WiP - One More Day

August 31, 2015

Just a few short more hours until school starts. For one, at least. The Little Man doesn't go back until next week - which is going to be fun when Brother goes off tomorrow and he doesn't. I'm sure I'll miss them eventually, but right now I just want to shove them out the door.

My productivity was up this week as I started to pull my brain out of the summer haze and do serious work on a project before flitting off to the next one. Don't worry - there's still way too many projects going on at once - I just made sure I finished one major step on each one before working on another.

The finish, of course, was this month's t-shirt quilt. Delivered, blogged, totally on schedule!

Then I made all the Not-Quite-Flower blocks and threw them on the design wall for a stewing period. They first went up the with strong reds on the outsides, but after moving this one here and that one there, I think I like this layout better. But not enough to commit and sash them up quite yet. Maybe a design wall isn't that helpful...

Then I pulled out my scrap solid bin and started the long process of piecing two Minecraft quilts. I'm approaching this one as a Block of the Week - I need 12 for the commission quilt and 16 for the Dude's quilt, with some block overlap. {Both want creepers. Obviously.} I'll tackle everything I can from the scrap bin before I have to order the rest of the fabric.

And finally on the piecing side, I decided on the dancing sashing for my churn dashes, so I slowly started them as leader/enders. It'll be interesting to see how it looks - it's not a setting I've ever done before.

My final project was getting this little doll quilt quilted and partially bound. My husband might be going to visit family this month, so I want to get some of the birthday and Christmas presents done to send with him. Saving shipping! Which means my binding list will finally be knocked down!

This little piece was made from the leftover cuttings from A Princess Picnic. Every princess needs a matching quilt for her dolly, right?

Cora's T-Shirt Quilt - Finished!

August 28, 2015

Feels like forever since I've had a finished post! And I even have a stack of stuff waiting to be bound, but...summer. Always blame summer. Who wants to be handling a heavy quilt with flannel or minky backing in the summer? Let's just ignore the fact that I have air conditioning.

Anyway, this is a lovely mixture of races and memory shirts for a local girl. Which ends up being one of my strangest race shirt quilt - we have not run a single race together. I mean, heck, I ran two races with my January t-shirt quilt owner, and we didn't even live in the same state, much less the same town.

But Happy Girls, the blue on the upper right - same day as Priest Lake. Negative Split, the bottom of the third column in the middle, was the Fourth of July during my husband's sudden deployment. And it's a crime that I haven't managed to do Bloomsday since I moved back!

But anyway, it's a usual t-shirt puzzle quilt, with some added flying geese and strips as filler. Quilted with an allover swirly/wavy/twirly thing, which has to be my favorite quilting design. Adds a ton of movement!

Plus you can hide hearts in it, for a mom gifting her college-bound freshman with a quilt of memories.

The backing {and part of the flying geese} is a green swirl from Joann's, and the gold binding and filler {I don't really think she's a Packer's fan} is a Lotta Jansdotter print.

{The label will be filled out upon delivery.}

54x64"

WiP - T-shirts and UFOs

August 24, 2015

Sewing work was a bit slow last week, as we had VBS in the mornings, and several afternoons I was just too darn tired to do anything else. I think our church holds VBS this "late" in the season to remind us what teachers are about to go through, and to be nicer to them. I know I will be.

One more week until school is in session around here, and I will have two days of complete freedom! You know, to go to the grocery store without having to get the car cart.

So stitching last week was limited to the t-shirt quilt, which was finished up for quilting on Saturday.

And now the binding is all prepped and it will be a finished quilt by Friday! The client wanted it to be a surprise, so no pictures lingering about the internet, just in case.

A photo posted by Kate (@katiemaequilts) on Aug 22, 2015 at 12:44pm PDT

I also quilted the Halloween scrap quilt, continuing the very subtle theme with pumpkins. Pumpkins are fun to quilt.

Then I worked on my Not-Quite-Flower blocks, not getting terribly far because some of the pieces I needed were buried in the debris from the great sewing room move. I finally unearthed the yardage and the last three should be finished up this week.

And then finally, during the move, I made stacks and stacks and stacks of UFOs. Once things were fairly settled {sort of}, I grabbed one - the RSC'14 - and got to work. The original plan for sashing and cornerstones involved extensive piecing - similar to the nine patch cornerstones about halfway down this page.

But that meant I had to cut a billion or so 1.5" strips from my scraps, and I kept putting it off. Plus, really, 3" sashing on 9" blocks is a little much, and there's so much color from the churn dashes anyway. So I scrapped the first plan and decided to go with plain old sashing - especially since I adore the sashing fabric anyway.

Of course, now, I'm debating the "dancing sashing" from Bonnie Hunter. Then I don't have to match up the short sashing seams across the looooooong sashing seams. And I don't have to cut long sashing, and pin long sashing, and basically, deal with long sashing. And it gives the churn dashes a bit more movement.

I don't have to make the decision for a few days - I've still got plenty of short sashing to sew - but if you have an opinion, feel free to share. Unless it's the extensive piecing sashing. Then your opinion doesn't count.

WiP - Separation of Kid and State

August 17, 2015

First, the cat is still alive. Eating lots and generally acting like he wasn't dying. He's still terribly skinny and unhealthy looking, though - so who knows?

The other news this week was I finally snapped after stepping on the millionth toy car that kept appearing between my sewing machine and ironing board. Even though there was a huge space just past that.

And so we separated, using the toy storage unit and kitchen and my fabric bookshelves as a double-wide barrier. I'm still in the process of getting everything in order - on both sides - but it's already making me happier. I sacrificed the window light for wall space, which means...

...I finally found a wall to put up my design wall! And Flower! Which is, like so many other things this summer, going horribly awry. The middle block is correct. All the rest? Wrong-o! Since I didn't discover it until five blocks in, I'm just going to finish the blocks "wrong" and leave the right block in the middle. Sigh.

So I'll be using all my concentration to put together my t-shirt quilt correctly! Everything is cut out, the backing is the green, and the gold is filler to make the quilt a bit bigger.

And that's pretty much all I'm working on! Although I'm finding ALL the WiPs as I reorganize, so I'm making a long list of what to do next.