WIPS: A Timely Finish

It's graduation week for Drama Teen, so it's been a bit busy here.  Sunday was Senior Sunday at church.  Monday night DT and I ran a few errands to get ready for the last end of school celebration and sleep over.  On Sunday, DT decided that we really needed another label for the The First Amendment quilt, one that had been signed by all the newspaper staff.  So that left me scrambling Monday night to get the second label sewn to the quilt.  The plan was to present the quilt during the end of the year journalism party yesterday.  That stitching was done and the quilt was wrapped up ready to go before I went to bed Monday night.  So now I can claim that all the graduation quilts are done!  Talk about just in time finishes.  

Here's the finished First Amendment Quilt. 

The First Amendment Quilt, pattern self designed

The First Amendment is printed in the center panel.

The panel was printed using the largest size printable fabric sheet I could find.  This quilt was for Drama Teen's journalism teacher, so that seemed to be the most appropriate theme.  The background fabric is a fake newsprint, which also seemed appropriate.  Trudy Lindemann did a wonderful job on the quilting as always.

A chain of stars in the borders.  

And loops in the star center.  

The quilt was gifted yesterday during the end of the year journalism party.  According to DT, Miss T loved the quilt.  I got a very nice hug when I got home.  Doesn't get much better than that in terms of being thanked.  

The First Amendment quilt is my forth finish this year.  Considering that I only finished 4 quilts in all of 2016 (the same for all of 2015) and it's not even June yet, this is looking to be one of my better years for finishes.  I'd like to have a shorter WIP/UFO list for 2018.  The First Amendment quilt was on my Second Quarter 2017 Finish Along list.  It was number two on my list, so I'm halfway to my goal for the quarter.  That's a good feeling too!  

Linking up with:
Let's Bee Social
Needle and Thread Thursday
Can I get a Whoop, Whoop
Second Quarter 2017 Finish Along

A Finish for the October One Monthly Goal

Normally I post on Monday and sometimes on Wednesday but this week we've had intermittent Internet issues, so I've not been able to get a post drafted.  Those issues seemed to be resolved, so hopefully I'll get this post written before we have to head off to work.  

It's the end of another month.  Which means it's time to report on the October One Monthly Goal.

The plan for October was to bind Allietare, the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt from last year.  Bonnie just posted the fabric requirements for this year's mystery, En Provence.  I really wanted to have Allietarer finished before starting on this year's mystery.   Trudy finished the quilting several months ago.  I just hadn't taken the time to get the binding made,  attached and sewn to to the back.  

This is where I was last Friday.  Only about 10 inches of hand stitching left.  This is also a good shot of the striped backing fabric.  I was afraid it would be a bit overwhelming, but it's actually not.  

The stripe actually looks pretty subtle when you stand back a bit. Here's the finished front.

Allietare
 Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quil
Started November 27, 2015, Finished October 23, 2016

The binding is the darker blue from the center.  It makes a nice frame for the rest of the quilt.  The patriotic colors worked so well with this pattern.  This is my favorite Bonnie Hunter Mystery to date. 

Since Allietare is being donated to QOV, Trudy kept with a patriotic theme and quilted a star in a star pattern over the whole quilt.  

Now I can start the 2016 Bonnie Hunter mystery with minimal guilt.  I say minimal because Celtic Solstice, Bonnie's 2013 mystery, is still in pieces somewhere in my sewing room.  With the graduation quilts taking center stage this year and early next year, it's not likely to get finished any time soon.  At least the 2014 and 2015 mystery quilts have been finished. 

This is the 10th month I've participated in the One Monthly Goal challenge over at Red Letter Quilts.  I've met 9 of my 10 goals so far this year, so the extra push has really helped me move projects along.  Hard to believe it's almost time to come up with November's goal. 

In addition to linking up with Heidi for October's Monthly Goal, I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday and Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop.  

Have a great weekend!  

A Much Needed Mental Health Day

August and September have been stressful months around the Life in Pieces homestead.  Things are starting to calm down a bit, though we are far from being back to what passes for normal around here.  Our work schedule allows us to take one day of our choosing off each month.  I've got a lot that needs doing at work, but My Guy suggested that I was probably in need of a sanity day.  If he's suggesting I need one that means it's probably past time.  So I'm home today with plans to do nothing but putter in the sewing room and hang out on line for a bit.  So that's my something to "whoop, whoop" over. 

The other "whoop, whoop" worthy item is that the sewing room has been cleaned up (I even dusted the blades on the ceiling fan).  The roof damage incurred in a storm just after Labor Day weekend required me to move a bunch of stuff out of the sewing room (that post is here).  So it just made sense to do a bit of deep cleaning and rearranging before I moved it all back.  So I'll get to spend my mental health day working in almost spotless conditions.  Since those conditions aren't likely to survive the day, I wanted to show off the space before it started to look more lived in.  

You enter the sewing room from the east, the design wall is set up across from the door on the west wall.  The door to the left of design wall is the closet.  It didn't get included in the clean up, that's a project for another time.  Scrappy Stars is still up on the design wall waiting for me to measure for the first horizontal borders.  

Along the north wall is the shelving that holds all my WIPs and in use fabrics as well as the TV.  The file cabinet holds fat quarters.  Next to it is my computer desk.  There is a little nook to the left of the computer desk, the books cases contain a mix of books from my fiction authors and notebooks filled with quilt patterns. 

The east wall has the door to the sewing room (left) and door on the right leads to Drama Teen's bathroom (the door is closed for good reason).  The bookcase has my quilting book collection.  

The cutting table and smaller second design wall are set up along the south wall.  Hopefully by the end of today there will be something up on the second design wall. The tubs hold fabric that needs to be washed, pressed and put away.  I'll get to that at some point, that's a project for another weekend.  

The sewing machine is in the middle of the room facing the north wall. The desk is one we picked up from Ikea when we lived near Houston, TX.  I had planned to finish it, but it works just fine unfinished.   

It's nice coming to work in a clean space.  Hopefully I can get all the borders on Scrappy Stars today and get caught up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I haven't even had time to get all my red scraps from July put away.  That will have to happen today so I have some place to put all my orange scraps.  

Have a lovely weekend.  I hope you have your own "whoop, whoop" moment today.  You can see more Friday celebrations over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.