April One Monthly Goal

At the beginning of the year I made a list of UFOs and each month I work on one of them. For April, my One Monthly Goal is to finish my Flower Paths throw quilt flimsy. This is one I designed in Electric Quilt a couple years ago.

I pulled out the project tub and I already have all the patterns printed out and apparently, I've also started cutting it out.

I'm hoping to finish it this month.

Linking up with One Monthly Goal.

Two More Small Finishes

Now that I've finally finished making the quilt labels, I'll probably finish binding my stack of quilts fairly quickly. Today I finished two more.

First up, I finished the Lake Cabin quilt I made from my scrap bin. I started this one last fall as a leader-ender project but a few weeks ago I decided to spend an evening working on it and that was enough to nearly finish it.

This was quilted with the Crystal Gem motif
available from Quilting Daily.

This one is likely to get donated to Comfort Quilts, but I haven't decided yet.

Next up, I also finished binding the crib quilt I made from the Aged Elegance fabric leftovers. I blogged about the quilting in early February so I won't repeat all the information here.

This was quilted with the Sharron edge-to-edge
pantograph from MyCreativeStitches.

This one is only crib size so it will likely be gifted as a baby gift someday. Or I may just donate it to Comfort Quilts later this year. I have a goal to donate 12 quilts this year.

Linking up with

Peacock Party

Off the Wall Friday

Log Cabin Finished

I finished this one as a gift for my mother, so it will be shipping off very soon. I decided to call it Myrtlewood, after the name of the street where I grew up.

This was actually a quilt I started in about 2002! Yes, more than 20 years ago. I don't remember why it got set aside, but it just kept moving with me until I decided a couple years ago to focus my efforts on finishing UFOs.

I used Quilter's Dream Green batting and Harmony variegated Violets thread. 

For this quilt, I actually used pantographs without any substantial changes. For the blocks, I used Quiltable's Open Diamond Quarter. (It looks like it comes as part of the Delicate Bay 10-piece set.) And for the border, I used their Sparkle Field E2E. This was my quilting plan.

It stitched out really well and I like how it turned out.

Oh, and it has a neat pieced back. 

I was surprised at how many of these fabrics I still had in my stash after 20 years, but I did have to use some new ones that aren't on the front.

I'm linking up with 

Midweek Makers

Wednesday Wait Loss

Needle & Thread Thursday

Put Your Foot Down

Finished (or Not) Friday

Friday Foto Fun

Tuesday ToDo #67

I've obviously taken a bit of a break from posting regularly and making progress on projects but this week I finished my March One Monthly Goal, just in time.

I've been slowly making progress on the Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street quilt I cut out recently. I've just been assembly-line piecing the components because it's easy to work on for just a few minutes at a time.

This morning I finally made up labels for the 5 quilts I have quilted, but not bound so finishing those quilts will now be my priority, especially the purple log cabin. So, my list for the coming week:

Finish binding the Myrtlewood log cabin quilt (so I can ship this week);

Finish binding Pieces of My Heart quilt;

Finish binding the Aged Elegance crib quilt;

Finish binding the Scrappy Lake Cabin quilt;

Finish binding Bordeaux Violette (Finger Lakes log cabin) quilt; and 

Trim the geese pieces for Easy Street.

Linking up with Tuesday ToDo.

Pieces of My Heart Finished

I've finished it! This is the Pieces of my Heart quilt I designed and finished for the Tickled Pink blog hop last year. I still need to make a label and bind it, but I did finish the quilting, which was my one monthly goal.

I spent way too long obsessing about the quilting pattern to use on this quilt, but finally I just stitched out the design my husband liked best.

For the batting, I used Quilter's Dream Green (again); this is my go-to batting because it is made from 100% recycled bottles. I didn't use fancy threads on this project, just some dark purple MaxiLock serger thread and red Madiera AeroQuilt thread.

This is the quilt design I ended up using.

I actually created a number of these pieces from purchased pantographs. I started with the Ironworks Border 3 by Celine Spader and I took a portion of it and created the octagon, the square corner block and the diamond shape. (Have I mentioned how much I love my ProStitcher Studio software?)

And I used the Sweet to the Core melon block from Quiltable and took off the rounded outline border and used it for the diamonds and then created a four-pointed piece for the Amethyst block.

Finally, I used the Welcome Spring sashing by Darlene Epp, with a small edit, to fill the space between the blocks and border.

Considering how wonky this quilt was, I am quite happy with how it turned out. I did learn some good lessons which I hope to remember for next time, like I wish I had basted down some of the seams because it created some extra fullness having them flipping back and forth under the seams. 

Update a couple days later: It's finished!!

I'm linking up with 

One Monthly Goal Finish

Design Wall Monday
Monday Musings

Brag About Your Beauties
Peacock Party

Cut Out a New Project

I spent several hours over the past few days cutting out a new project. It was inspired by a pile of scraps I've had kicking around on my sewing table for quite a few months and I needed to clean them up. This is roughly the color scheme, but since I mostly cut it out from scraps, there will be quite a bit more variation in the blocks.

I did cut quite a lot of the black with white prints from scraps, but I didn't have nearly enough so I cut some extra strips from yardage. And I cut the pointed aqua corner pieces out with my Cricut so that needed to be yardage as well. And, eventually, the outer border will also be from yardage.

Easy Street pattern by Bonnie Hunter from her book,
More Adventures with Leaders and Enders

I originally planned this as a leader-ender project, but it may end up being my actual project since I am having a hard time finding the motivation to work on my previously planned projects. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed. I just need to get started again. My break from sewing has already been too long

I'm planning to get started sewing blocks tonight during the Friday Night Sew In.

Tuesday ToDo #66

As planned, I spent the past week trying to come up with a quilting design for my Pieces of My Heart quilt. I've made a number of them so far, and I haven't really been happy with any of them.

I also had a rush quilting job over the weekend, but since it's a gift, I don't think I should show a photo. I doubt the recipient follows this blog, but it's not a quilt I made. It was a straight-forward edge-to-edge design along with sewing on the binding.

Today, I'm back playing with my quilting design. I'm currently trying to make the appropriate shapes by taking elements from pantographs I like.

I'll probably play with it for another week and then I'll make myself choose one and start stitching it. I don't want to wait until the end of the month again.

I'm linking up with Tuesday ToDo.

March One Monthly Goal

I did manage to finish my February OMG but I didn't get it posted in time to link up. Oh well. 

For my March One Monthly Goal, I am hoping to finish quilting my Pieces of My Heart lap quilt. I am hoping to quilt it with octagonal blocks, and not just an edge-to-edge design. The diamond and octagon shapes should be a new challenge for me.

I have a couple of design ideas started, but now I'll need to come up with a final design by the end of the month.

Finger Lakes Quilted!

Well, mostly finished; it still needs the binding. Most of the time on this one was the planning. I spent several days playing with a more-complicated design but in the end, I wasn't sure I'd be able to stitch accurately enough that it would look good, so I decided to use a less precise layout. The quilting itself took me several days to finish, but I'm happy with how it turned out. It's definitely been worth the effort.

This is the Finger Lakes log cabin pattern designed by Judy Martin. I made mine really scrappy with lots of fabrics from my stash and scrap bin. I used Quilter's Dream Green batting. I used Glide thread in the Raisin color, though I rather wish I'd also purchased a creamy yellow thread as well for the burgundy-colored areas so the quilting would show up better.

I quilted it with the Trellis set of pantographs designed by Karen Thompson. I also made a few other custom pieces by editing the pantographs. I created a long scalloped border piece by taking a quarter of the block, mirroring it, and repeating it. It looked perfect with the scalloped border design. I also created the straight border and circular corners from the leafy swag piece.

The blocks themselves quilted pretty quickly, but I spent quite a lot of time filling in all those partial shapes around the edge. This finishes up my February One Monthly Goal, though one day late. I forgot February was a short month. Now I need to figure out my project for March.