January accomplishments, February goals

It's that time again!  I'll admit, I look forward to the month changing so I can take stock of what I've done.  I feel like I got a lot done this month, although I didn't get my top three completely done.

1. Finish duvet. Not finished, but close.  I mis-remembered the dimensions, so it is a little small.  Luckily, I sent it over for a test run before doing the final seam so it shouldn't be too hard to fix.  I do need some more fabric though.  Again.
2. Finish Adding Up Nicely.  Done!  I sent it the day before the baby came.

3. Quilt Sarah's quilt. Done!  With about two hours to spare.  I still need to bind it though, so this will be on February's list too.

4. Interlocking hearts quilt (finish by end of April).  I got several blocks finished, and I'm finally happy with the piecing templates that I have.  I still need to do two more magenta hearts and three more green hearts.

5. work on the I-spy quilt  (finish by mid April).  Progress was made on this too!  About 1/3 of the novelty fabrics are in the background fabric now.

6. make the wall hanging for office.  No progress.
7. pretend to work on scrap quilt.  Done!  I love hitting my goal on this one every month.
8. finish green coasters. No progress
9. Aunt's throw. No progress
10. Pillow for family room. No progress
11. Quilt map quilt. No progress
12. Another wall hanging for upstairs. No progress
13. Quilt red quilt for mother-in-law.  I now have all the pieces and could start.
14. Random triangles (finish by end of April).  Triangles cut!  I might end up cutting more yellow ones, we'll see.

15. Fractured quilt.  No progress
16. Jeweled floors. No progress
17. Picture quilt (finish by Christmas). No progress
Addition #1: Simply Solids Bee Block - February. Done!  I feel proud of myself for finishing over a month ahead of schedule.

                                


For February, my top three goals are
1. Finish Sarah's quilt.
2. Finish duvet.
3. Finish the top of the I-spy.

Hopefully I will be able to finish (or at least work on) a lot more, as I don't think the top three will take up too much time and I don't have any goals for the quilter.
4. Interlocking hearts quilt (finish by end of April).
5. make the wall hanging for office.
6. pretend to work on scrap quilt.
7. finish green coasters.
8. Aunt's throw. 
9. Pillow for family room.
10. Quilt map quilt.
11. Another wall hanging for upstairs.
12. Quilt red quilt for mother-in-law. 
13. Random triangles (finish by end of April). 
14. Fractured quilt.
15. Jeweled floors.
16. Picture quilt (finish by Christmas).
17: Simply Solids Bee Block -March
Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day and Just Three

layout

I'm trying to figure out which color to (anti)highlight, or if I should just keep all the colors the same.  Any thoughts?

Green

Pink

Purple

 

yellow

equal parts

Which layout? (multiple choices allowed)

Visit your LQS

Today was visit your local quilt store!  I'm lucky enough to have two within ten minutes of driving, but today I only went to one.  (They both have their own strengths...one is much smaller with only quilting fabrics and one is a small chain with all types of fabric.)

Anyway.

I found my pattern on the wall!  Although it looks like none of them have sold. :(

 And I got some solids for the March block of the Simply Solids Bee (go Puce group!).  I might have had enough, but I wanted to get something at the store and don't have a huge stash to pull from anyway...it all worked out.  And now I'll have some scrap bright pink!

Solids!

I got more solids a little bit ago.  Yay solids!!  They're for a baby quilt for a friend.  I'm going to make a random HST quilt, which is one of the quilts I added to my list just because I wanted to make one.

I haven't cut into these yet because I have other things to do first, but I really want to.  I'm sure it'll be fun!!

I'm thinking about making it about 5/8 neutral, 3/8 three of the colors, and then just a few of the fourth color.  But which color?  Yellow because it's bright?  Pink to make it stand out more?  Green or Purple just because?


Joining with Sunday Stash.

Quilt 20: finished!

I recently finished another baby quilt!  I just got it sent off yesterday, and found out that they baby was born yesterday evening.  So...it'll get there just in time.

I used minky for the first time and I loved it!  I really like pieced backs, but this made it so much softer and cuddly.  I bound it with the premade sateen binding folded over several times.  This quilt has several nice textures.

Although you can still see some of the minky dots, I was surprised at how they disappeared when compared to the unquilted fabric.  I used a swirly pantograph because it matches the swirls in one of the fabrics.

The pattern is called "Adding Up Nicely", so I thought I should give it some calculators to enjoy.  (You can get the pattern, for free, by contacting Cheryl of MeadowMistDesigns.)

My son also received some antique math blocks for Christmas, so I grabbed them for a bit.

And I taught the quilt about the commutative property.

Finally my son came over to see all the commotion and to push buttons on the calculator.  (He does love pushing buttons!)

Linking up with Whoop-Whoop Friday, and Link a Finish Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Tuesday, Freemotion by the River, and Sew Cute Tuesday.

Bee block - Duck Creek Puzzle

I joined my first quilting bee this year.  I've been looking for one for a while, but it took a while to find one that had a good fit. 

For February, I was asked to make Duck Creek Puzzle.  I'll admit, I was hoping for something easier for my first block.  There were Y-seams and templates, and I'd never done either of the techniques before.  But the instructions were very good and I took more care putting the block together than normal, and it came out great!!  Look at the points!  And the measurements are about right...it is a touch under 12.5", but other people have had the same thing.

 

So I was comparing the fabrics to the color card I recently got from Kona, and have discovered that the colors that were on the bolt don't really seem to match what the color card said.  As far as I can tell, I used Kona Snow, Clover, Ocean, and Lagoon.  (I think that the bolts said that Clover was Jungle and Ocean was Surf.)  But I guess the names don't really matter too much.  I just really like knowing the names so it bothers me that they don't match.

I'm excited for the March block now!  And now that I have successfully done some Y-seams, I am ready to tackle those again too. :)

river pebbles

I'm doing Sarah's quilt with pebbles and wavy lines.

I'm not always very good at getting the pebbles to be circles, and so when I've made one that is definetly not a circle I find myself wondering how it got to be that shape.  Was it half out of the water for a while?  Did it run into something really hard and crack?  And then I remember that these aren't real pebbles.

Anyway, I just finished the last square in row 4, which puts me at 40% of the way finished with the quilting.

A pillowcase

I made a pillow case!  And it fits a pillow!

I've made pillow cases before, but this one seems the sturdiest.  The tutorial is from here.  It goes with the duvet, but I need to trim the front and back to size before putting them together and ... I just haven't done that.  For an unknown reason I want to do the trimming during my son's nap time and since it isn't his nap time at night I made the pillowcase instead.  Next...the companion pillowcase.

Non-squishy mail

Look what came in the mail today!  I do love my solids.

I got it as part of a belated Christmas present...and immediately tried figuring out some of the colors that I had on hand.  I had picked up a few FQs over the holidays and the number on the bolt doesn't seem to match anything.  (The name wasn't there either.  And I do love the fabric names.)

I've now displayed this behind my ironing board. :)

(P.S.  I got it from Pink Chalk Fabrics.  The price was slightly cheaper than anywhere else!  And the service was nice and prompt.)