Aaahhh... a lovely little quilt top

I spent a fair amount of time sewing over the weekend. We don't do the whole Superbowl thing, and we stayed home from church since 4 out of 6 of us were sick. That meant lots of free time.

I was able to finish the baby quilt flimsy that has been on my plate since last January! Woohoo!  I will need to get more backing fabric since I used about half of what I had purchased for it in the top. And I need batting as well, so it is back on hold for the moment.

I am just so glad I finally made it this far! Yay!

 

Baby quilt progress!

After nearly a year, the baby quilt is finally making real progress. It took ages to just get the pattern sketched, then purchase fabric. I think I started actually making blocks at the end of November (2013). Then I got hung up on 2 things.
1: I did not like my fabric I had chosen to frame one set of the fussy cut blocks. It was not working in the layout like it did as yardage in the shop.
2: I made one pinwheel and it was too small by 1/2 an inch.

That brought me to a screeching halt.

I took the project with me on Christmas vacation hoping to get some help and/or inspiration. I didn't even take it out of the bag.

I got home and finished making the half square triangles and squaring them up, then set it aside for a couple more weeks. Last week I took the time to make half pinwheels (2 HSTs sewn together.) This afternoon, I finished up the pinwheels and then put everything out on the floor to see what inspiration hit.
What I came up with was:
Just use the yellow blocks and eliminate the green fabric altogether. But without those green blocks the quilt would be tiny.
So then I would to add a border to the yellow blocks using my backing fabric (UGH!)to make them bigger.
Then I would add a white border to the pinwheels, making them sort of float and making them the same size as the yellow blocks.

I needed a couple more yellow blocks to finish off the layout and I had just enough yellow to do it. IF I had cut it right that is. I stitched up two more blocks, added them to the stack and they were too small. I had cut the borders a 1/4 inch too narrow. I had enough yellow left for one and a half blocks. I needed 2 more.
I ran to the quilt shop and of course they were out of my yellow. They had another fabric so I decided to just have one extraordinary yellow block in the quilt. :)

Brought it home, bounced the idea off my daughter and she vetoed. I decided against stitching scraps together to make the rest of the block and instead made 4 blocks with the new yellow and took out 2 of the old yellow blocks.

Now I am chain piecing borders and I might even have a flimsy by next week!  It feels like a weight has been lifted now that this quilt is moving forward with real momentum. I might even get it to the baby before she turns one at the end of March.

Baby Quilt done!

Quilt pattern is a disappearing nine patch, machine quilted with straight line quilting in a super-size crosshatch with squares in the centers.
I used a marker directly on the quilt to label it, though it faded a lot in the wash, it was still legible.
It says: Made by Amy W.... for E.....H.....W...... Vista CA, 07-16-2013

This quilt was machine quilted originally with a meander in the blue areas, with some custom doodles, like the baby's name, but it had to all be un-sewn due to major folding and bunching of the backing fabric. After hours of ripping stitches, I had to walk away from it for a while. When I came back I decided to go with straight lines instead.
On the first try it had just been pin basted. Second go round, I tried basting spray with a few pins around the edges. Not sure I like the spray much. See how wrinkly the back is? This is before I washed it. It helped up nicely for quilting and I had no trouble at all with bunching or folds in the back. But, it also gummed up the needles.
I actually hand bound this one, even though it is going to used. I usually prefer to machine bind for sturdiness but I had some down time at the dentist coming, so I used the opportunity to improve my binding talents. :)

One more UFO off the list.

March Along: Week 1

 

 Darla at The Scientific Quilter is doing her March A-long again this year. I missed it last year, but decided to join in this year. I think it will help with my UFO goals. Basically you commit to sew or do something sewing related for 15 minutes every day. Pretty awesome!

The first week went well. I only missed Saturday, but I kind of made up for it I think, since I got in a couple of hour+ blocks of time during the week.
One thing specifically it has helped with was un-sewing the baby quilt. I started quilting it, got 2/3 finished and checked the back and found pleats. I couldn't leave it and the whole thing would have to be picked out. That was a daunting and discouraging task, but I am a fan of the theory that one can accomplish hard things if  you just do it in15 minute increments. Since the baby is here already, that deadline is past. Now I would just like to get it done before he moves from bassinet to crib.

I made a calendar to keep track of my sewing.

Projects worked on this week:

St. Patrick's Day Stay Put Kitchen Towel

Stay Put Kitchen Towel Tutorial

I made towels for my friend and the ladies I visit teach. I have a couple more to make. Better hurry  up!

Diaper Clutch

Diaper Clutch Tutorial

Diaper clutch and matching burp cloth

 I made the clutch and burp cloth with a dishtowel from Target that was on clearance and a fat quarter. I was hoarding the towel to make an apron. I got home from fabric buying and then I didn't care for the other fat quarter I chose to go with the pink check. Looking through my stash I spotted the towel and it looked so nice with the liner fabric that I went with it. The clutch turned out quite large. I am not sure why. I have made these before and never had any size issues. Maybe my seam allowance was smaller. She will be able to get lots of diapers in there! :)


 

UFO number 2 in the bag!

When the cat's away the mice shall play. :)

My husband is gone to Arizona for the weekend for a funeral and that leaves me with free time in the evenings after the kids are in bed to sew. So... another one bites the dust!

The year old UFO Jolly Holiday Pillow is complete. (Well, minus a pillow form. The one I used is one of the pillows that decorates my bed and does not fit well at all!)

Jolly Holiday Pillow - 01/26/13 10:06 PM - Amy

It was my first time making pleats and I was very glad I had my cheap little seam-guide-maker-thingy.

 I don't intend to keep up this pace.This just happened because I would like to complete  2 UFOs a month and I am running out of month and have a couple of other sewing commitments to finish. So I picked a small UFO to see if I could knock it out. Yay!

 

FNSI results

In spite of multiple interruptions from a certain 3 year old who did not want to stay in bed, I accomplished a fair amount last night during my Friday Night Sew In time. :)
  

 For starters, I cut the infinity scarf I am making for my sister to give to her friend.
A little Prince Charming anyone? :) Her friend likes frogs and I immediately thought of this line. I was lucky enough to find some for a very good price and my sister liked it. I hope to get it stitched up today and into the mail.

The I finished quilting the last 6 squares on the Christmas Table Topper.

I trimmed it up and made the binding and attached it.

That is one UFO complete!  25 left to go. :)
 

 

The year of the UFO

This year I am going to clean up the pile of UFOs that is cluttering my life. Check it out.

 That is kind of a crazy pile of things that need to be finished.

These have been waiting to be started.

 

To Start:
Beach Blanket
Come What May
Coins

Crayons Box
FQS BOM
Halloween
Jolly Holiday pillow
Sewing Machine Cover
Teal and Brown Sleepytime baby 2
T-Shirt gift quilt

These have actual sewing done on them but have a fair amount of work that needs to be completed.
  
Finish Piecing:
Alford BOM
Baby Quilt
Doll Quilts
Hot Wheels
Lavender Sampler
MOTP QA
Supernova
Tree Skirt quilt

And these are projects ready for quilting (though there are a couple that need backing).

 To Quilt:
Bliss
Candy Land
Christmas Table Topper
Log Cabin Topper
Neutral Mediterranean
Sliced Coins
Spools Table Runner
Very Hungry Caterpillar

 

 And of course these lists do not include current WIPs (except the baby quilt). I have a couple of scarves to make, blocks for a Facebook group I am in, Personal Progress Book kits to prep (no sewing though) and patterns I am testing for a friend.

It was a little exhausting gathering these all up and documenting them. But it feels so good now that I am  more organized and know what I have on my plate.

What dusty UFOs do you have hiding in your closet? :)

WIP Wednesday November, 11 2012 - lots of ripping

 I set a goal in October to spend the month working on and hopefully finishing some UFOs. I did finish one, and worked on one or two others.  I am continuing the goal into November. Some of the things I brought out to work on were the Hot Wheels mis-quilt, the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt, the advent calendar, the toddler dress and shirt make-over and trying to finish up one of the Beginners quilt along quilts to give as a Christmas gift.

Here is the BQA set of blocks partly sashed. I think the fabric (Kaffe Fassett shot cotton Granite) I chose is pulling the other fabrics together nicely. I  just need to decide on a layout so I can sash the right side.




Ah the Hot Wheels mis-quilt. :) I ended up ripping out the blocks and ripping the blocks apart from each other, but they are still whole blocks. I have played with them a bunch and still can not get them to work well, so they may get de-constructed even further. I decided to save myself the trouble of ripping the borders because I may be able to just cut what I need. So now it is a window quilt. :)

The progress on the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt is I ripped the misaligned border off.  I need to just sit down and knock this one out. It is just borders.

The weird shirt makeover didn't happen, because it turned out that the pants were really too small to be useful, so I passed the whole outfit on to a friend, who also thought the shirt was weird. I wonder how many people it will get passed to before someone uses it. :)

The bubble dress makeover went reasonably well. Littlest Miss refused to model for the "before" shots, so we just have it laid out.

 

The bottom/inside of the dress.

After seam ripping and hemming the lining and outer dress.

 She wore it to church last week with no fuss, and other than wrinkling like mad it was fine. It looks WAY better this way. The funny thing was that her little friend at church was wearing a bubble dress that was actually really cute (I don't usually like the style at all.)
The difference to me was the drape. Our dress had fabric that was too stiff; it puffed out in a strange way making it look like an upside down mushroom. The other little girl's dress fabric was lightweight and silky and hung really nicely. I am glad I made this one work for us. At least I don't feel like I totally wasted my money now.

Before church, I also took off the blue ribbon dangling down. It looked like an award ribbon which kind of bugged me. Plus, it kept covering the flowers. 

 This is one project where there was no seam ripping involved. Just pressing and cutting.
After 2 years, I am finally getting back to my version of Lee's great Advent Calendar.
I got my pockets cut and pressed and replaced my fusible fleece for the 3rd time. (I kept borrowing it for other projects.)

I am linking up at Freshly Pieced. Go check out some great ongoing projects!