Thursday, October 31, 2013

October accomplishments, November goals

Here's how October went...I'm pretty happy with my progress.
1. Finish the One-up quilt. Done!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.

2. Finish the Charming baby quilt.  Done!  I've been lazy and haven't gotten the final post up yet, but it's done and sent out.

3. Send out the October and November Simply Solids Blocks.  Done!

14. Surprise mini (Christmas) - everything is done except the binding!  I really like how it turned out too.
15. Baby paper airplane quilt - all pieced. I didn't look at the airplane pattern closely enough before buying fabrics, so I ended up dying some of the pieces with tea to give them depth.


16. Baby quilt - undecided pattern/greens - I spent a lot of time thinking about this one and almost ended up with a Flying Dutchmen block.  But the the Urban log cabin tickled my fancy and I starting cutting before I could fourth guess myself.  (The last "log" still needs to be pressed open.)

17. Christen's T-shirt quilt - I've started ironing the interfacing and cutting the T-shirts

21. Quilt table runner (ideally by Thanksgiving) - done!  With loops like falling leaves.

22. Quilt pony quilt (ideally by Christmas) - started.  I'm doing cupcakes, faux-rainbows, and hearts in the main blocks.


For November, my top goal (and the goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes) is
1.  Finish quilting the pony quilt (pictured above).

My other top priorities are
2. Finish the surprise mini (bind)
3. Finish the top of the picture quilt

And the other things that are still on the list, hanging out:

4. make the wall hanging for office.
5. pretend to work on scrap quilt.
6. finish green coasters.
7. Aunt's throw. 
8. Pillow for family room.
9. Jeweled floors.
10. Lost piece (almost whole cloth quilt)
11. Baby girl daisy quilt
12. Baby paper airplane quilt
13. Baby quilt - undecided pattern/greens
14. Christen's T-shirt quilt
15. Simply solids green quilt
16. Winter quilt
17. Orphan rocket block
18. Quilt table runner (ideally by Thanksgiving)
19. Quilt pony quilt (ideally by Christmas)
20. Quilt mint green baby quilt
21. Quilt nautical quilt
22. Quilt Grandma's quilt (ideally by Christmas)

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Table runner and loops

My mother-in-law made a nice fall table runner.

I quilted loops on it.  They reminded me of falling leaves.

I also made one large mistake...instead of looping I turned a sharp corner.  I marked it when it happened to reevaluate later, and later I thought it still looked bad.  So I unpicked it, intending to resew.  But then I realized I could unpick just a little bit more and use the edge of the leaf to continue the line...you can't even tell there are a few stiches missing. :)  (That white thing in the middle is an arrow showing you the problem area.)

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

1-up - finished!

The 1-up quilt is finished!  It was requested by a friend and based on Cut to Pieces Super Mario Bros. QAL.  I added the clouds and ground so that it would be rectangular.

I found some fabric with squares on it for the back, to keep with the pixelated idea.

Quilting took a rather long time on this quilt, although it could be that school started up around the same time so I just had less time overall.  For most of the sky I put squares and rectangles, but also added a few Easter eggs.  I know they're hard to see, but that was kind of the point.

Some bricks and question marks,
source: http://www.giantbomb.com/mario-block/3055-702/images/


some mountians,
source: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-newsletter-issue-50/

and a pipe.
source: http://gamecola.net/2006/01/what-the-crap-super-mario-bros/
You can also see in the picture above that I did back and forths for the grass and square pebbles for the dirt.

Finally, the 1-up dude was mostly done using a maze pattern, with back and forths in the black area.  The thread always matched the fabric color.

The quilt was bound so that the binding matched the quilt.  (So it is sky blue for the sky area and brown for the dirt area.)  (I had a picture for this, but really it's easier to see on the quilting close-ups above.)

And finally, no video game quilt would be complete without a picture of some controllers.  Now, if he only had hands.

This is my finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes!

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Simply Solids - layout

I'm still waiting on a block from the Simply Solids bee, but in the meantime I thought I'd lay out some of the blocks that I have as I think about a layout.  Here they are:

1) Straight





2) Diagonal

3) Zig-zag (I'd add cornerstones so that it would be a clean zig-zag)

Which layout do you like best?