a great metric for seeing my progress and not feeling like my lengthy WIP list is solely a bunch of languishing, forgotten projects. Those 20 that are in progress... many are much farther along. I promise.

  • Planning Stages (pre-fabric pull): 4 (Q1), 0 (Q2), 2 (Q3), 0 (Q4)
  • Fabric Pulled: 1 (Q1), 1 (Q2), 2 (Q3), 2 (Q4)
  • Fabric Cut: 1 (Q1), 0 (Q2), 0 (Q3), 2 (Q4)
  • Piecing in Progress: 15 (Q1), 20 (Q2), 20 (Q3), 21 (Q4)
  • Quilt Top Completed: 7 (Q1), 9 (Q2), 7 (Q3), 7 (Q4)
  • Quilted: 0 (Q1), 0 (Q2), 0 (Q3), 1 (Q4)

Bucket List: Because I need more projects, right?

  1. Triangle Squared quilt.
  2. Equilateral triangle quilt, perhaps Chopsticks pattern.
  3. Raspberry Kiss lap quilt.
  4. Technicolor Galaxy.
  5. Polaroid quilt.
  6. Chopsticks quilt.
  7. Pirate Quilt. (I have fabric, but no firm plan on design yet.)
  8. Leah Day's Dancing Butterflies to develop my free motion quilting. (I joined, but never... um... started.)
  9. More Mini Mini Quilt Swaps on IG.

I'm linking up to the Q4 Finish-A-Long. Thank you to all the co-hosts for this year! I'm very thankful for Finish-A-Long helping me stay organized and motivated.

Thank you for visiting!

2016 Finish-A-Long

Things I Make