Weekly Progress - #economyblockalong

I know, I know - I'm not a cool kid on Instagram. In fact, I can't even be if I wanted to, since someone {not naming any names but it starts with C and ends with...C} knocked my phone to the tile floor. Buh-bye, fancy phone. Hello, old phone.

Anyway, the owner of the Vera Bradley fabrics and I had many discussions over the best use of the fabric. Eventually she came up with this picture.

And I laughed, because of the super trendy Economy blocks. And then I laughed some more when I realized I owned the book with the pattern. So with a bit of fiddling to make it work with the sizes I had, I came out with this:

My Blue Heaven - Strawberry Fields from Material Obsession

That was the biggest project of the week, though I managed to put the binding on this:

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style - Finished!

And as a leader/ender, put together this:

The panel pieces were already cut out, so I just paired them up with some 1.5" strips and whipped through to a finished project. Two, actually - the second one needs to be quilted and bound.

I also went though my pink bin and cut out my pieces for the weekly churn dash - sadly, no Sandy Gervais Valentine's! Mostly because I use them so much that only the smallest of scraps remain.

This one is Chez Moi, and ended up in Twinkle and Frolicking Pinwheels.

And I started cutting down scraps into 4" and 3.5" squares for a reverse heart quilt. It will be...very pink. I hope my eyes can handle it.

And I made an iPad cover for my sister-in-law for her birthday.

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Celtic Solstice @ Quiltville

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style - Finished!

So...this quilt. Bittersweet, on so many levels.

See, our son in Korea lives with a foster family. It's about the only thing that's helped in the almost-two-year process of bringing him home - at least he's not in an orphanage, and from the pictures and videos, his foster mom seems to being doing a great job.

So as a thank you, I wanted to make her a quilt. And I chose the block, Road to Oklahoma, because at the time, we lived in Oklahoma and I really thought he'd be with us before we moved.

I scribbled out my own pattern - and I still can't decide if it would have looked better if I did a full half block out, with the four patches continuing as well as the star. But I do kind of like the four patches as rings.

The whole home-to-Oklahoma thing didn't happen, so I purchased the fabrics during the move. {Little place in Sun Valley - great customer service when you realize you added wrong and didn't have enough purple, months later.}

My mother-in-law actually picked out most of the fabrics - the blue is the same as the border in her Ripples and Reflections. Bold batiks and Kaffe Fassett are very far out of my comfort range, but these work amazingly well together. It's all based on a purse the foster mom has had with her whenever she visits the agency.

The backing is purple flannel - basic and cozy. The binding is more of the gold - when I added less on the purple, I added more on the gold, so there was just enough for binding. So it was totally planned!

The backing shows the quilting better than the front - a freehand swirl. I'm not great at it, but I can do it, and fill in the space consistently, and easily get out of an area after filling it. So it's progress.

I have the label ready to stitch down. Nothing on it yet - I want to find someone local who can write Korean. Because an English label doesn't help much in this case!

And at this point, my toes were frostbitten, so I snapped one last shot and hoped everything would come out, because I was NOT going back out there. We're well into the negatives with wind chill.

Oh, look - CC finally started using her bed! Maybe we can finally co-exist in the sewing room!

No, wait, never mind.

She may look sweet and innocent, but this is the stuff of horror movies. Sewing nicely along, then KAPOW! Claws out of nowhere! My arms look like they've been slashed by teeny tiny razor blades.

But anyway. Foster mom's quilt, check. Court date, check. Just need to make the Little Man's quilt and make it through the court process/embassy appointments, and we're finally done with this thing!

72x72"

Linked:

Whoop Whoop @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

TGIFF @ Quokka Quilts

Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Link A Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

I Quilt @ Pretty Bobbins
Finish-Along @ The Littlest Thistle {FAL List}

February Goals

I'm trying to decide if I should go big for February's goal, or be conservative since it's only 28 days. And I should spend some of those days cleaning out the Little Man's room.

But eh - I don't have a race until May 18, so I have all my training time to spend cleaning in the sewing room, so...

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

It's totally cheating, since it just needs binding, so it's pretty safe to say I'll get it done this month. Probably even this week.

I also want to get the binding on Four Patch Frenzy. But first I need to find the binding. Which I bought last week. And already vanished into the piles in my sewing room.

Which brings me to my next task - I want to spend 15 minutes every day organizing the sewing room. Because I lost the binding. And a table runner pattern, which I need for a class in March. And my list of stars for the FQS-Along - and I literally found it last week and lost it again. Aah!

Ahem. Anyway. That's about it for binding, unless I make headway in the pile of table runners.

I'd like to complete Cat Tails to a top, mainly so CC will stop attacking it. She finds fabric cats very offensive.

I want to make the top for the Little Man's quilt. I'm appliqueing a sock monkey, so I need to do some figuring and fabric ordering. The rest of the quilt is strip pieced.

I want to get as far along this project as I can - a friend sent me scraps from Vera Bradley, and I want to get the completed project back to her before we go to Korea in March. The grey {Kona Silver} is the background fabric.

And of course, keeping up with FQS, Celtic Solstice, Winter BOM, and Weekly Churn Dash - so excited this month is pink! I need to do some damage to my pink box. It's a little...overflowing. For starters, I want to frame these panel blocks for a wall hanging, and do a reverse heart quilt.

Linked:

A Year of Lovely Finishes

Something Old, Something New @ Never Too Hot to Stitch

Weekly Progress - Tape(r)

Tape and taper contributed a lot to this week.

On my quilty finishes, I tried out batting tape. Usually I franken-batt with a zig zag stitch, but I wanted to try the tape to see if it was faster/better. Also because I just had to get that little triangle in place.

Verdict: eh. No faster. Feels like it's holding just as "strong." Kind of a pain to wrestle batting on the ironing board vs. through the sewing machine. {Note: I do have CC trying to claw her way up anything draped over the ironing board. YMMV.}

The taper led to an epic finish - knocking nearly ten minutes off my personal record.

And the taper also led to lots being done in the sewing room, since I was full of nervous energy and couldn't run it off.

Finished

Owl Always Love You

Quilted

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

Working on the binding!

{Those are bow ties...not butts.}

Four Patch Frenzy

Don't even have binding for it yet. I took it to my long arm rental time as a backup, if-I-still-have-time thing. And then Flirt didn't happen, so I had time. Which makes me sad! Somehow I totally misjudged my backing for Flirt, so I couldn't quilt it. Planning on getting a new back and going back tomorrow! And maybe getting some binding for Frenzy. Eh.

Piecing

Obviously I finished piecing Road to OK - that was a biggie.

After that was done, I worked on borders for Central Park Sudoku.

And a churn dash of the week - this leftover from Big Blue, my largest quilt ever, was an obvious finish for the month of dark blues.

And here's the four blues together!

{Don't mind the feet. The feet wouldn't move. Neither would CC.}
Then I pulled out another UFO, Cat Tails, pieced together the last few cats, and worked on the layout. It exceeds my design wall by a bit, but I think I have a plan worked out.

And some Celtic Solstice leader/enders. I need to do some pressing and shuffle these pieces into blocks!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Weekly Progress - Finishing Machine

What do you do when you used to devote hours to running and now you're firmly in your taper?

A lot of sewing.

This coming week will be even more productive in the sewing room, with a whole three miles to run and no strength or cross training. Oh, and a measly little half marathon at the end of the week.

Finished

Heart Table Runner

Chevron Baby Quilt top

Piecing

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

Pieced the inside and started on the borders. Are those borders? When you're continuing part of a design into the first border, does it really count?

Churn Dash of the Week

These are my very oldest scraps - my mother made dresses out of this material when I was in middle school. Let's just go with over twenty years old. I wore the dress to a handbell concert in Washington DC, and fell off the stage at the Old Post Office. Ah, memories.

Fat Quarter Stars
It's hard to come back to a project like this when you can't remember where you're at. I don't remember if I'm done with the online quilt along, where my list of the 9" stars is, and...so I made this star. At some point before next month, I'll try to figure out where the heck I am with this project!

Quilt Doodle BOM
And then I started a new BOM. Technically, it's a row-of-the-month hosted by Quilt Doodle, but she said it's winter-themed, so I'm hoping to make one block a month for a January-ish wall hanging for my mother. The blocks are 10" and the wall hangings are supposed to be about 30x40", so it should work out.

Obviously Mr. Snowman will be getting button eyes.

And Celtic Solstice is still a leader/ender project. I went back and forth on turning the chevrons to make a star, and not piecing the second block until I was really sure. But after seeing other people post their various versions, I'm sure I want the star. So here it is!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways

Weekly Progress - Tops and Stops

Well, I survived my hardest week of training in, um, probably forever. I've never done a running plan with a 12-mile long run. Longest I've ever run pre-race was just shy of 11, and that didn't include a week of heavy duty sprints and tempo runs beforehand. Ow.

But now I am tapering and foam rolling and icing and treating my legs like princesses. Princess who take Epsom salt baths instead of bubble baths, that is.

And sewing! I've done some of that, too!

Road to Oklahoma - Washington Style

Stalled out when I realized I didn't calculate my yardage right. And did I mention I bought this fabric last summer in Sun Valley? Oops. I called the store, emailed with the very nice owner and I think the right fabric is on it's way. Otherwise...

But hey - look! I got my design wall off the floor!

...and the countdown to CC pulling it down begins.

Churn Dash of the Week

This is one of my very first fabric purchases, some eleven years ago. It was supposed to become a pillow, I think. Instead, it became a doll dress last year, and then relegated to the scrap bin.

Flirt Marks the Spot

Ever walk into a quilt store, spot the perfect border print immediately, then wander around for thirty minutes because really, the first one can't possibly be the best one?

Yeah. The first one was the best one.

Another project in the bag for long-arming!

And once Flirt was done and I hit a dead end on Road, I went back to whipping up HSTs for in between my sprints. Because I'm fun like that. Almost all the chevrons are triangled-up now.

Hmmm, I may have more tops done by the end of the month than I have time to quilt them...

And finally, Celtic Solstice has been relegated to leader/ender status. Four 54-40 blocks are done, and there's various pieces of each step scattered about the sewing room.

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways

Weekly Progress - HSTs

Somehow I got stuck trimming down bunches of HSTs this week. And I bounced around on a couple different projects - product of not being in the sewing room for a couple weeks. You'd think I'd chose something that doesn't involve so much trimming!

The final layout for Celtic Solstice has been revealed! And I'm changing it. I prefer the stars from the chevrons this way over the boxes in the original design.

CC is delightful, as always.

More HSTs in the Road to Oklahoma {Washington style} quilt. All the four patches are made, all the HST are sewn but not trimmed. I'm working through it a block at a time, trying to get all the seams turned the right way so that everything nests up nicely.

And look, I got a design wall! Just need a place to hang it up. So that CC can tear it down.

AND {obviously I missed sewing over the holidays} I finished off the baby owls top early last week. Backing is purchased, binding is prepped...and the baby shower isn't for a couple weeks! I just have to schedule some longarm time once I have a couple more things to quilt.

AND {I know, right?} I decided on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for this year. I'm going with sweet and simple churn dashes and showcasing some of my favorite scraps. This is the border from my Layer Cake Quilt Along which was made with one of my all-time favorite lines.

AND {seriously} since I had the blue bin out, I cut out the squares for the chevron baby quilt. Then I cut some Kona Bone. Then I sewed them. Then I ran sprints, and in between each mile repeat, I cut them apart and trimmed.

Now I have this! And the knowledge that I can run four miles at sprint pace. With a breather in between.

And because I'm not allowed to work on the new without a bit of the old, I'm slowly sewing together Flirt. There's a LOT of seams to be matched up, so I can only handle two or so in a row. But I should be done this week and then it's time to decide on a border!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Celtic Solstice @ Quiltville

Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways