Finish-A-Long

Q1 Finish-A-Long List for 2014!

January 15, 2014 By Michelle 20 Comments

It’s time to linkup with the quarter’s finishing goals. After a dismal Q4 (ZERO finishes!), I’m back and ready to take on the world! I’m feeling ultra productive and focused, so here we go!

#1 Barn Door Quilt Along
This is my newest project and it is already a fast favorite. This is a baby quilt for my aunt and if I stick to the quilt along schedule, I’ll be done around the end of February, just in time for her baby shower.

barn-door-quilt-week1

#2 Picnic Quilt
My oldest WIP. This is the first quilt I’ve made for myself, so I’m taking my time. I have just finished another swoon block for it, so I have two more to go. Then I just have the flying geese, the third board game, cutting and piecing the blue jean backing, and quilting. Easy peasy.

mint-swoon-block

#3 Mom’s blue triangles (aka Blue Christmas)
I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do with this. I have a large majority of the triangles cut, but when I lay them out, it just looks flat. She really wanted this to be all blue, so I’m hesitant to add a new color. Maybe add some white? Either way, I need to just get going on it.

cut-triangles

#4 Dowry/True Colors Plus Quilt
I just received my charms from the Dowry swap AND I found out I won a Dowry bundle (Thanks Ashley!). I have a few projects in mind for it, but the first is a baby plus quilt. I have a few ideas on making it a little less traditional, but we’ll see how it works out when I start cutting .

Dowry-charm-pack

I’m excited to see what everyone else is working on this week!

Linking up for WIP Wednesday and for the Q1 Finish Along

Q4 Finish-A-Long

October 14, 2013 By Michelle 21 Comments

Thanks SO much for all the birthday greetings on Friday. If you haven’t already entered my $25 Etsy Gift Card Giveaway, you should check it out. And it’s not too late to wish me a happy birthday… birthday week is not over yet!

Now that my birthday is (almost) winding down, it’s time to think about my final project list for the year. I have three current projects that I would be thrilled to finish up, but if I’m being realistic, I’m guessing I’ll get one done. But just in case, here they are…

#1 Mom’s Christmas Quilt (I’ll come up with a cooler name at some point)

first-triangles

My mom requested a quilt about 4 months ago, so I’d love to have this done for her by Christmas. I asked her what she would like and she said “I like blue”. When I asked her about a design or a style, she said she didn’t really care as long as it was blue. Message received! I’ve been wanting to try something new, so I’m going for some triangles! I’m planning on using just a whole range of blues, from light blue to teal. Maybe I’ll even throw in some chambray? I’m wild like that. I’m also debating throwing a few prints in there to add some interest, but I’m torn. What do you think?

#2 Picnic Quilt

picnic-pieces

This quilt is my nemesis. It is definitely the most ambitious thing I have tried and lately, I just stare at the fabric and wonder what I was thinking. However, I know I will love it and I technically have quite a bit of time until picnic season rolls around again, so I’m going to take my time and not stress out about it. However, I’m not counting out an burst of energy and inspiration that will propel me into action.

Here’s what I have left to do:

Make 4 swoon blocks
Finish the scrabble board (SO close to having that done)
Make flying geese
Decide on the third game for the quilt top (already have checkerboard done)
Cut & piece giant pile of jeans for the back

#3 EPP Diamonds – Star Quilt

cutting more diamonds

This is the current state of this project. It exploded over my desk this weekend and I thought you’d like to see that. I ran out of vintage fabrics that fit this vibe, so I’m reusing most of them again in different color combos. I also threw in some new prints that had a vintage vibe and am crossing my fingers that it all ties in together. It would be a miracle if this were to get done, but I guess you never know… winter nights are long here, so I’ll have a lot of time to stitch by the fire.

Also hydeeann from splish splash stash is hosting a brand new link party for english paper piecing! I’m excited link up and get some inspiration from all the other great epp projects going on. So fun.

Update… I also decided to link this up for this week’s WIP Wednesday. No point in doing another post with the same projects. Sorry if you have seen this post more than you wanted to 🙂

That’s it! Linking up with She Can Quilt. I’m excited to go check out what everyone else is up to.

Q3 Finish-A-Long Update

October 3, 2013 By Michelle 6 Comments

If you can remember way back in July I had 2 projects I was hoping to finish this quarter. I got a little sidetracked and finished quite a few projects this quarter, but only one from my list, the Baby D quilt:

chevron quilt 7
Original post about finish

When I finished this, I didn’t know the baby’s gender, but I had a feeling it was a boy and it was! I just delivered it to the proud parents over the weekend. He’s going to be one stylish little guy.

My picnic quilt is going to get move to the Q4 list. I made a little progress on the scrabble board, but am still missing all 4 swoon blocks and the 3rd game (still tbd). I’ll post some pics of where I’m at with my Q4 goals list… coming soon! 🙂

I’m super excited to check out everyone else’s finishes over at She Can Quilt

Q3 Finish-A-Long and WIP Wednesday

July 10, 2013 By Michelle 9 Comments

It’s time to link up my Q3 WIP List for the 2013 Finish-A-Long over at She Can Quilt! And while I’m at it, they are also my projects for WIP Wednesday. Two for one! Here are the projects I’m currently working on.

#1 – Baby D Chevron Quilt:
chevron layout
This quilt is for my friend who is due in mid August. I thought it would be finished in no time, but I have been going very slow. I finally finished pressing and trimming all of my HST triangles after putting it off during the recent heat wave. It was really fun finally getting it laid out. As you can see from the picture, I didn’t buy quite enough of the red and white so I supplemented with some other red-ish, white-ish colors from my stash. My husband says it looks weird with the different colors, but I’m going with it.

#2 – Picnic Quilt (for me!):
checkerboard
This is the first quilt I’ve worked on that I’m keeping. I’m very excited! If you look at my last post, it goes into more details of what I’m envisioning. But in a nutshell, I’m planning on something comfy and colorful, with some built in games. I started on the checkboard section last week and have the scrabble(!) board planned out and ready to cut.

If you look closely you will see my slippers and my pajamas, oops! More important to work on my quilt than get dressed I guess.

That’s all the major WIPs I have for this quarter. I really hope to wrap those up so I can plan some new ones 🙂

Last week for my WIP Wednesday, I posted about learning to sew a zipper. Thanks to an extra dose of confidence and some great tutorial recommendations, I did it! binding pouch4
Loving my new pouch to hold my binding supplies. Much cuter than the ziplock bag I was using.

grey pouch2
I love the roundy-ness of this one. I can’t wait to make another one. Hopefully I’ll get better at the curve (it might also be that I don’t have a printer, so I traced the template off of my computer screen… haha)

I’m now officially addicted and now am looking to buy some zippers in bulk. Everyone’s getting a pouch for Christmas! 🙂

One more fun thing to share, the voting has opened on the Threadbias quilt design contest! I’d love it if you’d vote for me 🙂 I created this entry… my first ever design – Granny’s Wild.
Granny's-Wild-web

Wow, that was quite the post. Thanks for sticking it out to the end. 🙂

-Michelle

Q2 Finish-A-Long

July 1, 2013 By Michelle 4 Comments

I’m excited to link up my Q2 finish for the 2013 Finish-A-Long over at She Can Quilt.

I only had one project I was working on at the start of Q2, my hand quilted wedding present for my best friend. The Finish-A-Long inspired me to start this blog to keep track of my progress and I have really enjoyed chronicling making my first ever quilt.

Q2 Finished Quilt