Progress

Strings make such a mess that I can hardly wait to finish this project. I dash into my sewing room when I have even 5 minutes just to whip out another couple of string blocks.
The quilt, as I originally designed it, will take 304 5-inch string blocks. That design includes the heart surrounded by black and then surrounded by several rows of multi-colored string blocks to bring it up to a decent size. So far I've completed 107 blocks and I feel like I've been sewing forever.
I'm beginning to think a little square heart surrounded by black blocks is going to be just fine.

What are you working on?

Chris

Strings!!

My string drawers were so full that I couldn't fit in another string. Really. I mean it. So, instead of making a backing for Easy Street I decided to sort and organize strings. What I discovered was an overabundance of red black and white strings.  After fiddling around with graph paper I decided I'd make a red white black heart quilt.  These little string blocks finish at five inches and so far I've made about 100 of them.  The drawer closes now and I'm pretty happy so far with what I've got. What do you think?

Design Wall Monday - Cuteness

I'm on Step Two of Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery.  We are making a gazillion 72 3.5" string blocks.  They are SO CUTE!  I love making string blocks but I hate the mess they make while in process.  Just look at that tangled mess of pink strings.  I have three boxes of strings that I dug through to pick out all the pinks for my version of Orca Bay.  Apparently, I am not such a pink girl.  I found the most miserly pile of pinks you can imagine.  Nevertheless, I think my tiny blocks are adorable.


Head over to Judy's to see what other people are working on.

Head over to Bonnie's to see other people's progress on their Orca Bay Mystery.

Design Wall Monday

So, I went with  the Blue border instead of one of the reds.

This photo makes the right side look a little pink.  It's not.  Must be the light.  Night time photo - AGAIN!!

I have no idea why I went with the blue, really.  Maybe I'm just being stingy with my reds and didn't want to use them on a charity quilt.  OH, what kind of a small person does that make me??  Perhaps, I just wanted to use something more unexpected to borrow McIrish Annie's words.  Thanks to everyone who commented.

I know there is a lot of deliciousness posted on Patchwork Times blog.  Go check out what other lovelies you can find there.

More strips and strings

When we were going through my friend, Audrey's, quilting stash following her death a few months ago, we found a great tin full of 1-inch strips all bundled into various groupings by some plan known only to Audrey.

You know how I love a scrap challenge.

 Here are a few of them separated into two piles: lights and darks.  On the right are some of them after I cut them into 6-inch lengths.

 

Then I just started paring light with dark and got busy sewing strips together.  I repeated this step about a gazillion times.  Then I paired twosies with twosies and  sewed till everything was stitched into 4-strip patches.  Next I paired 4-patch to 4-patch until they were all sewn into 8-strip patches.  I trimmed all of these to 5.5" squares and went to the design wall.

Oh, how cute is this from a bunch of "scraps!"

 

Now I need to find a fabric for a narrow inner boarder and another for a wider outer border.  Any suggestions for colors?  I figure something that reads solid for the inner border - maybe black or red - and something with a small to medium size print for the final border.  Right now it measures about 30 X  40 and I'd like for it to be 40 X 50.  I think that would be a nice lap quilt size that I can donate to the VA Hospital for wheelchair-bound vets.

Every good act is charity. 

A [wo]man's true wealth hereafter is 

the good that [s]he does in this world to his [her] fellows.
 

                                             - Moliere

 

Who feels compelled to fix old-fashioned, sexist quotes.

Does that make me militant?

Design Wall Monday 7/12/11

I have been busy sewing and not blogging!  Obviously.

Here is what is on my wall today:

This is only 16 of the more than 50 blocks I've made in the last few days.

I went a little crazy.

Here was the impetus behind my frenzy:

This is just a small part of my strip stash.  Read that again: "A. Small. Part."  As in I must have at LEAST three times this amount of strips.
I started with the strips in the wire basket.  I separated them into lights and darks, putting aside most of the mediums because I like a high contrast in my scrap quilts.  I paired a red strip with a dark strip, sewed them together and sliced them in to various widths, most about 1.5 inches wide. Then I just continued adding lights and darks as in any traditional log cabin block.  I just couldn't stop.  Keep checking back, I'm sure I will be well over 100 soon.

Send help.

Be well.

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May UFO Finish!!

I can't believe that I have finished FIVE old UFOs.  Judy's UFO challenge has really helped push me to get things done so I can post my success every month.  Does it make me shallow that I crave the acknowledgement of others?  Shouldn't my own praise be enough?

SIGH.  It's not.  LOL!!  I really like to be able to post my finishes for everyone to see.  In fact, I don't think that, as adults, we get enough credit.  Who is telling us "Good job!" I fear that too few bosses do that.  Certainly our kids don't do it often enough.  It never occurred to me how hard a job parenting is until I had my own.  SO, I am on my own bandwagon to pat myself on the back and let everyone else do so too.

Try it on yourself.  Give yourself at LEAST 10 "Good Jobs" today and see how you feel tonight.  Did a load of laundry? Good Job!  Cooked a nice meal?  Way to go!  Finished a report at work?  Fabulous!  You Rock!

It's fun. Go out there and sing your praises.  Then go over to Judy's blog and drool over all the fabulous finishes.

February UFO Challenge

I DID IT!  I finished February's UFO.  It was  #10 on Judy L's Patchwork Times UFO Challenge.  It has actually been done for a week but I wanted to wait and post it at the last minute.

 

Despite the rather poor photo, I am very proud of this quilt.  With the exception of the narrow purple border, I didn't purchase anything for this quilt.

I came home from work one day to discover a xerox-sized box of fabric scraps on my porch.  The scraps were jammed in there so tightly that when I dumped it over, the scraps retained the shape of the box!!

My sister and I spent many days and nights pressing fabric scraps.  I made this quilt by pulling all the light and dark floral scraps that I could find.  I stitched string blocks on a paper foundation.

I hope everyone else is having success with their UFOs.

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So Many Quilts, So Much Stress

It has been dawning on me over the last few weeks that I am starting to feel controlled by my "hobby."  Quilting is my passion.  It makes me happy, relieves stress, and makes me feel Oh So Virtuous to have pretty things to show for the hours I hole up in my studio.

In preparing for Judy L's UFO challenge, I dug through my stuff neatly organized storage and found 12 UFOs in about 5 minutes.  The startling realization that I could identify 12 UFOs in so short of time shook me up a bit.  I started paying more attention to my piles other areas of carefully organized craft materials and I have identified MANY more UFOs, PIGS, and parts for potential, but as yet unidentified, additional projects.

Now I am feeling pressure to finish these projects and get things cleaned up around here.  Then....something new and pretty will catch my attention and before I know it I've got another project started.

Bits and Parts that could some day be some really great projects.

Here is what I am committing to myself to do about this stress:

1.  I will complete each month's UFO.
2.  I will use a UFO as the leader/ender while I am working on another project (I tend to just make 4-patches as UFOs).
3.  Since the bits and parts that are hanging around my studio stress me the most, I will come up with a design and spend one evening a week completing that project.

That's enough for now.

Does anyone else ever feel like this?

My UFO List

Oh the Shame. I'm not sure which is worse - that I have so many UFOs or that I could put my hands on 12 of them and take photos in fewer than 5 minutes!  These are just the ones that I've had hanging in plain sight for the last year few months so that I would be inspired to finish them.  It didn't work.  I am taking the leap with Judy Laquidara and committing to finishing these in the next year.
Here goes.

#1.  These are several BOMs that I won at my guild meeting at LEAST two years ago. They are so adorable, I have no idea why I have not put them together.






 #2.  This is a pattern I fell in love with in Mark Lipinski's Quilter's Home magazine (while he was still editor).  I cut it out, made several blocks, even prepared some of the applique and then it stalled.  It's the applique holding me up.  I hate the A word and I don't know what made me think that I would enjoy making this quilt.  BUT, I shall overcome my prejudices and finish this because I think it is SO DARN ADORABLE.


#3 SIGH.  I saw this YEARS ago in a book.  I spent a considerable amount of time collecting fabrics.  I put together a few blocks and I really don't like it.  So, I will make it into a lap quilt and call it done.

#4.  I hand pieced this center medallion on a fun family vacation about 5 years ago.  I would like to figure out some borders and get it finished.

#5 This is the start of a charity string quilt I made based on the String-X pattern from Quiltville.  It needs borders, backing, quilting, and binding.  Not much.


 #6. I have absolutely NO IDEA where this UFO came from.  I don't know where I got the inspirations, when I made it, nothing!  How scary is that?  I think it only needs to be sandwiched, quilted, and bound to be done.

#7.  I love this little quilt. It is so old that once again I have forgotten its genesis. I think it needs borders and the rest to make it a real quilt.  Maybe by next Christmas....




#8.  This little scrap quilt came to be by a bit of a circuitous route.  The scraps are from a memorial quilt I was commissioned to make (and DID make) a year ago.  I learned the quick block from some Los Angeles quilters I met at a retreat in Temecula, CA.  I want to finish it and give it to the woman who commissioned the original memorial quilts.  It needs to be quilted and bound.

. #

#9.  Blogger wants this to be horizontal.  It doesn't make a lot of difference in either case.  The photo looks more jumbled than the quilt actually is because it is folded over a hanger.  I have the inner border picked out and cut (the black strip) I need to decide on an outer border and backing then get the thing quilted and bound.  Yeah, not too much!!



#10.  This is another charity string quilt.  I abandoned it when I couldn't figure out what to use for borders.  I auditioned EVERYTHING in my stash.  My artist sister came over one day and I explained my problem.  She walked over to my stash, picked up a fabric I would NEVER have considered and, of course, it was perfect. Needs to be bordered, quilted, bound.

#11. I learned the Split nine-patch block in a class I took from Karen Combs many years ago.  It is my go-to Leader and Ender project when I don't have anything else in the works. I have seen this setting online many times.  Some call it Chicklets.  Sorry, it's been so long that I no longer remember the websites.  It is put together in rows.  I need to put the rows together, pick a border and get it quilted and bound.



  #12.  And finally, this gem.  It is one of my favorites and I don't think I'll be able to part with it when it is finished.  Like so many of our quilts, it has a story. In my guild, I have a reputation for liking to make scrap quilts with a special affinity for 1/2-square triangles.  One day, a very elderly quilter brought me a ream-of-paper sized box carefully stacked with completed 1/2-square triangles in every color and pattern imaginable.  Her eyesight no longer allowed her to quilt and she hoped I could use the little blocks.  Heck yeah! I figured I could make something out of them.  Well, I have made lots of little quilts from her box of  treasures.  This is the largest.  I trimmed them up to a uniform size and worked really hard to pull matching squares that would look good as stars.  I sashed it and there it sat waiting for border inspiration.  Audrey passed away a few weeks ago and I am kicking myself that she never got to see this quilt.  I plan to keep it so I will always remember her.

Thanks, Judy, for this fun challenge.  I think it will make 2011 very productive for me.

Ponder this:

              Nothing that we do is so important that it can't wait
               so we can spend time with family and friends.

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