First Finish of Firteen ('13)

Here it is!

I love how it turned out! These quilts are very fun to make and I will be making more once a few other projects are finished! This type of quilt really adds fuel to the question some husbands ask - "So you just cut up fabric so you can sew it back together?" - because that is really all I did. Cut up one piece of fabric into little triangles and then sew them back together! I now look at fabrics in a different way wondering how they would work for one of these quilts.

I finished the binding on this one on Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon I finally got the label on the quilt I made for one of my crafting ladies so I could bring it over for the big reveal. Nothing like leaving it until the last moment. I will hopefully get a post done with all the pictures later today.

Yesterday I did another last minute project. This one is for the the round robin group I am in with my sister and niece and other friends. I posted pictures of our last reveal in November and we were supposed to have our beginning block for the next one done by the end of January. Mine is appliqued so I had my work cut out for me (literally). Here is the finished block...

The idea came from a wall hanging I saw in a quilt shop on a long ago shop hop. I managed to get some of the fabrics and it was one of those 'someday' projects. I saw the pile of fabric when I was trying to decide on my block and thought this was a great opportunity to do something about it. This should be a fun whimsical quilt once all the other folks add some borders. 

My next project is my Relay for Life Raffle Quilt. I have it all cut out and a good start on sewing the blocks together so hopefully the top will be done in the next week. When that top is together I need to add some borders to my niece's block for the round robin.

One Block Wonder

Life just doesn't slow down around here. I have been keeping busy with work and getting the business info into the computer. I was focused and finished the computer work by Friday evening! Just in time for my daughter, grand-kids and niece to arrive for the long weekend. Usually when they come I make sure I can spend all my time with the kids but this time I had my quilting class scheduled for Saturday and I wasn't going to miss it!

Here is the quilt top that the person teaching the class made using the pattern. Can you see why I was interested?

Here is the fabric I chose for my quilt. This is the one I liked best but wasn't sure it was as good for this quilt. 

As it turns out, it did work well for the blocks! Here are the blocks I had done by the end of class on Saturday. 

It was so fun to see other quilter's fabric choices and then to see how the blocks turned out. This is the fabric my table mate brought. She wasn't sure if she was going to like it since there was so much of the brown.

But this is how her first blocks turned out! She was still thinking she might add blocks from another fabric to add some green but she was going to wait until she had all the blocks done.

Here is another animal print that someone was using and her first two blocks.

Here is an interesting dragon print

And here is how the first three blocks turned out!

Here are a couple more of the beginning blocks

We had a lot of fun with our company and while the kids were stringing beads on some thread with their uncle I managed to finish up the blocks from the class. This morning before everyone left we went over to the church so we had a place to layout the blocks on a design wall. Here is one of the pictures we took as we were rearranging. 

I am not sure if this is the final picture or not. We pinned all the blocks to the flannel sheet so I can hang it on Sally's design wall tomorrow at craft night and see if I am still happy with it. If I am, I can start putting it all together.

I am definitely excited about trying this technique with some other fabrics!

While I was working on sewing the rest of the blocks, my niece started cutting pieces for my Relay for Life Raffle Quilt. I am making a twin sized Monet's Wedding Ring like this one only I have an off white for the background and miscellaneous scraps for the rings. I got the background fabric today and hope to start cutting tomorrow or the next day.

Meanwhile, I have started cleaning up the sewing room. I got a lot of the mess on the sewing table sorted out so tomorrow I can put some of the piles away where they belong and sort some more! Once it is cleaner it will be much easier to finish up some projects! Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!

Just a little late!

It has been nearly a month again since my last post so I thought I should post something even though I really don't have much to say. I have been busy mostly with non-crafty things and Christmas company. 

Our son arrived mid-December and left about a week ago. Daughter 1, son-in-law and grandkids arrived for a whirlwind of activity a few days after Christmas. Niece Katie was here for New Year's Eve and again this past weekend for our 'Epiphany turkey'. And finally, daughter 2 and son-in-law got back home last week to stay. They will be living with as they finish their 'little house on wheels' and SIL trains with Hubby as an appliance repair tech in our family business. 

I started the new year with another jump into Puget Sound at the Olalla Polar Bear Plunge (that's me on the left just before letting go) and have been spending my spare time working on getting the business info into the computer for the tax man! I am hoping to be done in the next week so I can get back in the sewing room. This year, 2013, will possibly the first year I keep up with the business books (or maybe someone else will) as the business expands. 

This past Wednesday I had my quilt guild meeting and I signed up for a class! I usually don't take classes because I can generally figure things out on my own but I figured taking classes with other guild members will help me get to know them more. The class is in a week and is on the One Block Wonder type quilt. I am hoping it is my reward for having all the computer work finished! Yesterday I went shopping for appropriate fabric for the project. I found two. One that is probably better for the project and the other with better colors. I couldn't decide which to buy so I got both and I will decide on the day of the class. If I like how the first one goes I can make the other at quilt retreat at the beginning of March.

The LWR quilters work tying quilts at the church yesterday and when I stopped in to say Hi and give one of the ladies a message (I don't get to help with the quilting since we have our staff meeting at the same time the tying happens) and was asked to make some quilt tops so that might be one of my projects for quilt retreat too. The good news is that if I make some LWR tops I can probably get rid of a box or two of fabric from my sewing room!

Over Christmas I made some more owl hats and tried another pattern for a little girl's hat that came off the yarn wrapper. It turned out great but ended up pretty small so I made it a bit bigger and thought it might be the right size for my granddaughter but it was still small so I let my little princess pick some yarn for me to make a bigger one. She chose 5 colors for stripes and she loved it. I probably wouldn't have chosen those 5 colors but she seems to have a good eye because it turned out great. I am thinking I will use the pattern to finish up some of my smaller balls of yarn. I will also need to get more owl hats made because the quilt show is coming up mid-March and those hats sell like hotcakes!