Day 3

I am home and have shown off all my accomplishments to my husband. :-) I scrapped this morning - I am THISCLOSE to being in March! - and decided what to do about the log cabin - I will just make a log cabin quilt. I have a sewing day this Sunday - I guess I'll be making four more blocks!

Day 2 - Success and a Failure

Today was so great, even though I’m going to bed at 1 a.m. I completed everything I wanted, down to piecing one of the baby quilts.

Unfortunately, for the other baby quilt, I totally lost track of what I was doing and I pieced it wrong. I made a log cabin block where I was supposed to make a Greek key. Sighs and damnation.

Here's the Pinspiration:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/267049452888914990/ 

Here's the pattern I made up at my last sewing day. The idea was to have it a bit off center.

As I was sewing, I kept thinking to myself, "I know this is going to be complex. I've got to pay attention." And I kept looking at my pattern, and thinking to myself, "This isn't complex, it's just a log cabin." So I put it together, and guess what I got? A bunch of log cabins. Duh. I didn't pay attention to the way the blues and white were supposed to go together! Now what?

I could do this and put the white on either side, but I think it will look really unfinished.

And this is just ... wrong.

So I think I am stuck with making four more log cabin blocks and he'll just get a log cabin quilt. I will make the Greek key some other time. And work on my focus until then!

Snowball Cross

Look at what I did today!! Here is the progression on the snowball cross quilt that I made for one of my favorite co-workers of all time (who is due in October with her second daughter, to whom I gave a disappearing nine-patch).

First of all, here’s the pinspiration:

 
 https://pin.it/tcsvbdqh7wf33l I intended to make it very like this, but last weekend at Cotton Cupboard I fell in love with some fabric and had to rework my idea.

So I got it all cut out this morning, and starting adding my white and then combining with the gray.

Isn't that floral pattern gorgeous? I love it. I kind of wish I got to keep this quilt. Here I've pressed all the grays, so then I had to make the grays for the center and piece each block together.

Here are some of the completed blocks, with gaps where the sashing would eventually go. We also put them close together to see what it would look like if we didn't do the sashing. I think they sort of look like vinyl records.

The little cornerstones with the pop of color perfectly set off the colors in the pattern! I hate the bright yellow one. :-/ But it does look really good with the fabric.


Here I'm moving around the cornerstone colors to get it all looking good. It was so nice to have a design wall (provided by the retreat center). I don't have one at home. Jenn says that Jason should build me one, but I don't really have a convenient spot for it.

And here's the completed top - although I think I am going to add some border. I was going to do white, but now I'm thinking I'll do the patterned blue.

Day 1, Update 2

I got the mystery quilt top done finally! It is really pretty.

I have to figure out whether I want to add rows to make it taller. I’m thinking no, but that’s probably just because I’m glad to be done. It’s supposed to go to Seth, so it would probably be smart for it to be bigger. It just sounds like a pain. Jason and my mom seem to think it's weird that I've giving Seth "another" quilt - as though a person can have too many quilts! And, seriously, have they not seen the way that he still snuggles up under his baby quilt? Give me a break!

Still to do - cut 2 baby quilts! I would love to get one pieced, but that seems unlikely before Jenn gets here to scrap tomorrow!! I wish I’d gotten more done today, but we were gone most of the afternoon shopping and eating lunch. Around the Block Quilt Shop is awesome. I wish I’d had a reason to buy some fabric! They had some lovely options. And a really cool chenille cutter, which Ellen bought. I would like to use that. It was fascinating. Look at this: https://pin.it/tra7o52uetffyp

Day 1 Update - Project 1 Complete

Check out this Snowball Snowman with the unnecessarily-complicated border!

Day 1

Getting the borders onto the Snowman Snowball quilt!

Timey Wimey Crafting Retreat

I’m going on a crafting retreat tomorrow!!!! Excitement!

To-do List
1. Finish Mary’s snowman quilt top
2. Finish my mystery quilt top
3. Cut and piece a baby quilt for my friend Jessica
4. Cut a baby quilt for my new nephew
5. Scrap!

Here is the fabric for baby quilt number 4. It's supposed to be a Greek theme.

Mystery Quilt - Improving the Pattern

I've been working on this quilt as much as possible, although it's not as frequent as I wish!

 I filled in around the swirls with more pebbles and I like it a lot better.

Future Quilt!

I saw this pattern in a quilt shop on Friday. Isn't it so pretty? Saving for future ideas....

Dizzy Daisy Complete!

Here's the final! I took it to them at the hospital yesterday! :-)

Last Year's Mystery Quilt

Now that I (supposedly) have this year's mystery quilt done (a class at Cotton Cupboard), I figured I'd better quilt last year's!

I've only just gotten started, but I like how it's going!

P.S. I don't have this year's mystery quilt pieced yet.

Dizzy Daisy Quilting

I'm having fun quilting this little baby quilt. My friend Darnell gave me a great idea for quilting the petals, and then I always liked this design for borders/sashing.

Dizzy Daisy Redux

I added "daisies" and I think it's a much better size!

The nursery is pink and gold. I found this awesome pink and gold fabric in my stash, and my mom happened to have some gold fabric, so voila! Completed top!

Just in time to give it to the mom-to-be tomorrow at her baby shower!

Dizzy Daisy

Welp, I got this baby quilt all together today at Saturday Sewing Circle, and then realized just how tiny it is. :-( Boo. I think when I planned the quilt, I thought those flowers would be nine inches. Hey, genius, they are six inches! Guess I will be adding more. Good thing I have the Olympics to keep me company. :-)

Christmas Snowmen

Here are the finished products! I finally got my pictures off my phone and camera. Stupid Blogger. :-/ I already posted the one I made for Lois.

Jenn got this one. I've already posted this pic, plus some close-ups of the quilting, but I just wanted to say that when I gave Jenn and Lois their quilts, Jenn was a bit worried because there was Lois's maroon quilt and, well, Jenn just didn't like it. When she saw that she had her own and it was the one that was meant for her, she was much happier. :-) Lois's quilt is perfect for her (if I do say so myself).

This one was for Teresa. The background fabric has such bright colors in it, even though the black background makes it overall dark. There are some closer-up pics of some of these faces in an earlier post.

Mom got this one. Making these snowmen is like making jack-o-lanterns. I thought it was fun to add the extra ones in the corners, although I did not love this one because the background fabric is blocky words (they say Holly Jolly, I think) and I didn't match it up and I thought it just ended up looking rather messy. But, Mom seemed to love it, so, there you have it.

This one was for Dad and Susan. I took pics while I was quilting it so I could keep track of the quilting designs before I rolled it up onto the machine.

I'm still working on my final one. I have all the sashing in, just working on the borders!

Final Snowball Snowman

I am expecting this to be my last snowman quilt. I didn't get it done in time for last Christmas, but it will be a Christmas 2018 gift! I changed up how I'm doing the borders; can't wait to actually do it and see how it turns out! Damn fussy-cutting, though. I already screwed it up. *sigh*

More Snowmen!

I need to get the pictures of the final quilt! I think they must be on my camera instead of my phone. I took pictures as I was quilting so that I would know what quilting designs were rolled up next to the face I was working on at the time.