Squeaky Wheel

The next couple of projects are all about Martina.  After Antonio's quilt was finished, of course she asked about her quilt, and rightly so.  The first quilt, blogged here, just needs the binding stitched down.  She's going to use it until her Poetica quilt is completed, at which time Old Girl will become a family quilt.

My February entry for ALYOF is said Poetica quilt.  I've either got a few more blocks to make, or I've got too many.  I put them up slapdash on my makeshift design wall (which has since fallen into a sad heap on the floor, blocks and all) and think it may look a little too busy.  I think it needs sashing to calm down the crazy, in which case there will be extra blocks.  Martina may get a pillow as well!

Before I start piecing the Poetica quilt, however, we have a little bit of an emergency project .  Martina's school is hosting a Father/Daughter dance Friday evening, and Martina informed me she has nothing to wear.  She's gone through a growth spurt the past couple of months, and her dresses are too short or snug.  I spent the morning searching for a dress pattern and purchased the Marissa Dress at Jennifer Paganelli's Sis Boom shop.  I'm considering these fabric combinations:

Of course, it's all subject to the little lady's approval.  She may go rogue and choose neither of them.  We shall see what she decides when she gets home from school today.

Linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes at Fiber of All Sorts and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

The one where I make a resolution, then break it

I've mentioned in the past that I tend to join too many flickr bees, swaps and sew-alongs, then find myself stretched a little thin trying to fulfill my commitments.  One of my resolutions for the new year was to stop joining such groups.  Resolution #1 broken.  But I couldn't turn down an invitation to join a group that would help me with another resolution.

A Lovely Year of Finishes, hosted by Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts and Melissa of Bittersweet Designs kicks off this month.  To play along, all you need to do is finish one project a month- whether it's a WIP or new project is up to you.  Check out the details here and join in if you need a little push to finish up some projects!

The project I've chosen for January is one that I've blogged about several times- the Urban Chic quilt for my 11 year-old son.   

It's now partly quilted (I started quilting it New Year's Eve whilst waiting for the ball to drop to ring in the new year), so I'll need to finish the quilting, then bind it.  Christmas present 2011 will finally be completed!

I've also resolved to make a quilt for each family member.  The phrase "the cobbler's children have no shoes" comes to mind.  My husband and children have pointed out countless times that I've made quilts for others, but they are quilt-less.  A glaring omission that will be addressed this year.  Martina's Poetica quilt is next in the queue and will be my February project for ALYOF.

My last resolution relates to physical fitness.  Playing with the kids at the park yesterday made it quite obvious I'm not in the best shape of my life.  Healthier eating habits and more physical activity are my mantra this year so I can keep up with these kids:

So what are your resolutions for the new year?

Linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes and WIP Wednesday.

WIP-ing right along

As the week creeps towards the Labor Day holiday (and therefore the end of the month), my thoughts turn to monthly bee and swap commitments.  I've worked on a few ahead of time, but there are a couple of (really) tardy items.  Yep- there will still be that mad scramble to finish a few things, but at least I can count them all on one hand this time!

I had started my Love Circle Swap item a little over a week ago, but I needed to purchase more Essex linen to keep things moving along.  My partner wanted bright colors and listed stars among her likes.  I started with the Reverse Rainbow Star tutorial from Kat of Diary of a Flutter.Kat, made a few minor adjustments (all I did was make use of hourglass blocks and omit a row and a column, really) and voila:

 

All that's left is sewing everything above into a pouch.  My unnatural fear of installing zippers has had me poring over zippered pouch tutorials the past couple of days.  Hopefully, I've armed myself with enough knowledge to tackle the zipper without making a mess of things. 

In my previous post, I set a rather lofty goal of piecing eight A-Z Quilt-Along blocks at Sew Day over the weekend.  Even with pre-cutting the fabric, I only got through four in four hours:  Irish Chain, Jack in the Box, Memory and Louisiana. 

I skipped right over "K"- hadn't even picked a block, so now a little backtracking is required.  In fact, that's my strategy for being current for the next guild meeting.  I'll piece the "W" and "X" blocks and go backwards from there. 

Finally, I pieced blocks #3 and 4 for the Vintage Holiday Quilt-Along.  These blocks are pleasantly easy to make.   

Now that Pure Elements in Mystic Grey is finally in my hands, Martina's Poetica quilt will be added back into the ever-growing WIP rotation.  There may even be a progress report on it next Wednesday!

Linking up to W.I.P Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

 

W.I.P. It Good

Over the weekend my husband and I celebrated our 9-year anniversary.  We decided to take a trip to Napa, sans children.  After a relaxing weekend (in which I imbibed a little too much wine on an empty stomach and paid dearly for it), we returned home to the Bay Area at the tail end of a heat wave.  Missing the comforts of an air-conditioned hotel room, I nevertheless sat down to do a little sewing.

In my previous post, I was in the midst of receiving converging corners blocks from the ladies of the do. Good Stitches Love Circle.  All blocks arrived by the end of last week, and here they are sewn up together:

I played around with the block layout on the living room floor for so long that my husband finally suggested that I just pick them randomly from a pile.  Into a pile they went!  With the exception of a tiny bit of rearranging to break up all of the red-centered blocks, the random block setting worked pretty well.  My task this week is to piece the back and choose and prepare the binding fabric.

I also finished up some polaroid blocks for the *Picture Perfect* Polaroid Block Swap.  Using a tutorial by capitola quilter, this group is making the blocks without the background fabric.  I literally spent more time pulling the fabric from my stash than I did sewing these blocks.  The fussy-cut centers had been waiting for days for their white borders.  I'm ashamed at leaving these to the last minute when they were so quick and easy to do.

 
Though I finished the blocks to send in, I'm counting these as a WIP since I haven't made any yet to keep for myself.  Thank goodness I'm not so organized that I put the fabric away after I was done!

Completing these blocks inspires me to pick up a WIP that started off strong but got lost in the shuffle.

My poor girl says she's been waiting for her Poetica quilt for ages.  But what feels like ages to a 9-year old is a small pocket of time in the eyes if a quilter (it's only been 3 months since I started her quilt).  Anyway, after playing around a little with the block layout, Martina and I felt the top looked too busy.  She smartly decided she wants sashing between the blocks.  This is great as it gives me a little more time to work on sewing up the rest of the blocks while we wait for the fabric.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

Stacks of blocks

There's been very little sewing lately.  Just enjoying the lazy days of summer.  I did manage to finish up some blocks for Martina's Poetica quilt.

 

Just five more to go, and then I can start piecing the top.  Yippee! 

I also managed to knock out a few Patchwork Wheel blocks for a charity quilt.  Lots and lots of HST's were involved- 32 to be exact.  I don't mind sewing them, but I find trimming them down tedious.  Nevertheless, I love how these blocks turned out- scrappy blocks are becoming a favorite.

I've got another 32 HST's all sewn up, waiting to be trimmed.  Once that's done, these blocks will go quickly.

I haven't started the summer dress yet.  Summer's almost halfway over, so I'd better get going on this soon.  This weekend, a fellow guild member and I are planning on making clones of ourselves to make apparel construction a little easier.  Then I'll have no excuses left.

And I'm sure after the cloning is done, I'll probably need a drink.

Linking up to Lee @ Freshly Pieced.