My parents came last Thursday and took my girls to their house for 4 days – lots was accomplished so hang on!

Boxed In Quilt

Barb did quilt my quilts before she came back into town.  This one is quilted with a leafy/berry design that mimics some of the fabric on the quilt.  It really is a perfect accent.  I also have the binding machine stitched on – now I just have to do the handwork.  I think the brown binding will really help to ‘close’ this quilt and be the perfect last touch.

 the Mystery Quilt:

Barb also quilted the mystery quilt before her return.  This one has sort of an angular feathery type design with a teal thread – again – the perfect complement to what I was doing.  I still have to add the binding – hope to finish that up this week.   

Block-A-Palooza Quilt

 

This was going to be my project for today.  BUT baby decided differently.  She woke me up at 3:30 and made me finish HER quilt.  I spent the rest of the day exhausted and still not able to sleep.  All that’s really been accomplished on this one is pondering how exactly I’m going to finish it off…

the Bloom Quilt:

Progress made – the binding is all hand stitched on – I haven’t done non-wall hanging size quilts in awhile so this took longer than I remembered – but it was still fun and relaxing (I really do like the hand stitching portion).

A look at my chart:

Size of yo-yo's	Quanity Made	Goal	% Complete
1 (largest)	16	18	89%
2	14	54	26%
3	38	48	79%
4	56	48	117%
5	44	64	69%
6 (smallest)	45	40	113%
TOTAL	213	272	78%

If you look at last week’s you’ll see that I’ve added 42 more yoyo’s to the list and I’m 78% complete!  You’ll also see that some places I’ve made more of one size than my ‘goal’.  Well – that’s just going to happen.  I don’t have to follow EXACTLY the pattern – I’m just going to make what works and keep an eye on what has worked in the past.  I want to finish up as many of the large yoyo’s this week as I can so I can start sewing them onto the quilt. I think I’ll start with those and then add the smaller ones where needed.

The Matryoshka Project

COMPLETE! The hand stitching part went together way quicker than I thought it would and these cuties are heading to the bride to be later this afternoon.

Project QUILTING – Large Scale Print

I’m going to give you a quick and dirty look at how ‘Spring Convergence’ came to be… The cuts have been made above.  As you can see I swapped some of the hummingbird fabric out for a piece of wavey blue stripe. My match lines are drawn to make the curved sewing easier.  I did have a fairly curvy area that was not so ‘easy’ as you can see above.  Later on – you’ll never even see this little oops :)I added one more little curved edge of the blue stripe into the top of the right piece…it just needed to happen… And you can see I rotated the orientation of one of the fabric pieces before I started the convergence. The first convergence is complete.  I added a few more strips of stripes into here as well.  This photo shows the stripes I added into the piece horizontally and the skinny little striped boarder to break things up a bit. I appliquéd some of the large scale flowers and birds onto the quilt and then did some free motion quilting with my Janome.  It still wasn’t right.  So, I made some yoyo’s (you know I’ve been into yoyo’s lately).  With the way that I had put my appliques on, the yoyo’s had to cascade through the center of the quilt.  I really like how it looked and its’ something you don’t see too often in pieces.  More was still needed (of course!).  I found some fun little circle mirrors and glued them to the center of the flower yoyo’s.  This quilt is still hanging on my wall and I really love it.  It’s not even my typical colors but when a quilt tends to ‘create itself’ it always makes me happy!

Please don’t forget to VOTE for your favorite entry and comment on this post:  http://kimscraftyapple.blogspot.com/2011/03/time-to-vote-for-project-quilting-large.html

OWLS

A friend of mine made a request for an owl in blue and green for her two adorable little boys’ Easter baskets.   I wasn’t sure if I’d get to them but my ‘free’ weekend made it easy peasy to complete.  They’ll be heading in the mail to her today. 

 

 

The Glitter Workshop

I managed to complete my goal of stocking up The Glitter Workshop with some fun spring-time jewelry and even a couple of patchwork kites. 

 

I delivered the goodies on Friday and had a really nice chat with the owner and my friend, Naomi.  If you haven’t seen her shop yet – when you’re on the West Side of Madison it truly is a must!  There are just too many adorable handmade and vintage goodies to adore (and buy!).  This Friday and Saturday she’s holding ‘The Spring Vintage Fair’.  Madison’s best in vintage come together for an extravanganza of kitsch! April 1, 5-9 preview night with wine & treats and April 2, 105 pm with cupcakes and more vintage galore!

Rag Quilt for Baby

My babies are born into a family of quilters and tend to have a quilt collection before they even arrive.  I like to make them cozy and warm rag quilts. 

This one is extremely simple.  I think once baby is born and we know what her name is I’m going to appliqué it onto the quilt blocks.  For now, all that’s left is the first wash.  I discovered the hard way to not do this in my front loader so I just need my hubby to hook up are old top loader in the basement and we’ll get this one finished off. 

Patchwork Squared Modern Solids Quilt Along

 

I have my fabrics picked out and ready to start the Modern Solids Quilt Along.  This is the first time I’ve EVER even owned solid prints (even the black fabric I use isn’t technically ‘solid’) so this is going to be a challenge.  Mistakes are not easily hidden with solids (pretty much impossible to hide actually…) so precision is truly going to be my challenge with this one. 

I do have another challenge – this baby of mine should be joining us sometime in the next four weeks – we’ll see how that works this project.  I’m thinking this will be my excuse to get at least still a little bit of sewing in even after the baby. 

To read more about what’s going on with this quilt along check out this blog:  http://www.patchworksquared.com/2011/03/modern-solids-quilt-along-week-1-intro.html

 

Fabric Block

One of my favorite Local Quilt Shops (LQS), Mill House Quilts offers grab bags of scrap fabric.  I just love these bags – you never truly know what you’re going to get and it’s a great way to add to your stash.  Well, one of my latest bags had this really fun large scale floral print on black flannel.  I decided that I wanted to make a block for the baby to play with.  This is what I came up with.

It was really fun to make and my two older girls (and their papa) have already had good times with it.  I definitely want to make more – maybe in some different shapes….

Ginormous Bag

A friend of mine made these bags at the last QuiltsbyBarb Quilt Retreat.  I LOVED them and she was nice enough to share the pattern with me.

This is one BIG HUGE bag!  It took six fat quarters for the exterior and another yard and a half for the interior – but I LOVE it!  It’s going to be great for hauling things around – I probably could even carry my baby in it…if that were a safe thing to do.

I rarely make myself things but this bag is for me.

Goals from last week:

• make a patchwork kite (or two) for theGlitterWorkshop COMPLETE (sort of…I gave her two that weren’t getting much attention in my etsy shop)
• make some spring jewelry for theGlitterWorkshop COMPLETE
• stay on track with my yoyo goal COMPLETE
• finish up my Project QUILTING Challenge piece COMPLETE
• start work on two custom ordered owls COMPLETE
• finish up matryoshka ornaments COMPLETE
• make a quilt for baby #3 COMPLETE

WOW!  What an amazing week of accomplishments!

Goals for this Week:

• Finish piecing the Block-A-Palooza Quilt
• Finish binding the Mystery Quilt and the Boxed in Quilt
• Make some more fabric blocks
• Wash the baby quilt to make it ‘rag’
• Start sewing some of the yoyo’s on the Blossom Quilt

***I’m loving that my ‘goal’ list is becoming less and less ‘urgent’***

 

A look back:

• WIP Wednesday – Round 1
• WIP Wednesday – Round 2
• WIP Wednesday – Round 3
• WIP Wednesday – Round 4
• WIP Wednesday – Round 5