What I'm working on...

My theme for this week is "Just get it done!"  I always have a bunch of projects going at once but even for me, things are getting out of control.

First up, handwork.  Last week I made a bunch of mug mats out of old practice blocks for my binding demo at the NEMQG meeting so I wanted to get those finished up.  All the bindings are on so it's just time to tack, tack, tack.  3 down, the L'Amour Twister I showed last week remains to be done. 

Next, cutting.  200 Fig Tree HSTs waiting to be trimmed.  I've added the new Buttercup and am still working on digging up a Fresh Cottons charm pack.

Lastly, basting.  I finally picked up some Dream Orient batting so I'm ready to baste my Amy Butler Love quilt.  I love Sharon Schamber's board technique!  If you haven't tried it watch her video here.  It is so much nicer than crawling around on the floor with safety pins! 

Bonus points for basting another quilt top that's been sitting since September and finishing the hand quilting on a baby quilt that I can't even remember when I started;-)

Better late than never...

Well I finally quilted this.  In the end I did the scallops which you can't even see at the moment because there hidden by the untacked binding: )  I'd tried them twice before and ripped them out both times but I decided to get over myself.  I've been closely examining other people's quilting and realized they live with a little bit of sloppy... and you really don't notice it unless you're looking for it.  I did a lot of practice rounds on muslin and I took it nice and slow and decided to just live with it.  My TBQ list is just too long to have this sitting there just waiting for the border and I needed something to put binding on for my invisible finish demo at the next NEMQG meeting.

Now I need to get going on my Easter decorations.  If I was smart I'd just skip ahead to 4th of July.  I'd have a better chance of being done on time!

WIP Wednesday

I've made something like 150 HSTs with Fig Tree Quilts charm packs of Mill House Inn (my personal favorite), Patisserie & Breakfast at Tiffany's pulling out a few colorways that don't play well with the others.  I figure I need at least 200 for a bed sized quilt, maybe more depending on how big I want my borders to be, so I'm trying to get my hands on some Fresh Cottons and Buttercup charms.  Not really my colors but it's intended to be a gift.  Playing with layouts...

It's amazing how many different ways you can arrange a bunch of HSTs!  What's your favorite?  I'm leaning towards the last one.

Celebrating National Quilting Day

... with some HSTs.

Design Wall Wednesday

Moda Bakeshop tutorial by Teaginny.  As much as I love it I'm feeling unispired because it's an exact replica of someone else's design.  I'm trying to think of how to add my own spin to it... I'm on hold until Monday when I'll take a roadtrip to get fabric and batting to complete so I've got some time to ponder the possibilities.

Stash Attack

I've been thinking about this one for a while.  I'd picked up some Martinique chenille and had a charm pack and a lot of scraps leftover from when I made made my ruffle quilt.  I wanted a simple design for this, something with big blocks to highlight the chenille and simple piecing because I was worried about working with the chenille.  It didn't stretch like I expected but the ridges push the seams around so it is a bit challenging.  It also makes lots of lint and my studio is now covered in coral fuzz. 

I was determined not to buy any more fabric for this so I also pieced the back with what I had leftover.  It was really close!  In a perfect world I would have aligned the pieced row with the front but this is how it had to be.  Just some simple straight-line quilting on the pieced squares to hold it all together.  The binding is on and tacking it down will be the perfect project for driving to Maine this weekend.  There's nothing like a 3 hour car ride to get some handwork done;-)

Branching Out...

In case you haven't noticed I'm addicted to quilting but at times I've also dabbled in yarny type things.  Much to my chagrin and extreme efforts to fix this problem, most of my friends are knitters.  In fact I was shocked when I joined the NEMQG to learn that most of the members consider themselves knitters who also will work with fabric.  Anyway, a good friend of mine recently signed up for an intermediate knitting class with my daughter's knitting teacher and convinced me it would be fun to join her.  Purely for the social aspects of course:-) The "class" is more of a work on your own project with assistance available and since my last foray in to knitting was a baby sweater for my 9 year old (which I did finish and both of my kids wore) I needed to come up with a project.  Of course there's a site for that!  Ravelry is really amazing and I quickly came up with several ideas and after a quick trip to my LYS (where they don't know me at all) I started on this.  In case you can't tell it's a fingerless glove.  I figure these will be great for football season so I can keep my hands warm while I'm hand quilting.

Bringing it back to quilting, why don't quilter's have a site like Ravelry?  I love ModaBakeshop for ideas and there are lots of other great sources for patterns out there but the geeky control freak side of me loves the way Ravelry can track what you're working on, what you want to make, what's in your stash...  This is what we need!

Belated photo shoot

Remember this?  I actually finished it a while ago but hadn't taken any pictures.  This quilt just says spring to me so I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of it out in the snow.  Now that the snow here is finally melting and it's beginning to look a bit like spring I got out to shoot these. 

Here's the pieced back.  It's the thing to do these days plus it meant I didn't have to match the polka dots: )  I think I got the last piece of the Lindy Leaf print available but of course it wasn't quite big enough.  Luckily I had enough pink to make it up and it leaves a small section to really show off the quilting.  I quilted this using a pantograph on the longarm.  I deliberately made my borders extra wide so I had some wiggle room with getting the quilting to fit and then trimmed them down.  It worked out much better than my last fiasco!  I'm loving the way this came out and will probably use this pattern again... maybe with my Sunkissed layer cake.