December Report - The Year of the Finished Project

I completely missed posting how I did on my November goals last Thursday.  Last week was both hectic and tiring, so a post just didn't get written.  Better late than never.  So here's how I did on my Year of the Finished Project Goals.  

1.  Mon Ami
       Bind and label
            binding made, but not attached.

2.  Back to Square One
         Clue 9                                          Done
         Clue 10
         Clue 11

3.  Jigsaw
        Make 24 blocks














4.  Neutral Gems
         Make 4 blocks                                  Done

5.  Road to Brenham
         Make 24 quarter square triangles       Done

6.  Scrappy Stars
         Make 5 blocks

7.  Scrappy Trip Around the World
          Make 2 blocks                                  Done

Only 4 out of 10 goals were completed, but progress was made on all the projects.  Since that's my goal, is to do a bit each month, the challenge is working well for me.  

December is going to be a challenge.  The first week in December is already gone and I've not done much sewing at all.  It will be a busy month, but I have hopes that I can make some progress on all my projects.  Here's the goals for December:

1  Mon Ami
           Bind and label
           Mail 

2.  Back to Square One
            Clue 10
            Clue 11
            Clue 12

3.  Jigsaw
            Make 10 blocks

4.  Starburst
            Make blocks 1 to 5
            Keep up with new blocks

5.  Neutral Gems
            Make 4 blocks

6.  Scrappy Trip
            Make 2 blocks

7.  Scrappy Stars
            Make 5 blocks

We'll see how much gets done.  It doesn't hurt to dream big, but I also know that I really want to start Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery.  Check back in January to see if how it all turns out.  

I'm linking up with Lynn at Never Too Hot to Stitch for the 2013 Year of Finished Projects.  

Monday Design Wall - November 18th

This week is off to a rocky start.  Drama Teen woke us up at about 1:30 this morning with some type of stomach virus.  She's been throwing up and is running a slight fever.  We'll have to see how she's feeling when it's time to get her up for school, but I'm pretty sure she's probably not making it in today.

It was a nice weekend otherwise.  We did some much needed cleaning in Drama Teen's living space.  We still need to tackle her closet, but I think we'll wait till Christmas break to do that.  Even so I still got in a solid evening of stitching on Saturday and then was able to stitch most of Sunday afternoon.  The bits and pieces I've been working on the last few weeks finally amounted to changes you can actually see on the design wall.  All the 8.5" Log Cabin Blocks for Back to Square One are done and clue 9 was finished off by adding another border to that project.  

Back to Square One
by Judy Laquidara (pattern available here)

It's almost too big for the design wall.  Next are the star blocks that go with all those Log Cabins. 

Back in September I started a Scrappy Trip Around the World block, which I didn't like.  So I decided make a few more blocks using a controlled palette of green, yellow, and purple. 

Scrappy Trip Around the World
from Bonnie Hunter's Tutorial
(which can be found here)

I like this much better, so I'm going to make a two more and see how that goes.  I've only got one yard of that dark green.  If I like the resulting set of 4 blocks, I'll make blocks till I've used up the green.  That should give me enough blocks to make at least a throw sized quilt.  

Only two new puzzle pieces made it to the design wall for the Jigsaw quilt. 

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

So this one is coming along, just not as fast as I'd like.  This week isn't nearly as crazy as last week was schedule wise, so hopefully there will be more time to stitch.  

That's what is up on my design walls.  To see more of design wall Monday, check out Patchwork Times.  

A Day Off

As many know, I took a couple of days off work to stay home with the Drama Teen who had her wisdom teeth out Thursday.  Not the most glamorous use of vacation, but we figured we would at least get some rest, if not relaxation from staying home with a sleepy girl. Thursday was the day she needed the most babysitting, as she wasn't supposed to go anywhere without assistance   We kept her downstairs as the doctor warned us that stairs would be tricky that first day.   By Friday morning Drama Teen was almost back to normal, though still hurting just a bit.  

She doesn't look thrilled, but she is looking so much better than she did Thursday morning.   Her face is still a bit swollen but she's able to pull off her "really Mom" look again.   She discovered that she could manage marshmallows if she had luke warm "hot" chocolate to wash them down (the luke warm part was the doctor's orders).  It was cold and rainy in the afternoon, just right for luke warm "hot" chocolate.  (The luke warm part wasn't ideal, but she was determined to just deal with it).  She watched movies while I used my camera in an attempt to capture the rain drops on the kitchen window.  

The rain drops are kinda sparkly in this image.  Not really what I was after, but it conveys the mood pretty well.  

I've started a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt, but wasn't thrilled with the first block.  Rather than make more, I took a step back trying to decide what I wanted to do with it.  So while DT and I were hanging out, I decided to play around with an idea to use just two colors of scraps using a third contrasting color as the  diagonal in each block.  I have a lot of yellow and purple scraps left over from my first yellow and purple scrap quilt, so I played with around with that thought and came up with this. 

It's just 9 blocks, but it gives me a sense of how that concept would work out.  I may go this way.  I just didn't like the completely scrappy version.  

This morning it's laundry and a bit of housework.  I'm hoping to get DT out and about a bit this afternoon.  Hopefully I can get into the sewing room and play some more with my scraps this evening.  

A NewFO for Design Wall Monday

It's the last day of September, already.  Just three more months in 2013.  It's been a busy year, which may be one reason why it seems that time just flies.  This weekend was Drama Teen's last volleyball tournament with the Freshman team.  Just three more games before that season ends.  But she'll go straight from that to the high school swim team.  Then we'll start club volleyball in January, just before swim competition ends.  So 2014 isn't going to start off any less busy.  

I've been in the sewing room a lot the last week, but you can't tell it by what's up on the design wall.  I'm working on the Log Cabin blocks for Back to Square One, as well as more half square triangles for the Road to Brenham project and triangle in a square blocks for the Christmas Angels quilt. So not much new up on the design wall.  I have finished three more Scrappy Star blocks this month. 

Scrappy Stars is my oldest UFO and has been my leaders and enders project this month. I don't have room for the other 32 finished star blocks on the design wall right now, but this is what they looked like back in February. 

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

The other block that is up on my design wall is September's NewFO.  

If you don't know what a NewFO is, you should check out the challenge page over at Cat Patches.  I had hoped to be able to start Drama Teen's Batik quilt, but we haven't got the final layout worked out yet.  So I looked through my patterns to see if there was anything else I wanted to start this month.  A few months ago everyone was making Scrappy Trip Around the World quilts from Bonnie Hunter's pattern (which can be found here).  I loved how all those quilts looked and really wanted one of my own.   Since my scraps are getting out of hand that seemed like a good project to start now.  

Pattern is Scrappy Trip Around the World
by Bonnie Hunter.  Pattern can be found here.  

I made one block to test out the instructions.  I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go truly scrappy or pick three colors for a controlled scrappy look.  

That's it for both the design wall and the NewFO this week.  Check out Patchwork Times for more design walls.  Then hop over to Cat Patches to check out all the new projects.