Life is good!

I feel like I've finally been making some progress, although I'm not sure my list shows it!  I've completed section A of the Moda Building Blocks, and got five or six quilts basted.  I finished the quilting on two of them - my FMQ is certainly not great but I feel like it's coming along!  I didn't actually finish my last Moda project, I ended up taking pictures of it unquilted.  So it's gone into the tops pile for now.  I found out my in-laws are coming for Christmas.  We don't see them often, so it was a bit of a surprise, but I'm happy they'll be here and that my kids will get to spend some more time with them.  They shortened their projected stay to only three or four days, so I don't think I'll have to empty my craft room, which is good!  Recent Completions: WIPS Aviatrix Farmer's Wife Moda Building Blocks PB&J Four Square (Leader/Ender project) Needs Binding Landscape Secret Garden Top Completed, Waiting for...

Does anyone else feel like they can spend just as much time organizing and planning projects as they actually do DOING projects?  Maybe it's just the effort that's going into planning my new sewing room, but I am itching to do more hands-on sewing. I did break out the scrappy Vintage Modern blocks, and realized I'd made a lot more of them than I'd thought.  So I may start working on that in spurts again.  The QAYG blocks may find themselves turned into minis for my new sewing space, as well.   I'm enjoying working on the Moda Building Blocks quilt.  I love the Downtown Abbey fabrics, so it's nice to finally be using them!  Recent Completions: Final Frontier Geometric sewing machine mini (swap project) WIPS Secret Project #4 Aviatrix Farmer's Wife Moda Building Blocks PB&J Four Square (Leader/Ender project) Needs Binding Top Completed, Waiting for Quilting Breezeway Landscape Secret Garden KerBloom Stars Planning  Bla...

Time for a much, much overdue WIP Wednesday... This week I had to entirely empty out my huge fabric cabinets.  We are building a shop on our acreage, and we designed a loft room to go into the top of one end.  It's going to be 12x30, so a good sized space. The idea is that someday I will own a long-arm quilting machine, and that will be its home.  In the meantime, it will still be my primary sewing room.  The current sewing room will covert to the guest room, and the current smaller guest room will be my 'satellite' sewing room.  So I get a ton of room, but that does mean a LOT of thinking and organizing about what will go where.  The loft room is open right now, and I put the cabinets on pallets so the construction company can lift them up with forklifts and get them put into place.  The things are well over six feet tall, and weigh a TON, so this is by far the best way to move them!  It involved 5 adults just to move them the 15 feet to the ...

This was a fun one!  I'd sketched out the design a while ago, and when picking fabric options for the Moda Bakeshop, the center of my 'octagons' seemed to call out for the animals in this line, rather than the pinwheel shapes I'd originally planned.  I love how it turned out! Key to the success of actually constructing the quilt top was to find away to make the half rectangle triangle with the right dimensions, so that it was 2 inches wide and 4 inches tall.  The provided template will work, as well as several rulers.   This one goes together very quickly.  I did simple straight-line quilting, which was both easy to do and emphasizes the outlines of the stretched stars.  Windy day!  I finished this up and had to get the pictures taken. Unfortunately, the wind wasn't really cooperating, but I did like this location.  I'd have a hard time saying which little animal is my favorite, but this guy probably wins. :) Another fun ...

A finish!  It's been done for a while, but since it was finally sent off to its home with my sister, I managed to get a couple of pictures of it.  It's king-sized, so not actually easy to photograph.  Luckily it was a sunny day, so over mom's porch worked well.  The design is my own.  It was inspired by a Pinterest quilt, but heavily modified to suit the size and shape she wanted.  I had originally planned to make this as a duvet cover, so the size was dictated by that.  In retrospect I wish I'd widened those two side columns, but overall I do like it! The quilting is an all-over spiral design; I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  One more to check off the list!

Progress here and there!  We had a sew-in for my quilt guild this week, and I pulled out a couple of things that have been languishing, and a new project.  I turned Stars into a simple patchwork, and finished that.  The guild is doing charity quilts for foster kids, and this should work nicely for that - simple and colorful, and should be more good FMQ practice. I also started a bag.  I've had the pattern forever, and had the leftover charm squares of Wordsmith, which I just love, so it seemed like a good retreat project. Recent Completions: Kelley's Quilt (still need pictures) Control Panel (still need pictures) WIPS Aviatrix Farmer's Wife Final Frontier (fall dinner quilt) Mondo Bag Needs Binding Top Completed, Waiting for Quilting Breezeway Landscape Secret Garden KerBloom Stars Planning  Secret Project #3 Secret Project #4 Gravity Sparklers Abacus Moda Building Blocks? Triple Barn Star UFO's Craftsy QAYG Vintage Modern ...

Some pretty big changes this week!  I f eel like I've had no ti me whatsoever to sew this summer.  Even though I took all of last week of f, very little of it was I able to spend in t he sewing room, and what time I did spend there, after finishing up some binding, was cutting o ut apparel projects.  I have another secret project in t he work s; I just got the fabric ye sterday, so t hat will obviously ju m p to the top of the queue.  I also ch anged my plans for the fall dinner quilt - it had been sticks and stones, but I decided to use the same fabric but for something completely different.  I hope it tu rns out!  I have the backs pieced for all of the quilts that are waiting for quilting, so I'm hoping to ma ybe get th ose bas ted soon.  I think I'm going to try and tackle the quilting on all of them.   Recent Completions!! Control Pa nel Starry Field (aka Sec re t Project #2) Kelley's Q uilt   WIPS Aviatrix (...