Oct 25 design wall

I finished my block from last week. I must say, I find this pattern to be a challenge. But, OH! I love the end results. I am still trying to decide if I want to commit to an entire quilt of these blocks. I think this one is best dealt with one block at a time, between other projects. The block is called Mississippi Wheel of Fortune and it is a Karen Stone pattern.

FAIL!

If you follow my blog, you may have noticed that I have removed the UFO challenge info from my sidebar. I joined a challenge to finish 10 projects this year.


I posted my 10 intended finishes and waited each month for the hostess to post which project to complete for the month. This is the final month of the challenge. To date, I have finished only one of my 10 UFOs.


I have a second partially quilted. So I have to consider this a failed effort. Can there be an upside of this? Well, I haven't really created many new UFOs to speak of either, so I feel like I am ahead of the game. Will I ever finish all of my quilts? I doubt it.


I am even considering giving away a few UFOs. Could my tired old project possibly be someone else's fabulous new quilt? I'm pretty sure I will never finish the quilts shown.

DWM-I actually have something new to share

On Friday my design wall still looked the same as in my last post. Those blocks had been hanging on my design wall since June. I finally decided to just put them away for now. When I have a need for a baby/child-size quilt, they will become a finished quilt. Until then, since they have not been speaking to me for months, they need to go away.
This is my new project. It is a Mississippi Wheel of Fortune block. I am using paper foundations to piece it following a pattern by Karen Stone. The block on the left is finished. It was intended to be a table topper to tie in with this at Christmas time. Hubby, however, thinks it should be a pillow. We'll see about that. (This is a 20 inch block!) The block on the right is in progress. I'm not sure how many I will make. I have a good stash of batiks and could easily make enough for a large quilt. But I am undecided on if I want to devote that much time to a foundation pieced project. I will say that I love the colors so far.

To see more quilters design walls for inspiration, check out Patchwork Times blog. Judy L. hosts this every Monday.

Design wall? August 2

These blocks have been on my wall since June 1st. Some of the blocks have fallen to the floor, probably in protest to my neglect.


I haven't had time to do any sewing this summer, with one exception. I did manage to finish this quilt in time to give as a wedding gift.

Where's Jane?

Here she is, camping with her family....

...lots of family!!!

And watching a sunset with her husband...on the shore of Lake Charlevoix



Beautiful!

...at a wine tasting in the Traverse City area during Cherry Festival

Coloring with markers during a visit from her Granddaughter

Here she is during a long weekend trip to Florida to welcome the newest member of her extended family...Adrianna Carmen. Such a little cutie!

And at a celebration lunch after the adoption finalization with the happy new parents!

Nope, she's not in her sewing room. Hasn't been here all summer. ( No wonder there hasn't been any new blog posts.)

Design wall 5/31

Today I am hiding out in my sewing room. It is a quiet refuge in a house full of college kids. My son decided it would be fun to host the annual Memorial Day gathering of his friends. We have a large yard with a pool and a good grill and can easily accommodate a crowd. But the weather is not cooperating. Strong thunderstorms hit this morning, knocking out our power. Fortunately, the power company had it restored around noon. Not that it would have stopped this gang of kids. It has been raining on and off all afternoon, so the kids are all inside my house, broken down into small groups playing cards, board games and video games. I am debating border additions to my lantern quilt top. I would like to make it larger without purchasing extra fabric. This is what I am considering for now. I'm just not sure I like it.

The background fabric would continue behind the zigzag, so that it will keep it's straight edges. To see what others are working on check out Judy's blog.

...and the living is easy

Kick back in a comfy chair on your deck and enjoy your holiday weekend. It is the unofficial start of summer here and the weather is gorgeous! My most recent project is inspired by an episode of Quilt in a Day, featuring projects from the Egg Basket Quilts book . It was soooooooo quick and easy.

Design wall May 24

I am settling on a plain border for this one due to a lack of extra fabrics. This top is only half the size it was intended to be. There was some confusion in the cutting instructions and I cut half of my blocks incorrectly. So, I decided to salvage the project as best I could by making two smaller quilts. This one has the blocks cut the correct size. I plan to start making the rest of the blocks, slightly smaller, today.


Edited: Here are the completed blocks. They spin in the opposite direction, giving this quilt a totally different look. :)

Check out Patchwork Times for more design wall links.

The another update from the sew in

This is what I got done from last night's sew-in. The lantern blocks are stitched into rows and the border blocks are done. I'm trying to decide if I want to add the tassels as the pattern suggests or just omit them. If I leave them off, then I will need to remove some of the background from the bottom to even things out. I am also considering adding some extra borders to make this bigger. I have a bit of extra fabric to work with, but I'm not sure there is enough. I think that will be a good project for tomorrow.

Progress Report

Here's where I'm at with my quilt tonight. The lanterns are taking shape and I'm working on the flying geese units for the border. I still need to play with the arrangement of the lanterns a bit before I stitch them together. Back to the sewing room for me. :)

It's time for another Friday night sew-in

I have been cutting all afternoon so that I can actually sew during tonight's sew-in. It has been a few months since I have been able to participate, and I can't wait to get stitching. I'm going to be making a version of this. It is a free pattern by Monica of Happy Zombie. The pattern features her new fabric line which doesn't hit stores until June or July. So I will be using a collection of Asian prints from my stash. I think these will look cute as lanterns.

DWM May 10

Not much progress to report this week. I struggled with the side triangles on the hexagon quilt and finally settled on this. I don't think I got the sizing quite right, but I am afraid to rip them off again for fear of stretching the edges and making things worse. It is not as flat as I would like on the edges, but I think I can make it work. This is as far as the instructions go for this pattern, so I need to play around with some border ideas this week.

The baby robins in the nest outside my sewing room are getting bigger. I am enjoying watching their progress. And mama robin is keeping her eyes on us all from a nearby fence.

Check out Judy L.'s blog for more Design Wall Monday fun.

Design wall Monday- May 3,2010

This is what is on my wall today. My hexagon blocks are stitched together and I am in the process of figuring out the sizing for the side and corner setting triangles. The pattern I am following is a bit confusing on this. I like how it's looking though.
For more design wall delights, check out the Patchwork Times blog.

In bloom...a bit early!

Usually, my lilacs are just blooming for Mother's Day. I have a tradition of making a couple bouquets of lilacs each year- one for me, and one for my mom. I like to add in some snowball flowers for an accent. But this year, my lilacs are blooming early. Aren't they gorgeous?

I seem to have caught a butterfly in this first photo. It's upper right.

These are the snowballs next to my lilacs. They are already opening and turning white. Usually they are about an inch in diameter and bright green at Mother's day. These are close to three inches.

A few blooms next to the shed.

Not a great picture, but this is a baby robin in the nest. Didn't dare get too close. Momma robin might not appreciate that. I hope you are enjoying springtime as much as I am.

I'm sewing! Really, I am.

Here is what is on my design wall today. A few test blocks for a pattern I am trying. The lowest block in the photo was my first. It didn't go together as well as I would have liked. So I changed the size of the longer pieces in the block and tried again. The other blocks are the result of that change. I am much happier with those blocks. They lie flat and have nice even edges and I have not trimmed anything.
This has made me rethink my two block nightmare quilt. Perhaps what I have with those blocks is not a stitching problem after all. Maybe that is also a cutting issue. I will have to give those another look soon. Maybe there is some hope for that quilt after all.



Here is a peek at what I have been looking at outside my sewing room window. I have a robin who has made her nest under my deck. I look forward to seeing some baby birds. I love springtime.

Sewing room re-do is done...pretty much

...and I am thrilled! It is so much brighter in there now. There are still things that need to be done before the job is complete. For instance, I need some window treatments. But I am still deciding what I want to put on them.
This is a view of my design wall. While my design wall was down, I made a little adjustment to it. I added a layer of quilt batting between the foam insulation board and the flannel sheet. I like it much better this way, but I think a second layer of batting would have been even better. Just saying.

I moved my fabric stash from these shelves so that I could eliminate a bookcase. It gives me a little more space in the room. My books are organized by topic. For example, all my books of quilt-block patterns are together, all my quilting pattern books are together, etc. The fabric boxes hold completed quilt tops along with their backing and binding fabrics. Now my stash lives under my ironing station. (I love my extra-large ironing surface. It makes that task so much more pleasant.)

The project bins have been moved from under the ironing board to under my cutting table. That space was not being utilized before. During the room emptying process, I noticed that my ruler caddy was able to be hung up. It has always resided on top of my cutting table before. I will admit that it has been bothersome there. Now that it is on my wall, I am hoping my cutting table will be more functional. I was always having to move stuff around before I could do any cutting. (Maybe I'm just wishful thinking on this. It could be I am just too sloppy of a worker and my table will always be a hot mess.)

I have a nice u-shaped work area set-up. It is very workable. My sewing machine cabinet is in the center of the room. It seemed a little odd to me when I first thought to put it there, but it has really worked out great. Especially since the cabinet has a drop-leaf extension table on it.

On my wall...April 12

This is what is on my wall today. I'm in no hurry to finish this one, but it is always nice to have a couple baby quilt tops at the ready. Check out Patchwork Times for more design wall fun.

New name, same old me

Perhaps you noticed, (or maybe you didn't) but my blog has a new name. The focus of this blog remains the same . It's just that there were at least a couple other blogs with the name I was using for my blog . And one of those blogs is also a quilting blog. My personal sense of individuality wasn't comfortable with that, so I came up with a new blog name. And the timing just feels right, as my sewing room is getting an update too. My blog's web address has not changed, so if you read this over a feed, it should still come across fine. I hope this doesn't create any confusion. It is meant to stop some.

My sewing room now has a fresh coat of paint and the new flooring went in last night. We still need to hang window trim and baseboard before I can begin putting the room back together. Hopefully I will have things put back by next weekend.

Design Wall Moday- April 5

I'm happy to have this top completed. Now I just have to decide if I will quilt this myself or send it to a long-arm quilter. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Actually, this WAS on my wall. As of Saturday, my design wall has been taken down so we can paint. Nothing like a fresh coat of paint and a new floor to perk a place up. :)

This is my sewing room right now. Clearing it out was a big job. But I know the end result will be worth the effort. :D

Where has the month gone?

I just can't believe this month is over. I have accomplished nothing on the quilting front. My February ufo is still unfinished. My March ufo was not even touched. In truth, I did take it out to look at it. But my daughter wants to give it as a gift and we decided that I needed to make it longer. I got a bit bogged down with how I wanted to do that. :( I think I have a plan of action now.
I'm still working on the bow tie top. I am adding the borders. We have had some gorgeous weather and I have not wanted to sit in my basement and sew. So it is slow going. And about to get slower. My sewing room is going to get a new floor and a coat of paint over the next couple weeks. So I will be pulling everything out of the room this weekend. I guess I had better get those borders on now.

on my wall today...

I have managed to do a little sewing this past week. I have my blocks stitched together on my bow tie quilt. I hope to add the borders this week. I wish I had a better picture , but somehow this is the only shot I took.

Today I went to a workshop with Bonnie Hunter. Our local quilt guild brought Bonnie in to speak tomorrow night. In the workshop, we worked on her Cathedral Stars quilt. I was a last minute add-in to the class and was happy to snag a spot. These are a couple of the blocks I made. This one will need to go into the ufo pile for a while so I can finish a few other projects.

Nothing new to report

It's Monday, and I usually share what I have on my design wall. But I haven't done any sewing this past week. The sun has been shining, and I have been trying to soak as much sunshine in as I possibly can. It's been a grey winter here and I am thrilled to see the sun.

And I probably won't sew much this week either. My son and his family are in town for the week, so I plan to enjoy their visit. Especially my granddaughter. She brings joy wherever she goes.

Up on the wall

Today on my wall are more of the blocks from last week. I am currently playing around with layout possibilities for this quilt. This is my current option.



To see more quilter's walls, check out Patchwork Times.

February UFO report

Here it is, already the last day of February. This month went by quick, didn't it? I made a good effort to finish my February UFO, number 7 from the list on my sidebar. I'm doing this as part of a challenge hosted by Nancy at Patchwork Penguin . But for the second month in a row, I have failed to complete it by the month's end. I did manage to finish my January UFO this month. I feel good about that. Here is my quilt as it is right now.



It is partially quilted. I still have quite a bit more quilting to do and I will keep working at it and get it done. For now, I'm satisfied with my progress. It is a lot closer to finished than it was a month ago. :D

On the wall today- February 22

On the wall today are some of the blocks for a new quilt. If you are following the winter Olympics, you might think the logo colors have been the source of inspiration for my quilt. But this quilt was the real inspiration.

My nephew's fiance has told me many times how much she likes it, as it her favorite colors. So I am making them a quilt in her favorite colors as a wedding gift.

To see what other quilters are working on, check out Patchwork Times.