Tag Archives: WIP Wednesday

• 18 Comments

•

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.

• 14 Comments

•

Free Motion Quilting

This week I finished the quilting on the light yellow/orange quadrant of my Star Light Star Dark quilt. Then I set it aside in favor of finishing my other two baby quilt gifts so I could deliver them.  Here's what Star Light Star Dark looks like at the moment.

 

Finishes

Then I went on to finish two baby quilts that I shared about in recent posts: Caterpillar Fizz and Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is already being enjoyed by the baby girl who it was give to and Zoom Zoom, which I finished last week, has gone to her big brother. I didn't end up seeing the third recipient as I expected I would, so Caterpillar Fizz will be delivered in the next week or so. Here's the pile of those quilts all pre-washed and ready to give.

 

Bee Blocks

It's a new month, so I have two new bee blocks to make. The pick for my do. Good Stitches group is improv curves in a very Fall color palette. I chose a couple beautiful Alison Glass fabrics to go with my neutrals.

The inspiration for the Quatrefoil blocks we're making for my Bee Hive group is water lilies. I may tweak my palette, but my initial fabric pull features more Alison Glass fabric (I just noticed that! I really love her fabric.). I'm planning a purple flower with orange and yellow center.

 

La Passacaglia

I made a bit of progress on my La Passacaglia project. I'll tell you, I'm not loving basting the tiny triangles. And there are 50 of them in this rosette. Please, nobody tell me how many of them are in the entire quilt. That said, once I managed to baste them, it was super quick to piece the stars together. Now to baste the other 40 triangles. ;-)

 

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

• 20 Comments

•

Some weeks I look back on what I accomplished and I am surprised that I did so much. This is one of those weeks. Kids being back in school and a mostly unscheduled long weekend led to a lot of sewing progress for me.

 

Mysterious Things

Last Thursday the first sewing instructions came out for the Meadow Mystery quilt, by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. I managed to finish up my cutting that day, but I haven't yet started the piecing. I have all month to get it done and still be on track, so I've been working on some other projects first. Instagram and Facebook are filled with beautiful versions of the first blocks.

 

Things I Put in the Mail

Yesterday, on the sixth day of the month, I shipped all my bee blocks for the month! This is unheard of. I sent two for my Do. Good Stitches group and one for Shirley in my Bee Hive swarm. Plus the two bonus blocks that I showed you on Monday for my friend Mary. It's so nice to have the monthly commitment already checked off. Sometimes I get them sewn early in the month, but then I usually don't manage to get them out the door until the end of the month.

 

Kid Things

My daughter is making progress on her second quilt. Just like my son's second project, she chose to make a doll quilt. Her's is for a friend. I love that she has been coming into the sewing room to play with her fabric, neatly arranging it on the floor. Over the weekend, I consulted with her on her plan and cut her strips of fabric for her. She pieced them with supervision from me and is so proud that she finished her quilt top in one day. ;-) She raided my remnant binding box to choose something for her quilt and settled on a purple, with a scrappy low volume white to go with it since the purple piece isn't big enough for the entire quilt. She's pinned the purple up on the design wall with her quilt top. (In the first picture you can see a peek of the kitty fabric she's chosen for the backing.)

 

Slow Stitching Things

I get up at 5:30am now. I'm just over a week into this new routine. It means I go to bed at 9:30pm sharp these days, but the kids don't get up until 7:00am so I get a fair amount of time to myself in the mornings. I am not inherently a morning person, but I think this is working. Over the weekend I kept up my schedule, since I figure that's easier than sleeping in on some days. This meant even more time to myself since nobody else in the house had anything to get up early for. I've used this time in a variety of ways, but I spent one of those weekend mornings making progress on my La Passacaglia project. I was halfway through connecting the pentagons, and I finished that step and attached them to the center section. 20 pieces down, 70 to go in this first rosette. Now I need to prep a bunch of itty bitty triangles to make the ten stars that go around this section.

 

Things I Can't Really Show You

Secret sewing is exciting, but it's so hard not to share. Luckily, I have a few friends who I can text pictures to when I'm itching to share but can't post publicly yet. The first project is a quilt that I've finished the top for. I'll be able to show it off once I've given the gift. The second secret project is my Nine-Patch Challenge quilt for Quilt Con that I've finished drafting in Illustrator (with Daisy's help). I've actually designed two versions. I think I'll piece the easier one first and then I'll decide if I want to try to tackle the harder one. My next steps on this project include deciding what colors I want to use and  how to go about piecing the trickier parts.

 

Things That Are Colorful

I love color and I find inspirations in a variety of places. This week presented two color palettes that stood out to me. First, as I'm working on chipping away at pre-washing and putting away my summer fabric acquisitions I stumbled across this palette of solids that reminds me of a vibrant sunset. I have some improv piecing in mind for these lovelies.

My second palette came from a more surprising location, my dishwasher. I opened the dishwasher to find these colorful cups in a line in this order. Deciding I liked them well enough to keep the colors in mind for a future project, I snapped a quick picture. (Don't you just love that awesome 80's tile!?)

These palettes are both particularly interesting to me, because I generally gravitate to the cool colors. I'll have to finish a bunch of other projects before I can dive into these, but I'm keeping them in mind for when I "need" a new project.

Thank you for visiting! I'm linking up to Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday.