Design Wall Monday

It’s Been Awhile….

I have been so busy the last few months that I really haven’t done much sewing. Why have I been busy? Because my precious little girl Cassie was born!!!! She will be 2 months old on Wednesday and I can’t believe how fast the time has gone! We cannot believe she’s here, it’s amazing how different she is from Alex in size and attitude. Alex loves his little sister, almost too much, since he always wants to kiss her when she’s sleeping and that wakes her up!

I managed to get a few things done in my office over the weekend, finally made a cover for Alex’s dresser and now it’s protected from scratches. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it’s nothing special just 2 different fabrics (construction equipment and Chuggington trains) with some batting. I didn’t even quilt it, just stitched a 1/4 inch around the edges.

I finally managed to finish the last diamond for the penultimate row of my hexagon diamonds quilt. At the same time I’ve been working on the black pieces I need for fill in at the top and right now I’m working on putting one of those in place. Everything is slow work since Cassie wants to be fed every few hours! 🙂 I really would like to finish this so I can put it in our guild quilt show this year. Plus it’s for our bed in the trailer!

I joined another group on Facebook for those that are making what is called the Insanity Quilt by Rhonda Pearce. I really don’t need another hexagon quilt to make, but I love the design!!! I bought 3/4″ and 1/2″ hexagon papers from paperpieces.com awhile ago so I could decide which size I liked better and I also bought the Studio dies that I needed to cut my fabric into the correct sizes. I got the quilt designed in EQ7 and it’s going to be almost 100″ x 100″!! I’m planning on using the 3/4″ hexis, the 1/2″ are just too small for me. So when hubby asked what I’d like for Mother’s Day, I found some Moda Marbles jelly rolls on Amazon and gave him that option. Since it’s a lot of diamonds and flowers, I can start working on them as soon as I get hexie diamonds finished. It’s really hard to NOT cut into the fabric and start working on it!! I have some Moda Marbles here that I’m using on another quilt that I will also use once I finish the other quilt (yeah I know something else to finish!). I still need to decide on the background color, but I’ll probably use a solid Kona, white or cream. I won’t need it for awhile since I’ll just work on the flowers and diamonds for awhile first.

Well, Cassie is up again, time to get her dressed and fed so we can go out for a walk – I have more baby weight to lose!!!! And since I just realized it’s Monday, I’m linking up to Patchwork Times!

Odds and Ends

Well since I finished the baby’s blanket this week I’ve been working on hexies! Don’t have any pictures of them yet, I’ll probably wait until I have all the diamonds for the row completed.

Alex spent the night at my parents last night so I pulled some pink fat quarters and set to work cutting everything out for baby girl’s signature quilt. This morning I managed to complete 22 of the 36 blocks I need for the top. I need to make a run to Joann’s so I can get more Kona white for the rest of the blocks. I thought I had more than I did! Hopefully I can buy a whole bolt and be set for awhile, I do have a 40% off coupon to use. If I do go to Joann’s (which I probably will), I’m planning on getting the yarn to start another blanket for Kimmie’s friend. I think I’ll be able to work on that while I take care of everyone else – it might just be my sanity check!

I also managed to finally iron and put together the first 2 blocks in the Good Night Irene sew along. I’m SO far behind on this SAL! It doesn’t really matter, I know I can catch up pretty quickly since I already have all the pieces cut out, I just need time (and energy) to sit at the machine to work on it. I’m hoping I’ll find some time once I can sit at the machine better – there’s no a whole lot of room between the table and my stomach right now!

We’ve now completed 3 EQ sessions with the other quilt guild in my area. I’m loving teaching again, even though I am now taking a month or so off for the baby. Everyone says they are learning a lot on how to use the software, which is wonderful! Can’t wait to see what they do with the assignment I gave them for April while I’m on “maternity leave”.

Gotta run, need to get 2 months worth of newsletters posted for our guild!

Design Wall Monday – December 23

I did it! I finally got the 2 borders on scrappy 9-patch! Glad to have another quilt off my in process list, especially since Good Night Irene SAL starts in just over a week! Of course I sat the other day and cut out pieces from a charm pack to make a thousand pyramid quilt. I had bought this 100 piece charm pack during a guild meeting when a vendor had come for our program. It’s a Benartex sampler of Fossil Fern (link is NOT where I bought it just the first link I found, but that is a GOOD price!) – which I LOVE! I had been planning to make a thousand pyramid quilt for awhile, so I bought the equilateral triangle to use on my studio, but it is a Go die. I think I can make this big enough to use as a lap quilt, we’ll see how long it takes to put this together. We are heading back to the MIL’s tonight, so I can’t work the rest of the day on this, BUT I can get some done before we have to get ready to leave. Plus I have most of the day tomorrow, the only thing I need to do for Christmas is make the ribbon jello!

I was just designing my thousand pyramid quilt in EQ in order to decide how many rows to make and how many pieces in each row and I have to say that I don’t like how they determine the counts for each row. For example, looking at the triangles, it counts them by one of the patches, not the top and bottom of the row. This gives you a skewed count of the number of patches needed to complete the row. So using the example to the right, it’s set for 2 horizontal and 2 vertical – yet really uses 3 triangles per row (not including those half patches at the end of rows). I’d rather it count and tell me exactly how many full patches I need to complete the row, instead of needing to count them up and make sure I have the number of pieces I need. *sigh* Maybe some day they’ll fix the way these work.

Better get working before Alex gets up from his nap and we need to head out!

Linking up to patchworktimes – Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday – November 25th

I seem to be flying on these applique flowers. Finished the last of them last night and got the first 2 prepped for applique. I got one of them finished this morning while Alex watched tv and started on the second one. I had thought to add the 2.5″ squares that go around the white block, but it seems to be harder to applique that way. So I’ve prepped the rest of the flowers on just the white block and will add the squares once the applique is finished. I will work on those as I work on completing the border for the scrappy 9-patch quilt. I am hoping to get the applique completed no later than Thanksgiving – Even if I have to take them to my mom’s to work on.

I have barely thought about quilting on either of these quilts, but I am pretty sure that on the scrappy 9 patch I’ll just do straight diagonal lines through the 9 patch blocks and the 4 patches in the border. Still not sure what to do in the solid black squares though. Scrappy 25-patch will probably be more diagonal lines and just some stitching around the applique to make them pop out. Here’s what I can’t decide – should I cut out the background from behind the applique or leave it? Since I’m going to be machine quilting I’m really tempted to just leave it there. Anyone have some thoughts??

I’ll be back soon with updates, I only have 3 quilts in progress 🙂

Design Wall Monday – November 4th

I managed to get a lot done yesterday on my scrappy 9 patch quilt. Got all of the 4 patch blocks for the border pressed and ready to be put together, pulled all the black squares I have cut out and matched up to the scrap squares. 7 9-patch blocks are put together, 6 more are almost put together. I think I’ll be cutting out more black squares this afternoon and hope to put more blocks together. I also have a bag full of fabrics that my mom gave me when she was cleaning out her stash, some of them are small pieces that are going to get cut up into 2.5″ squares. Unfortunately I have laundry to do too and that has to be done before I can get back to work. *sigh* The things a mommy has to do! 🙂

Had a check-up today with my OB and everything is going great! Baby’s heartbeat was 164 and is growing like she should. I’ve started to feel her moving around the last week or so and it’ll get better as she gets bigger. Other than fatigue I feel great!

Back soon with updates!

Well I was able to get 2 diamonds finished this week. I have my baggies ready for the next 3, and need to get working on basting them and putting the diamond together. I was going to work on hand quilting my first hexagon quilt so I could put it in the guild quilt show, but with everything going on this summer, I know I just don’t have the time. I’d rather concentrate on finishing hexagon diamonds and get it quilted for the show. I took a break yesterday though and decided to do something different. I pulled out my Cleveland Cavaliers cross stitch piece and worked on it for awhile. I haven’t worked on it since January, but it was quite easy to pick it back up and work on it. There’s a total of 15 pages and I had finished 1 in January. So I started working on page 7, there’s a lot of solid color so I figured it’d be easy! So when I need a break from the hexagons, I’ll work on my cross stitch. Hope to have more diamonds finished this week so I can put it all together this weekend.
Linking up to Design Wall Monday at PatchworkTimes

Hexie Diamonds Update

Oh my goodness does my arm hurt! I wasn’t feeling well this weekend and decided to take it easy today. So while Alex played (and napped) I spent the day working on my hexie diamonds. I got all 4 put together that I need for the next row. I’d start working on attaching it all to the main piece tonight, but I think my right arm needs a rest – too much repetitive motion!! Hopefully tomorrow I can start putting it together. I have 5 rows after this one and then the filling in of the top and bottom with black. Then I’ll be able to baste it and quilt it. I had intended this to be done before we went camping the first time, but now my goal is to have it done and ready for the guild quilt show in October. The colors aren’t too good in this picture, I took it in the family room and it’s a little late at night for good pictures! I like almost all of the colors in this row, except for the money fabric. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought that fat quarter, but at least I’m figuring out a way to use them!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at PatchworkTimes and HeLP for Hexies at Sarah Did It.

Design Wall Monday – June 3, 2013

I did it! I finally got the next row added on! I added the half diamonds to the next row since they were already done, now I need to get the 4 diamonds ready to finish off that row. Total of 6 rows and this will be completed, I am looking forward to being able to put it on the bed in the trailer! It’s getting harder and harder to get a good picture of this, I will most likely need to start taking multiple pictures and stitching them together in photoshop – that’s the problem with large quilts though! I am hoping to work on this solidly until it’s done, but I know that my plans always change. I will most likely rotate between this and the sampler that I’m hand quilting. I do still want to get that done and not have it sitting around collecting dust. As soon as I get the hexagon quilt done I can concentrate on hand quilting my first hexagon quilt for the quilt show. That has a deadline too!

Design Wall Monday – May 13, 2013

Well I managed to get 2 more diamonds completed the last few days. I finished the blue one during the guild meeting Tuesday and the pink one last night after we got home from camping. Two more diamonds and I can put the next row together. Unfortunately I need to put this aside for a little while so I can finish a cross stitch piece that is a present. I had started 2 pieces for my cousins twin for Christmas and just ran out of time to complete them. I have 1 more part to finish on the second piece and then I can put them both together.

I passed out the challenge fabric for the block exchange at our guild meeting last week, and now I need to figure out what my 2 blocks are going to be. I can’t get additional fabrics until I pick my blocks though. I also need to go shopping to get some fat quarters for the fat quarter exchange. They are due at our June meeting, so I need to get busy!

I am planning on going to Joann’s tomorrow to get some batting so I can finish some quilts. I’d like to work on the red, white and blue quilt for donation at guild. I also want to get my first hexagon quilt ready to be hand quilted. I’ve committed to putting it in our quilt show in October, so I need to get started working on it! I’ll finish the test piece once the hexagon one is done.

We had a speaker at guild last week that owns a quilt shop, Quilts & Sew Forth. Of course they brought products to sell. I don’t usually find anything that I want to buy, but I saw that they had a charm pack of Fossil Fern. 100 charms for $27!! I could not pass up that deal!!! Don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet, but it’s sitting here and ready to use for something!

Design Wall Monday – 04-15-13

I have decided to work on my hand quilting practice piece for awhile this past weekend in an effort to finish it and get my first hexagon quilt basted and in the hoop. I’d like to have it ready to go before we start camping so I can work on it while we are gone. If I can get the hexagon quilt completed this summer I can enter it into our guild quilt show in October! I’ve been expirimenting with different marking pencils/markers and I think I like the disappearing ones best. I don’t think I like all the chalk ones, hopefully they will come out of this since I started this using them.

I spent yesterday working on my Wiggly Whimsy quilt and I got all the rows put together. I’m not posting a picture of it yet because I need to take part of it apart and resew it because I somehow managed to mess it up last night. Hoping to get that taken apart tonight and put it back together tomorrow while Alex naps. I really like how it looks and I’ve decided to finish it for Alex to use in his bed. He’s starting to like sleeping with a blanket and he has to have one from momma!

I also finished up the last 2 diamonds I need for the next row in my hexagon diamonds quilt. Hope to start putting them on in the next few days. I’ve already pulled the baggies for the next row, so I have those to work on as well – prepping them to be sewn together. I am beginning to think I was overly ambitious in wanting this quilt completed for our first camping trip. So when I was out buying things we needed I found a nice blanket for our bed until I can get it completed. I can work on it while we are camping.

While I was putting the Wiggly Whimsy quilt together yesterday I was also working on the scrappy 9 patch quilt and putting the 4 patches together for the border. Since that is a long term project and I’m in no hurry I don’t mind using it as a leader/ender project. Of course while reading blog posts yesterday I saw a quilt on one of them that was all 9 patch blocks and solid squares set on point. I spent a few minutes designing it in EQ and thinking about how I could do it with the fabrics I have. It would look really cool as a 2 color quilt, but would also look nice scrappy. I just have way too many ideas in my head! I was perusing Pinterest today and saw directions on how to do a disappearing 4 patch block. Oh did that look cool! I have a ton of 4.5″ charms I cut from scraps with the value die on my Go that I could use to do this. Maybe with black squares and scrappy squares? I’ll have to see if I can figure out the best way to design it in EQ and play around with colors.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with pictures of a completed Wiggly Whimsy top!