Tag Archives: goals

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I missed getting a goal post up in time for this month's A Lovely Year of Finishes goal setting party. This is my first miss since I started participated. :-(

Ironically, my youngest started school last week. I'm not really feeling all this "new free time" I have. The week was a whirlwind of errands mostly. I did manage a few hours home alone which was nice (not that I got much done around here). I feel like it'll take a couple weeks for me to settle into a new routine. I have done some sewing... Some. Not enough.

My sewing time in the past week has been dedicated to helping my son finish his first quilt (I'll be posting next week about his finish!) and prepping his and my own quilts for the quilt show by making and attaching hanging sleeves on the back. I tried this excellent system of attaching a quilt sleeve by machine! And I got our quilts turned in yesterday afternoon. Local friends, I hope you'll come check out the quilt show next weekend to see our quilts and over 350 other traditional, contemporary and art quilts. There will be vendors as well! The show is March 14th 10am to 5pm and March 15th 10am to 4pm at the Santa Clara Convention Center. $12 adults, children 12 and under are free. For more information: www.scvqaquiltshow.org. I think we'll be there Saturday around noon and Sunday morning. My son will be in his "Quilter in Training" shirt from Patchwork Threads. We're both so excited!

Okay... so quilting and sewing goals for March. I think getting them all in a list will help me focus, which will hopefully make this week way more sewy than last week.

Charm Dash Quilt

I'm so excited to be participating in the Charm Dash Blog Hop (my first!) with Ms. Midge. I'm using some of my many purple charms left from the long ago fabric swap that I also used to make The Purple Quilt. After spending February working on an all purple quilt I can assure you my next project won't be purple. Even I will be ready for a change. ;-)

I showed you a glimpse of my fabrics in January. All my pieces are cut out and I've started some of the piecing. Here are my piles of trimmed up HSTs.

You can follow my progress this week on IG and see the work of others at these hashtags: #charmdash #charmdashbloghop -- My finished quilt will be up on the blog at the end of the week.

Ms. Midge has her Charm Dash pattern on sale right now at Etsy and Craftsy.

Bee Blocks

  • Stash Bee
  • Do. Good Stitches
  • The Bee Hive

I haven't even pulled fabric for these. I hope to at least do that part this week.

Patchwork City Metro BOM

  • Finish February Blocks
  • Prewash March fabrics
  • Make March Blocks

I'd really like to get caught up. The only way to stay caught up is to be caught up, right?

IG Swaps (with mailing deadlines)

  • #rainbowminiswap (April 6)
  • #openwidepouchswap (April 25)
  • #igpincushionswap (May 15)
  • #alisonglassminiquiltswap (June 15)
  • #cottonandsteelminiquiltswap (June 19)

I shared my finished Rainbow Mini quilt top a few weeks ago. The rest of these are in the "needing to make a plan" phase. I'm also excited to be a group leader for the first time for the Open Wide Pouch Swap.

Other Sewing

  • Make an apron and chef's hat for my daughter
  • Interview my son about his quilt so I can include it in next Monday's post about his finished project
  • Send out my Ninja Quilt for quilting

Yeah, I'm aware that this isn't all gonna get done in March, but it's so nice to have it listed all in one place here instead of just swimming around in my head. ;-)

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I'm participating in Sarah's 4x7 Sewing Challenge of doing some "selfish sewing" for 30 minutes a day. I started purchasing purple fabric for my bed quilt last May. I had trouble finding a blender to match my purple ninja fabric. Since I decided that this project would be my focus of the 4x7 Challenge, I brought my fabrics along with me to Intrepid Thread last Friday for help from Molli Sparkles (Thank you again!) on his visit from Australia. I walked away with a perfect coordinating blender (top left) by Valori Wells for my project and I'm excited to get started. Finishing this purple ninja king size quilt top is my ALYoF February goal.

So Day 1... I was all set to pre-wash fabric for my 30 minutes of selfish "sewing"... and then the downstairs sinks backed up and that became the matter that needed all of our attention... that and I was afraid to run the washing machine while we had a plumbing problem elsewhere in the house. Instead I focused my efforts in the evening to cut out my bee blocks for Stash Bee (Hive 1), The Bee Hive (swarm Tisha) and do. Good Stitches (Promise Circle). I've decided that in keeping with my commitments to the bees, I'll make bee blocks a priority the first week of the month so it felt really good to get the pieces all cut out. I even started piecing my improv log cabins that evening. :-)

Day 2... Called the plumber. ;-) And spilled milk on my laptop keyboard. (Thankfully, it's just fine after 24 hours in rice.) I did manage to get the fabric all prewashed once our plumbing issue was fixed. That was my "sewing" progress.

Day 3... Daughter throwing up... son came home early from school sick. I still managed to get my 11 yards of fabric all ironed and started cutting pieces for my project.

cutting king size border pieces

Day 4... In prewashing some unrelated fabric, I had a minor laundry catastrophe. More progress on cutting ninja quilt fabric.

Day 5... Finished cutting all my fabric for the ninja quilt. Woo hoo! Started piecing my 2" strips.

36 squares and 72 2" strips for the blocks
one down, 35 to go

Day 6... Pieced nearly half of my 2" strips.

Day 7... Finished piecing my 2" strips. Yay! It doesn't look like much, but I should be able to start cranking out blocks this next week. Thanks for the motivation, Sarah!

 

Other projects on my radar this month:

  • Patchwork City Metro Area BOM
  • Bee Blocks for do. Good Stitches (done), Stash Bee, and The Bee Hive
  • Helping my son finish his quilt
  • Finishing the quilt top on my Rainbow Mini Swap quilt
  • Finishing the quilt top for my purple Charm Dash quilt

Linking up to ALYoF February Goals and the 4x7 Sewing Challenge Week 1.

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I only checked 5 of my 17 (ouch!) goals off my 2014 Q4 Finish Along goal list. I'm still quite pleased as two of those were 8 and 11 years old and one was a twin sized, the largest I've free motion quilted on my domestic machine (with a 7" throat).

So, rolling those forward, reassessing on a few, adding some additional old WIPs, I think this is the whole list... maybe.

  1. Disney Quilt Swap 2015 (background pieced and template printed)
  2. Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap (a couple blocks pieced)
  3. Stellar Wind (the Giant Wonky Star Quilt) (ready to quilt)
  4. Charm Dash quilt using my purple charm squares (pattern by Ms. Midge)
  5. Rainbow Mini Swap (first block complete, see below)
  6. Little Letters in Blues/Greens Quilt (all letters pieced)
  7. Little Letters in Brights Quilt (all letters pieced)
  8. Ocean quilt for The Girl (top pieced, but needs applique done)
  9. 2004 (ugh) Baseball Quilt (some blocks pieced)
  10. Batik SCVQA philanthropy quilt (sandwiched)
  11. Roman Stripez with butterfly backing (some blocks pieced)
  12. Roman Stripez with turtle backing (some blocks pieced)
  13. The Purple Ninja Quilt (fabric selected)
  14. Memory House Vol. 1 Quilt (2 houses complete)
  15. Pirate Quilt (pre-cut fabric selected)
  16. My safari animal baby quilt (piecing has begun)
  17. My son's animal quilt (piecing has begun)
  18. Very Hungry Caterpillar twin sized quilt (fabric and pattern selected)
  19. Hawaiian lap quilt (fabric and pattern selected)
  20. Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along (first 3 sets of blocks done)
  21. Winnie the Pooh Skirt/Shorts for The Girl (fabric selected)
  22. Envelope quilt (a couple blocks pieced)
  23. Monster Quilt (first applique block in progress)
  24. Christmas Mini Quilt (using 4 orphan blocks I somehow acquired)

So, I tried to order these in priority order. Somewhere around #9 this got really hard. My guild is having a UFO swap this month, so maybe I can drop one of these off my list. We'll see.

Here's a glimpse of the last thing to come off of my sewing machine, the first block for my Rainbow Mini Swap (#rainbowminiswap on IG). Linking up to Q1 Finish Along Goals.