Tag Archives: goals

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My next mini swap in the queue is the Home Sweet Home Mini Quilt Swap. The shipping deadline is Wednesday. Eek. So this is not only a September goal, it's a 72-hour goal. Luckily, I've got some time in my schedule to sew sew sew today and tomorrow.

This is the first swap I've been in that we've been assigned partners and we're making for each other. I generally am so excited about what I'm making that I show it off while it's in progress, since nobody knows who will be receiving it. This time, I'm making for Brittany and she knows it. (And she's making for me.) So, I'm not showing much along the way. In fact, this glimpse below is all anyone will see before Brittany receives her package.

I designed my mini and included one pieced curve (gasp!). Since I'd never done this, job one was to figure that out. I cut pieces from my hand-drawn templates and then pinned the heck out of it. I think it was a mistake to piece it with the outer curve on the bottom. It was a puckered mess when I finished. Oops.

I shared on Instagram and Amanda and Jessica both recommended Leanne's curve sewing tutorial. Oh my gosh! Game changer. I never would have attempted to pieces a curve without pins, but her short video illustrated it beautifully. Here's the result of my second attempt. No pins were used in the making of this one.

Overall I'm happy with it, but it is just a smidge shy of the intended size. I made one more (oh, cause I've decided to make this mini twice, one for Brittany and one for me) and cut my pieces larger than necessary so I could trim down to 2" by 3.5". (Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the position of the shape of the fabric as much as to the pattern on it when trimming, so it's not quite symmetrical, but I think it'll be fine.) Here's my third curve.

Now on to all my straight seems. Stay tuned for my big finish after it reaches its destination. And after that I'll be wanting to sew all the curves! This little piece and Leanne's tutorial opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Once again I'm glad I've used a mini swap to push myself beyond my normal quilting skills.

Do you participate in quilt (or other craft) swaps? What's your favorite part?

Linking up to ALYoF September Goal Party.

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While there are still quite a few WIPs needing my attention, with looming swap deadlines my August goal will have to be a swap mini. I'm hosting my first mini quilt swap on Instagram, the Halloween Mini Swap. Our shipping window is the second half of this month and there's some great stuff in the works. Confession time: I haven't started sewing my mini. I have narrowed down my fabric. Here's what I'll be using. The main fabric is "unhappy hour" from The Alexander Henry Fabrics Collection 2004. The reason I chose to host this swap is so I would actually use some of my (never before touched) Halloween stash fabrics like this one. Not sure the specifics on the orange spider webs and the top fabric is Tula Pink True Colors Makin' Waves in Ink.

I'm linking up to the A Lovely Year of Finishes August Goal Party. Look for a finish from me in a couple weeks and progress pic along the way on IG.

Thanks for visiting!

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My July ALYoF goal was to make some progress on my oldest WIP. Specifically, it was to finish the snowball blocks so I could reassess what my next step would be on this project.

I "gave" this quilt to my brother in 2004 for Christmas. I had 8 blocks done at the time. As of the beginning of this month I had... 8 block done. ;-) Now I have 40 completed blocks, and I've decided that I'll set them in a 5 block by 8 block rectangle and add a 10-12" border (in some boring solid, probably) to make it approximately twin sized. I figure about 65" by 90" is a reasonable lap quilt size for someone who is 6'5" tall. And it would have the added benefit of being able to be used as a bed quilt in the future if he'd like. Here are all the blocks together. (Oh yeah, that's a little busy! My 2015 self is kind of asking my 2004 self what she was thinking.)

I'm excited about making progress on getting the oldest WIP off my to do list. I've decided in a manner of letting some things go that I'll send out a few of my WIPs to a long-arm quilter once the tops are complete. (I recently sent out my first quilt to a long-arm quilter. It was like quilting magic! More on that later.) Since I'm not particularly excited about this project (sorry, Chris) I think skipping the quilting step will make me happier since it will allow me to move on to some other sewing. It will also ensure that it gets into the finished column sooner since it would just get pushed aside for more exciting sewing in the short term if I held onto it to quilt it myself.

With less than an hour to spare, I'm linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes July Finishes Party. ;-)