Work In Progress Wednesday

The move has killed my sewing mojo and I really need to get going again.
Yep, it is time to get back into the swing of things with my quilting and sewing and doing a WIP post seemed like a good way to get organized.
I have way too many things that are in progress!

This summer I had 2 of my tops quilted by The Alford Inn Quilt Shoppe and Retreat. Just an all over quilting. I was so happy to have them done!
Now I just need to trim and bind them.
The first one is my Sew Cherry Sweet Road to Ireland quilt that I made for my youngest. She knows it is hers and when I pulled it out to take pictures this morning she was so excited to see it again. And was so mad when I put it back in its bag. :)

It is quilted with an all over large stipple.

 This one is the Sherbet Take 5 quilt. This is my first pieced quilt. And it is all mine. :)

 She quilted it with a variegated thread that I loved, in a big, swirly pattern that I have since forgotten the name of.

 If you look closely at this picture you can see the different colors in the thread.

Here is some of my WIP list:

Completed tops hangin’ out:
Sliced Coins
Neutral Mediterranean

Need to start:
Ashby baby quilt
Burp cloth

No progress in 30+ days (UFOs):
Cherry Sweet Road to Ireland – quilted & needs to be bound
Sherbet – quilted & needs to be bound
Bliss – Needs borders
Block of the Month
Hot Wheels
Skill Builder QA
MOTP QA
SuperNova
5 Doll quilts
Tree Skirt
Stockings

This month's stats:
Completed projects - 6
     3 Diaper Clutches
     1 burp cloth
     2 tote bags
New projects to start - 2
Currently in progress – Too many!

Now head over to Freshly Pieced to see what is being made in blogland.

Ramblings

I have the white border on my Cherry Sweet Road to Ireland. That just leaves the pink with the cherries. I decide to expand my horizons and do a simple pieced border.

Hmmm. It is harder than it looks. I'm guessing on what size blocks and I hope they will make it around without having to cut any down. I chose a snowball because it looked simple and I liked the "roundness" to kind of go with the cherries. I need about 32 51/4" unfinished blocks (I think) which means a million (128) 1 1/4" squares to cut and sew and cut off. (I don't want to mess with triangles). I can't use my quarter inch foot which means my seams are more crooked than usual. :) So I am going to have to make myself be patient and go slowly.
I am thinking about taking it unfinished to a local bring and brag when I go out to pick up the birthday cake today.

Speaking of which, my oven conked out. Again. We have the cheapo builder oven that they put in when we built 5 years ago and 2 years ago we lost the thermostat. (I could not figure out why my pork loin took more than 3 hours to cook.) Day before yesterday, I had my hubby pre-heat it for fries and when after 30 minutes it was still preheating I knew something was up. Turns out the element broke. Sorry kids, no fries!

The other day I had a weird sort of sparky fire that I thought was cheese from the pizza I was baking , so I shut the oven off and dumped some baking soda on it. Turns out it was the element cracking open and burning up it's coating. Scary.

So baking a birthday cake is out. Lucky kids gets a"cool" store bought cake. :P

Opinions please?

I am getting ready to assemble the Cherry Sweet Road to Ireland quilt top. I have a dilemma. I don't really care for the long version of this quilt. I don't have enough blocks to make it the size I want, so I am left with these two options to put it together. One is to use the blocks the pattern calls for and make the longish one. Or I omit 8 blocks and make a smaller but more balanced looking (to me) quilt. I wanted this quilt to be bigger than crib size, but it may not end up that way unless I go crazy with borders.

Please note that the border fabrics are not true to size. The cherries are not really that big in relation to the blocks.

So what do you think. Long or short?

Cherry Sweet progress

More progress on Cherry Sweet. Not too happy with it right now. My seams are all over the place and I am not sure my fabric choices are working. But I am committed since my red "road" fabric is gone.
Here is the first assembled block. I am chain piecing the rest of the strips but I had to see one come together. I cropped it to get the look it will have in the quilt.

OOPS!

Let me start by saying that the Road to Ireland pattern I am using for Cherry Sweet is a fat quarter quilt using 6 fat quarters. I cut the all the strips from the fat quarters and the background fabric yesterday.

I started sewing strips together today and I got to fat #5 and it was too short! Aarrgh! 4 out of 6 fat quarters had a twin in my stash but wouldn't you know I would cut one of the singles wrong. I had a bunch of fats that I had picked out to use in this quilt so I pulled them out but none of them looked right with the others ones I had picked. So I made a mad dash to the quilt shop in the next town and found a replacement (plus a couple more for fun).

Now all the strips are sewn and waiting to be cut again. I actually like the new fabric more than the original so it was a happy mistake.

Can you spot the newbie?

Cherry Sweet quilt

Last night I FINALLY settled on a pattern for my Cherry Sweet quilt! Yay! I found it in a book I got for $3.00 at Half Price Books (love that place!) called Fat Quarter Quilts by M'liss Rae Hawley. I'm using the Road to Ireland pattern. All my fats are ironed and labeled and ready to cut tonight.
Woohoo!