One step closer

Two Fridays ago, I received an invitation from the gals of the South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild to attend their Sew Day.  I jumped at the chance- the siren song of a clean, uncluttered space with just the sound of sewing machines and quilt-focused chatter proved too strong to resist.

I worked very industriously on Kieran's brick quilt (there's a nice in-progress photo here, courtesy of Anne).  The entire top should have been finished, but poor planning after laying out the blocks the night before required that I work on one row at a time instead of chain piecing everything at once to keep them in "random" order.   Note to self- next time, number the blocks!

Most of the top was sewn up before I left Sew Day (it was 4 rows shy of completion).  We've had an extended heat wave in the Bay Area, and my "sewing room" (a.k.a. the front entryway) traps heat.  So no sewing for me since then.

Thank goodness the heat finally broke over the weekend and we're back to mild California summer weather.  I spent Sunday afternoon sewing with a quilty friend and finally completed the top:

More poor planning regarding the quilt back requires a few days' wait until the backing fabric arrives in the mail.  Maybe I'll have a finish by next week. 

And how was your weekend?

Weekend Sewing

The first week of school has positively flown by!  Other than the Urgent Care visit, it's been a quiet week.  I was sorely tempted to do lots of sewing during down time, but housekeeping duties called.

Included in this was a little stash organization (again).  I realize that, though my stash is nowhere near as bountiful as many other quilters, there are still some things lurking in my stash that I probably will never use.  It's amazing how much my tastes have changed in the past year. 

Housekeeping aside, I made a bit of progress on my Love Circle swap project.

Progress came to a screeching halt when I miscalculated and cut the side strips the wrong length.  The Essex linen was leftover from a previous project, and the mistake necessitates a fabric-buying trip (!).

I also jumped right into the Vintage Holiday Quilt Along.  Blocks #1 and #2 are finished:

Block #2 was originally made with Kona Clover and Medium Gray parallelograms.  It felt dull, so I remade the block with Kona Snow and Spruce (I think).  Much better!

In other sewing news, I'm reviving my A-Z Quilt-Along project.  I left off several months ago after finishing my H block, and the rest of the group have zipped along to V.  I am fourteen blocks behind!  Make that sixteen blocks- W and X are due at the next BA Modern quilt guild meeting.  My plan is to spend the rest of the afternoon/evening prepping fabric for blocks I-P.  I hope to piece eight of the sixteen blocks at the guild's Sew Day tomorrow and, time permitting, make some headway on my swap project.

Have a great weekend!

Sewing the day away

It's hard to believe we're heading into the last week or so of the January.  I've got quite a bit of sewing on my plate for various bees and swaps.  Thank goodness for my local modern quilt guild's Sew Day over the weekend.  What quilter can resist the lure of a day of camaraderie and sewing?  Not I!  What a great opportunity to get those projects done (but more on that in a bit). 

One of the projects I brought along was my lot of red and teal wonky plus blocks from this Flickr swap.  Sadly, I couldn't use all the blocks I received from the swap because of the broad interpretation of red and teal, so my mission was to make replacements.   A fellow guild member who participated in the same swap was also making blocks for the same reason.  She and I traded a few fabrics and knocked out some blocks to supplement what we kept.  We donated the others to the guild for a charity quilt.  I've still got four more to make before these beauties can become a quilt top:

My bag was full of other projects I brought along (what was I thinking?), but in six hours of sewing time I only made four blocks.  If you've read my post about Open Sew at the local LQS, you'll see I'm a slow sewer.  Quite a bit of time was spent talking to the other guild members and admiring their work.  So many inspiring projects being made, among them Swoon blocks.  I've admired Swoon for a while but have been put off by the size of the blocks (24.5 inches!!!).  After seeing them at Sew Day and more on Flickr, I'm positively smitten and most probably will join the Swoon-Along.

The rest of my time was spent discussing guild charity business with the other charity co-coordinator.  There's an amazing spirit of generosity and good will in the guild.  Jennifer and I have received so much support for the newly launched charity program in the form of fabric and orphan block donations, ideas, and general enthusiasm.  There's been a high rate of participation in making blocks for our first charity project.  So far, we've got one completed quilt, one in the process of being quilted and bound by one of our guild members, and two more guild members took home blocks on Sew Day to make into quilt tops.  Not too shabby for the first month of the program!