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Tomorrow I'll be starting a new 100 Day Project. (I know! I haven't even shared all the quilts I finished in my last 100 Day Project that wrapped up last month! Stay tuned for those.)

Backstory: I started a 100 Day Project in April and stopped participating after day 49. I had realized that the scope of my initial project was a little too robust for the amount of time I had to actually sew. I'd pivoted a little to finish another project (which fit the technique requirements of my initial plan, generally speaking), and I wasn't really having fun with the project anymore. I am glad I participated. (I'm also glad I stopped.) I made a lot of things I'm excited about, but most importantly it taught me a little about what would work for me in a future 100 Day Project. I have longtime admired the people that make a finished item a day (like a mini quilt or a postcard) for 100 Days. The second time around (July 20 - October 27, 2020) I set myself a more attainable goal: 15 minutes a day working on a series of mini quilts. I wouldn't be cranking out 100 finished items, but I would make progress on creating quilts in a series that I was excited to work on. I'd made the first two in January and February. I shared my green improv log cabin quilt back in September.

I had such a great time with my recent 100 Day Project. I made five 16 1/2" x 16 1/2" improv log cabin mini quilts, start to finish. Some days I worked longer than fifteen minutes and, truth be told, a few days I didn't make it into the studio and felt liberated to make up those sewing minutes the following day. I didn't share on the blog except for that September post, and I only shared a handful of posts on Instagram. But I saw the project through and made five quilts. I'm calling that a win.

I'd been thinking about starting a new 100 Day Project (though I had no specific plan) when I saw Cassandra post on Instagram that she would be starting again on November 10. She encouraged quilters to join in with their own project. She has decided to count down from 100 and is calling it #quiltingthecountdown. I love the quilting community and was excited to join in. I considered another improv project, perhaps one making blocks or units that turned into a finished quilt during the project (like Cassandra's last two projects), but I decided to go another way and pull out a WIP. I'll be spending at least 15 minutes a day working on my Patchwork City quilt. This is a project I started way back in February of 2015! (I wish I could say it's my oldest WIP, but it most certainly isn't.) Recently an IG friend finished up her Patchwork City quilt and I felt a little envious. Today Jessica posted her first Patchwork City block and it made me itch to work on mine. I considered other options and kept coming back to pulling this one off the shelf. So off I go upstairs to pull the project out and make a plan for myself for tomorrow. If I remember correctly I have some blocks cut out and ready to piece together. (Score!) If by chance, this quilt gets finished before I countdown to Day 1, I'll choose another WIP to work on for the remainder of the project.

This time around I plan to share weekly updates on my blog. I'll share some process photos on Instagram as well. Click for a peek at some of my first finished blocks.

Have you ever done a 100 Day Project (quilting or otherwise)? There's still time to participate with us. Join us over at Instagram with the #quiltingthecountdown hashtag. Tuesday, November 10 is Day 100 on our countdown.

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Is anyone else wondering how it is already November? I missed a meeting this week, because I didn't know what day of the week it was... that about sums up life for me right now.

In November, please Show Me Something with Stripes! How do you like to use stripes in your projects? One of my favorite ways to feature strips is a striped binding. Show us all* your stripes. Skinny stripes, thick stripes, striped piecing, striped fabric, wonky stripes... are curved stripes a thing? Sure! Include those, too! Remember, this linkup is part challenge... please link up new or old projects. *Please linkup up to 3 projects total.

Here are a few of my favorite striped fabrics from my stash:

This grey Tula Pink fabric is slated for the sashing for my 100 Tula Pink City Sampler blocks.

One of two Timeless Treasures rainbow prints that I love for the vibrant riot of color!

This fun stripy purple wave print is the backing for the project I just basted.

 

Here are the linkup details:

  • The monthly Show Me Something quilt linkup will start on the first of the month and continue until midnight (PST) on the last day of the month.
  • You may linkup a maximum of 3 new or old finished projects that fit the theme.
  • You may linkup a blog post or Instagram post.
  • If you linkup from a blog post, please link back to this post in your post. If you post from Instagram, you can tag me @sarahgoerquilts.
  • Visit others in the community who share their projects... and leave comments. :-)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter


 

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Way back on July 20, I started a new 100 Day Project. I knew that with everything I had going the scope of my project would need to be lightweight and flexible. I also wanted a more focused scope than the last 100 Day Project (which morphed over time and I stopped after day 49).

I chose for this new project to be 15 minutes of sewing daily to work on expanding my series of Improv Log Cabin mini quilts that I started at the beginning of the year. 15 minutes a day meant some days I would be piecing. Some would be quilting, or making binding, or even just choosing fabrics. Forward momentum daily. For consistency, I would continue making 16 1/2" x 16 1/2" mini quilts. Why these dimensions? Because I have a ruler that size and a fat quarter can easily be used for backing fabric. Win win!

The first two in the series were created in response to Project QUILTING prompts in January and February. In each of these quilts I had limited myself to a palette of black, white, and one color. My bindings were solid black.

Generally speaking, I gravitate to the design and piecing steps of the quilting process. A finished quilt top can hang around for a long time in my life. The flexibility of this project allowed me to just piece quilt tops for the first many days. On day 30, I finished my 4th quilt top and decided it was time to switch gears so I'd have some finishes before day 100. On day 56, I finished my second mini quilt, the one I'm sharing with you today.

I chose a variety of values of green Kona and white in order to maintain my "black (the binding), white, and one color" rule. This is the first quilt in the series to be entirely solids (on the front). The logs of my 3/4 log cabin are 1 inch wide (finished). I chose nested Cs for the quilting, alternating direction for each color. The center was filled in with pebbles. (This is infinitely easier now that I own an open toe free motion quilting foot for my machine.)

The white background was filled in with wavy triangles. These were created by first making the large wavy zig-zag (see below) and then filling in on each side with echo quilting.

It just takes a little bit of free-motion quilting for me to remember that I really do enjoy it. I favor motifs like the wavy zig-zag that are more organic, and therefore forgiving. But I just can't resist the siren call of more precise and picky designs. Even if my work isn't perfect, the resulting texture is so rewarding.

I chose to match my thread to each fabric. My lightest green fabric was lighter than my lightest green thread, so I used white thread on both the lightest green and white fabrics. Left to Right these are 50wt Aurifil Forest Green (#4026), Very Dark Grass (#2890), Grass Green (#1114), Spring Green (#1231), Light Avocado (#2886), and White (#2024).

I'm backing my mini quilts with fat quarters from my stash in coordinating colors. I chose Mini Pearl Bracelets for this one. (I look forward to using the scraps of this fabric in a future project.)

The quilt is machine bound in solid black.

I would really love to work with this design again either on a larger scale or making a block-based quilt with a bunch of these blocks.

I have two more quilt tops to quilt up and bind. Then maybe I can squeeze a 5th mini quilt into these 100 days.

Have you done a 100 Day Project? What was the scope of your project? Did you enjoy it? Where there parts of the project that you found challenging?

You can read all about the other quilts in the series here: