Tag Archives: WIP

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Week two of my 4x7 Sewing Challenge isn't as flashy as the first. I cut out fabric for the next four blocks. That was 228 pieces. Okay, a few of the background pieces were cut from previous blocks. Still. It's kind of amazing how much time all that pressing and cutting took. I did start sewing, but since I'm working assembly line style there isn't much to show for it. Here are the piles.

In order to keep track of the placement of my pieces for my scrappy background, I lay all the pieces out and photograph each block. As I piece my units together for each block I go back to the photos to make sure everything is ending up where I wanted it.

I have a giant pile to assembly line chain piece. For the many places that I'm sewing a square to a corner of a square or piecing a square to a rectangle for a flying geese unit I like to sew a second seam 1/2" from the first so that when I trim off my extra triangles, they are already pieced into HSTs.

In week three, I've already fallen off the sewing wagon. So far, my selfing "sewing" time this week has been spent prepping for QuiltCon. Certainly my 21 hours of class over the next three days will catch me back up. Once I'm home I'll get back to sewing my Swoon blocks. It would be awesome to get these four blocks done by the end of the month.

I fly down to QuiltCon in Pasadena, CA today. Are you going? What are you most excited about? I'm taking five workshops and if my head isn't spinning too much from all that info, I hope to connect with some quilters in real life. Unfortunately, as a QuiltCon newbie, I scheduled three of my workshops in the evening, so dinner meet-ups are out for me. Note to self for future years. ;-)

Last night I showed off my fabric pulls for my QuiltCon workshops on a Periscope broadcast. You can view the video on my katch account or through Periscope during the 24-hour replay window (I'm @sarahgoer there).

I'm linking up to the Week 2 Progress linkup for the 4x7 Sewing Challenge.

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Okay, so if you've seen my WIP list, you know that I don't really need two new projects. Nonetheless, that's what the past week has had in store for me.

Inspired by some pretty purple fabrics, Meg, Jess and I are hosting the just-for-fun Purple Sewing Challenge on Instagram. Since none of my 29 WIPs were primarily purple (and an embarrassingly small number had any purple), naturally, I had to start a new project. I've decided on the Royalty pattern by Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation. I'm sizing up the blocks from 12" to 18". Here are my first couple blocks (well, quarters of blocks) with some of my 27 other purple fabrics that will be joining them. I love how quickly these went together. Now to cut out a bunch of fabric!

Want to join us for the challenge? Check out my recent IG post and use the hashtag #purplesewingchallenge when you post your purple projects though March 1st. Start now by sharing your purple stash, scraps or fabric pull.

Yesterday I attended my first quilting class ever, with Rob Appell from Man Sewing. He was in town to speak at our SCVQA guild meeting on Monday and teach his Color Strata class.

I love the bright, vibrant colors in his samples and I wanted to choose something with rich, saturated color. I decided on Christa Watson's Designer Palette Jelly Roll. It had a variety of fabrics in each color family and I'm happy with how it's turned out. I did play with the order of the color so that the two ends wouldn't be green and red, as they are out of the pack. It was so fun to see everyone's different color palette's in class. I look forward to seeing their finishes at upcoming guild meetings. I did 1/6 of the strip piecing and had to cut out early to pick the kids up from school. Here's my first set of strips.

I brought my son along to Monday's meeting so he could meet Rob and see his work. He also got to show and tell his second and third quilts since he hadn't shown them off at a meeting yet. Rob was so impressed with his work, he gave "the short quilter" a shirt.
Before diving into a couple new quilt projects I made a little progress on quilting R's Pattern, the quilt my daughter laid out when she was 2 1/2. 37% quilted.

 

I'm also trying to make progress on how exactly I'm going to fashion my Emerald City in my Wizard of Oz baby quilt. Preached the fabric. Lots of sketching. No pics to share, since I want to keep it a surprise.

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday.

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I've made more progress on my secret sewing that I can't show you. ;-) I even managed to sew together some of the y-seams without a problem. I hope the rest of the mini goes together as smoothly. I can show you my small progress on January's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club piece. I've drooled over quilts using this technique, so I'm glad to have been pushed outside my comfort zone to try something new. Here's my first bias tape curve. I didn't have a specific plan, so I went with abstract. I'll be playing with how different widths behave. (This one is 1/2".) It was great to see some other examples in person at the Silicon Valley Modern Quilt Guild meeting last week as a number of our members are participating in the club this year.

I also enlarged the Bee Hive Double Star block pattern by Christa to an 18" block and assembled this mini quilt top. Not my normal color palette, but I'm very happy with how this came out. I especially love the placement of the matches fabric which I'm happy to finally be using.

I'm planning some grey crosshatch quilting and I think I'll use the grey cotton and steel fabric for the binding.

I finally finished stitching my last few rows of baseball snowball blocks together. If my brother was the same height now that he was in 2004 (when I "gave" him this quilt while he was in high school), and not 6'5", I'd totally be done with the quilt top. As it is, I need to have him come over and try on some quilts so I can decide how much border this quilt needs to be complete.

The good news is that I shared pictures with my brother, and he's still interested in this quilt. I find it a little bit busy and think that some solid borders will do it some good!

And speaking of quilts for my siblings, my sister is expecting her first baby in a couple months and I've got a Wizard of Oz themed baby quilt in the works. Right now I'm working on fashioning an Emerald City out of the Wondrous Woods Kona Fat Quarter pack. Look at all that excellent color!

I've been thinking about color a lot lately. I'm making some notes for an future blog series on color and I'm excited to participate in Lorinda and Trina's Color Play Friday this week. Look for my post on Friday and see each of our different takes on color inspiration from the same photo.

Thanks for visiting. What are you working on?

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.