A Few Goals

I didn't quite meet my goal for last month's ALYOF link up, or the Finish Along Q1 link up.  I was SOOOO close, though!  My goal was to finish quilting my After the Storm quilt, and I had a few setbacks (Etsy orders, ripping out lots of quilting), but I won't go into that now.  Luckily, this should make my April goal easy because this quilt is still at the very top of my list.

For April, my plan is to FINISH "After the Storm."  Yay!

Also, it's time to share my goals for the Finish Along, Quarter 2.  I know I am not going to reach all of these goals, but I want to have all my current projects out there, even though most of them are just fabric stacks (with a plan) at the moment.  Here they are:

1.  Finish "After the Storm."  I don't want to give too much away before the big reveal (hopefully in a few weeks), but here are some sneak peaks at the quilting (obviously no cleaning fairies were disturbed in the taking of these pictures...):

2. Finish "Deck the Halls."  The top is finished, and the back has been started.

3.  Make my twin toddler bed quilts.  I'm using "Cruizer Blvd" and I'm planning to make one Jungle Path quilt and one Broken Herringbone quilt.

4.  Building Fun quilt.  I bought THIS pattern on sale from Geta Grama (check it out, it's SO cute!) a few weeks ago and after much debate, I finally settled on this stack of fabric from my stash (actually, I won this in a giveaway.  Thanks, LethargicLass!).  I've been wanting to make this quilt FOREVER, so I'm excited.  I think I'll probably list it in my shop when it's finished.

5.  Secret project for one of my family members.  I don't want to give anything away, but here's a hint:

6.  I'm not sure, but I think I want to make another Hello Sun set for my MIL.  We'll see what happens.

7.  I got these charm packs for Christmas and I intend to turn them into another Puff Quilt, probably for the shop if nobody around me has a baby girl anytime soon.  :)

8.  I think I might turn these charms into a raggy puff quilt too.  Or maybe I'll make one from the chevron flannels.

9.  My Etsy shop is in need of a few more bib sets and I plan to use some of these fabrics to make a few more.

10.  I'm also planning on making a Letters Quiet book.  I've got it all planned out, the patterns, printed, and a pile of supplies.  I don't have a picture of it, but here's one of my Shapes book in progress:

11.  I also got this Jelly Roll for Christmas and it needs to become a quilt.  I'm thinking something with stacked coins, maybe.  

Edited 4/9/14:
12.  I highly doubt that I will finish this one before the quarter is over, but I'm going to add it to the list so I don't forget about it.
I've been wanting to make a sampler quilt for a long time now.  We just scored a new King sized bed and I'm thinking we need a new quilt for it!  I'm thinking of using some of my stash of Oakshotts:

Or maybe mix in a few of these Simple Color cuts I picked up on sale the other day:

The hubby doesn't want any girly colors, and he also doesn't seem to like bright rainbow colors like I do.  I'm thinking lots of blue and green will keep him happy (with a pop of something else, just for fun).  I'm thinking I'll probably do Faith's Solstice Stars, or Lee's Summer Sampler.  I'll pair them with lots and lots of negative space, probably in Gray.



Whew!  That's all I can think of for now.  Here's to a productive quarter!

New Quiet Books: COLORS!

I made some new quiet books a couple weeks ago and thought it might be time to share them!

This time I wanted to make a Colors themed book, and this is the one I came up with originally:

I drew my inspiration from THIS cute design, but decided I wanted more variety in my shapes.

The first time I made it, I only used quilting cotton from my scrap drawers.  When I took it to my mom one day to show her, she mentioned that it might be fun if there were fabrics with cool textures.  That was all it took, and that week I made a few trips to various fabric stores and bought about 3 inches of a bunch of different types of fabrics in different colors.  And then I proceeded to sew a few of the new fabrics on top of a few of the old ones in the book.  Now they are fun.  :)

Of course, once the first book (with buttons) was finished, I realized that the buttons were way too hard for my already color savvy toddlers to navigate, so I made a new, slightly smaller version with velcro dots (and lots of textures):

Complete with a baggie at the back for storing all the shapes (hopefully they won't get lost!)

And THEN I had to make one more.  See, the main purpose for making these books (aside from having something for the boys to do during church) was to have samples to list in my Etsy shop.  I thought maybe I could make a smaller version for cheaper, and hopefully bring in more buyers.  So I made a mini version with even smaller pages.  Luckily, it didn't take quite as long as the first two.  Whew!

And there you have it!  I was happy to have these finished so my boys could have something new to play with during church.  They are already masters at their colors, but they seem to like them anyway.  Surprisingly, the button version is their favorite even though they have to have one of us help them with the buttons. 

Next up: Letters!  I'm excited about this one, although don't expect to see it for awhile...

P.S.  All three of these quiet books are available for purchase in my Etsy Shop HERE.

Just one more...

One more post about my "After the Storm" quilt.  And then you won't see it again until it is FINISHED!  :)

The "top" is done!  I use the term loosely, because the sections aren't actually sewn together yet.  I'm using one of Ann Peterson's methods for quilting large quilts, sort of like QAYG (quilt as you go).  So these are the best shots I could get of my finished "top."  I was forced to take these in the basement - the only spot I could find that was big enough for the whole thing.  Wanna see?  Okay.

The swivel chair is there for size comparison.

And here's an idea of what the back will look like.  I've been collecting solids from the remnant bin at Joann's and this is what I ended up with.  Sorry for the wrinkles.  It wasn't worth it to iron them all just to fold them all back up again for the closet.

Time to quilt!

A Couple of Quilted Hot Pads and some Bee Blocks

Last week I got to go to a bridal shower for my cousin.  Now that I have learned to make things, I love going to bridal/baby showers.  I love having the excuse to work on a fun, small project.  I couldn't decide between oven mitts and hot pads, so I compromised and made these hot pads with pockets.  I love how they turned out, even though they took quite a bit longer than I planned..

I did some research and found out that the bride's wedding colors are going to be mint green and silver (how gorgeous is that going to be, BTW?).  I immediately thought of this Lizzy house Pearl Bracelets print and since I didn't have anything remotely close to "mint green" in my stash, I went shopping!  I was super excited to find this Lotta Jansdotter Bella print that matched so well. 

The binding is from my stash - it's a little more mint blue, but I think it works.  And as luck would have it, the bride told me that these are her favorite colors, AND she loves polka dots!  I KNEW the Lizzy House print was the best choice.

I decided that I hated the original print I had used for the lining of the hot pads, so in the end I added the green/gray prints to the inside - that's why they aren't quilted like everything else.  Trust me, it looks TONS better!

I quilted one hot pad with pebbles and the other hot pad with echoes around the letter W (for their last name) and the big flower.

I didn't have quite enough fabric for binding, so I got to include a little pop of lighter gray in the corners and I like how modern it looks.  I stitched it down by hand because I really wanted it to look nice.  OUCHIE!  My fingers were sore after stitching through all of those thick layers!

I even remembered to add a loop for hanging!  Go me!

In other news, I have finished all of February's bee blocks!  Brittney asked for Ribbon Star Blocks in warm and cool colors.  Here are my two blocks:

I decided that I didn't like my original warm block.  I used some fabric from my stash for the background and I think it was a cotton/poly blend because it didn't sew very well and got SUPER wrinkly when I ironed it.  Sheesh.  No more cheap fabric for me!

Anyway, I felt bad for sending her a crappy block, so I made a new one - this one entirely from scraps.  Even the center is leftover from my Hello Sun blocks.   I like this one TONS better!

Also, I've been going to a new guild in my area.  I'm so excited that the Nebo Modern Quilt Guild has been formed!  It is SO much closer and more convenient for me to attend than some of the other modern quilt guilds I have considered.  I love it, even though I am obviously the youngest one there and there aren't a ton of ladies in my age range.  :p  It's all good though, we still have something in common and that's that we love to make quilts.  We have started a BOM for 2014 and here are my first two blocks.  The flower was done using needle turn applique - a completely new technique for me.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I might do it again, but I do love the ease and quickness of raw edge applique!  ;)  I'm using a couple of charm packs of Joel Dewberry's True Colors line that I won HERE.  It was an awesome win and I'm excited to work with the colors. 

The End.


Linking up:

ALYOF: After the Storm progress

Okay, so this is going to be a boring post (particularly for those who are tired of hearing about my After the Storm quilt), sorry about that.  But I've got to share with you that I finished piecing the LAST block for my After the Storm quilt!  Now all that's left is to sew the borders up, baste, and quilt!  Oh, and bind (obviously).  The end is in sight - no more paper piecing on this bad baby.  So far I have paper pieced 381 units.  Holy cow, that sounds like a lot.  Thank heavens for chain piecing.  :)

 

Anyway.  My ALYOF goal for February was to finish all of these blocks, and I did!  I've even started putting the borders together.  (!!!)

Before

After

To keep this thing moving along, my goal for March is to have all of the 9 sections quilted (since it's going to be king sized, I'm using a sort of quilt-as-you-go method).  (Hopefully that counts as only one goal.)  It's a lofty goal, but I'm going to do my best to reach it.
 In case you are new here, you can get a glimpse of what the quilt will look like HERE.

My February goal setting post is HERE.  My entry was #63.

In other news, I've been making bee blocks and bridal shower gifts (more on those later) and I'm working on a few new quiet books for my shop.  I'm almost done with those too, so hopefully I can share them (and finally LIST them) soon!  Oh, and I've been happily plugging away on my Quilty Stitches Sampler Along, I'm on block three now.  :)

Linking up with Lee:

And Shanna/Melissa: