The Best of 2019 at Life In Pieces

As 2019 winds down, I start to look back at the year.  Cheryl over at Meadow Mist Designs encourages a review of the year's blog posts in her 5th "Best of" linky party. 

So here is my Best of 2019 Life in Pieces posts.  

1.  Most Views (615):  November One Monthly Goal - Bordering Twinkle Stars.

Twinkle Stars

Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm still working to get the borders on this quilt, but I keep getting side tracked with new projects. Twinkle Stars started as a Rainbow Scrap challenge project. Hopefully it will make it all the way to finished quilt early in 2020. 

2. Most Comments (34):  Finally a Finish

 Sophia's Closet (Vintage Dresses)
block pattern by Charise Randell

Vintage Dresses (Sophia's Closet) is another long time favorite project.  Getting this project to the finish line is one of my biggest accomplishments for 2019.  

3.  My Second Favorite Finish:  Finally A Finish (apparently this is a favorite blog title for 2019 too).  
 

Inverted Star (Second Star to the Right)
 Inverted Star block by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads available from Blueprint 

Inverted Stars is another Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt that's been a lot of fun to work on.  Adding on the alternating up/down star border was so worth the effort.  Vintage Dresses is my favorite finish, but this quilt is a very close second.  

4.  My Favorite New Project:  Stormy Stuff

Storm at SeaPaper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

Storm at Sea was a class offered by the local quilt shop. When My Guy saw my planned colors and layout, he said this one should go on our bed when it's done.  So that's the plan. I've still a couple of borders to add to finish this one off. Hopefully that will happen early in 2020.  

5.  Most Linky Party Participants (13): Week 3 of 2019

The 15 Minutes to Stitch linky party goes live every Sunday.  Since 2011 it's been one of my weekly goals to stitch for at least 15 minutes each day. It helps me keep my projects moving. The linky party started in later 2011, but I stopped it in 2012 or 2013 due to lack of interest.  In 2017, there was enough interest in the concept to start up a new linky party.  The plan is to continue the linky party in 2020.  

That's my top 5 for 2019.  You can see more "Best Of's" over at Meadow Mist Designs.  

Finally A Finish!

It's been a nice long weekend. I have some vacation that has to be used or I give it back, so I was able to take last Friday off.  It's been nice to get some extra time in the sewing room for a change.  I used my time wisely, Vintage Dresses is finally finished. 

 Sophia's Closet (Vintage Dresses)
block pattern by Charise Randell
Started January 10, 2016
Completed November 1, 2019

Trudy custom quilted it, some of the dresses have some very cool details.

I can't pick a favorite dress from the set, I like all of them. 

The backing is a Connecting Threads sale fabric that I had ordered specifically to use for backing a quilt.   

When it came time to draft a label, I didn't want to just keep using the pattern name, I wanted to give it my own spin.  My Guy vetoed most of my ideas. He said that the quilt is too sophisticated to have a quirky name.  So I looked at photos of well known actresses from the 50's and decided that Sophia Loren's wardrobe had dresses of the right vintage and style. So this quit became Sophia's Closet. 

This label isn't anything like the one I'd been working on.  The first label just looked so drab when I did the test print that I decided a new bright one was really needed.  This one definitely worked and the blue gingham dress blends perfectly with the backing. 

Sophia's Closet was started in January 2016 as my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project for that year.  The goal was to finish two blocks in each color per month.  That's the only way I'd ever finish such complicated blocks. This was my first introduction to complex paper piecing. It didn't always go smoothly, but I really loved how the blocks worked out. The finished quilt is full/queen sized (sorry I never remember to write down the final measurements).   

For now, the quilt is going to stay with me.  Eventually it may go live with someone else, but I want to enjoy it for a bit before turning loose of it. 

Linking up with the normal beginning of the week linky parties:  Monday Making and Monday Design Wall.  Vintage Dresses/Sophia's Closet is on my 2019 Finish Along 4th quarter list, so I'll be linking up with the last Finish Along post for 2019 in January when that becomes active.  

To Do Tuesday - Moving Along

Last week was my first go at "To Do Tuesday", the weekly to do list linky party hosted by Home Sewn By Us. Focusing on fewer projects did make a difference in moving those projects further along the road to finished.  Even so, I didn't finish the whole list.  

Weekly To Do List (10/22/2019)
1. Vintage Dresses - bind
2. Mosaic Mystery - finish clue 2✔
3. 2019 Christmas Mystery - finish clue 3
4. Twinkle Stars - finish sewing rows together✔

Only two check marks, but that's better than none, so I'll take that.  Actually there was good progress on binding Vintage Dresses and I did get the first block of Clue 3 cut out ready for assembly.  It feels nice to check things off the list. I just need to be careful keep the list reasonable each week.  Here's the to do list for this week.  

Weekly To Do List (10/29/2019)


1.  Vintage Dresses - finish binding

The label got made and the binding got sewn to the front, now I just need to finish hand stitching it to the back. I've turned one corner, so that should be doable.  I'd like to get this one finished off by Thursday as it's my October One Monthly Goal. 

2.  Finish Pieced Border for Twinkle Stars

Making the blocks should go pretty fast.  It will take longer to stitch them all together and then stitch them to the quilt.  But as I've got one afternoon and Friday off this week, that should be doable.

3.  Finish Clue 3 for the 2019 Christmas Mystery Quilt. 

The strips are cut, but they aren't pinned correctly (I unpicked two seams before I realized they weren't lined up correctly).  Two blocks will come out of these strip sets and there's a third block to be done this week.  I've picked out the fabrics for it, but haven't cut out the pieces for it yet.  

I'm really tempted to add a #4 to the list, but my goals are to move quilts to the finish line and keep up with current quilt alongs. To do that I need to concentrate my time on just a few projects.  So that's my list for this week. You can see more weekly plans over at Home Sewn by Us. 

To Do Tuesday - Giving it a Go

With the end of the year looming, I'm hoping to move a few more projects to finished.  I finally realized this weekend that I've got way too many projects in the works at the sewing machine. That means I'm making a little progress on a lot, but not enough to move projects to the finish line. It's time to pare back the number of projects in progress and set some weekly priorities.  

I'm going to try something new with the priority setting. Rosanne and Sue, who blog over at Home Sewn By Us, have long shared their weekly to do list on their blog. They recently started a weekly To-Do Tuesday linky party for others to share their to do lists.  I'm usually pretty good about sticking to my priorities if I've publicly committed to them on the blog. So I'm drafting and sharing a weekly to do list to see if it helps me stick to my priorities.  

To Do List for the Week of October 22nd to 28th

1. Vintage Dresses - Bind

 Vintage Dresses
by Charise Randell

The quilt is trimmed and the binding is made.  Now it needs to be pressed, sewn to the front and then hand stitched to the back.  I also need to print out the label so it can be sewn in with the binding.  Finishing off Vintage Dresses is October's One Monthly Goal. With a little over a week left in the month, I need to get moving on this one.  

2.    Mosaic Mystery - Finish clue 2. 

Mosaic Mystery Quilt
from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs

All the gold centered blocks are finished and there are only a few more of the beige centered blocks to finish off. I want to get these done so I'm ready for clue 3. 

3.  2019 Christmas Mystery quilt clue 3. 

2019 Christmas Mystery
designed by Carrie Randall (Quilter's Hideaway)

Clue one and two are finished. I won't pick up clue 3 till Saturday morning, but the weekend is the best chance I'll have to get it finished. 

4.  Twinkle Stars - Finish sewing the rows together.

Twinkle Stars

Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

There's just a couple more seams to finish off. But there are lots of points to match up, so it takes a bit of time to get the rows pinned together.  

Fingers crossed that I can focus on these four and move at least one quilt to the finish line this week.  You can check out other to do lists over at Home Sewn by Us To-Do Tuesday Linky Party.  

October Already?

We are already five days into the tenth month of the year, the start of the fourth quarter of 2019.  It's the wind down part of the year.  Except if you quilt. Then it's either "what can I finish by the end of the year" or "what Christmas presents do I have left to finish" time of the year. So keeping that in mind, I've been contemplating what the October One Monthly Goal is going to be. 

I try to avoid Christmas gift sewing as it's just stress and pressure I don't need.  However at the beginning of the year, I did commit to the Scientist in Training that I would finish off quilts for her writing group buddies who are graduating from collage. The first is finished, I'm still working on the second, Twinkle Stars.

Getting this quilt into finished flimsy state was my September OMG.  That didn't happen, though I did make a lot of progress with the assembly.  

On the other hand, Vintage Dresses is back from the quilter. 

Each dress has been quilted in matching colors with some great filler swirls in the rest of the block. It looks even better from the front. This quilt just needs to be trimmed up and bound.  That would be a relatively easy finish for the month. 

Also close to being a finished flimsy is Storm at Sea.  

 Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

It just needs two more rounds of borders added to make it a finished flimsy. 

I've not accomplished my OMG for the last two months.  My success rate there is 7 of  9 or 78%.  That's actually really good considering that my success rate last year with the OMG was 42%.  The difference is being realistic about what I can get done. Due to some family issues, I'll be out of pocket for up to 2 weeks this month.  Sewing time will likely be limited, so as much as I'd like to pick finishing off Twinkle Stars, that's not likely to happen this month.  Finishing off Vintage Dresses is much more likely to happen as I can hand stitch when I can't get to the machine.  So that's the OMG for this month, finish Vintage Dresses.

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts.  Good luck with your goals for October stitching.   

A Day Late: The August One Monthly Goal

Happy Labor Day for those in the US and Canada. Other than the trip to urgent care for the Scientist in Training, it's been a very quiet and restful holiday weekend.  I've even managed to get in a fair amount of stitching time, though not enough to meet my August One Monthly Goal.  

The plan was to get Vintage Dresses prepped for quilting.  Cleaning off stray threads and doing the final pressing has always been my least favorite part of finishing off a quilt. I tried really hard to get it done before the end of August, I'd gotten this far by midnight Saturday. 

I'd almost finished removing the stray threads from row four, but still had row 5 to do.  Even though I didn't make the August deadline, it was all pressed and folded by Sunday afternoon. 

The backing is so much easier to finish, that got done last weekend.  So now it's ready to go out for quilting.  Even though it didn't get done by the deadline, making it my August OMG ensured it got done.  

Before starting the clean up, I did finally get Vintage Dresses staged for it's finished flimsy shot. 

 Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

This was such a fun quilt to make. I'm going to miss working on it.  

Now that Vintage Dresses is off the cutting table, it was time to get back to the borders for the Storm at Sea quilt.  

Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

The left pieced border is almost ready to stitch on.  I've got a ways to go on the right one.  The top and bottom borders aren't even started yet.  Finishing more border blocks is on the agenda for today. 

Also on the agenda for today is to decide what's going to be September's One Monthly Goal.  That's it for me today, linking up with Monday Making and Design Wall Monday.

The August To Do List

The opportunity to sleep in this morning was much appreciated.  It was a looong week in a lot of ways.  The weekend couldn't get here soon enough.  Plus the Scientist in Training decided to come home.  The summer semester is over, she has two weeks before the fall semester kicks off.  She has to work next week, so she's heading back on Sunday, but the following week she'll be able to stay home for a few more days.  We have a full girls only day planned for then. 

Hard to believe it's already August and time to decide what's on the quilty to do list, including what's the August One Monthly Goal. 

The goal for August is to get the Vintage Dresses quilt prepped for quilting and sent on it's way to be quilted. 

 Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

The back of the finished flimsy needs to be cleaned up. White is so clean and crisp, but it requires the most care with snipping off loose threads on the back so they don't show through once it's quilted.  That is my least favorite part of quilting.  So making it my OMG will ensure it gets done.  

What else is on the July to do list?   Finish adding the borders for Storm at Sea.

 Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

There are 4 more borders left.  That may seem like a lot, but it needs that many so it will fit on our queen sized bed. My Guy asked that I make sure this quilt has more drop on it than our current quilt so it overlaps the dust ruffle more. Our current quilt just reaches the top of the dust ruffle, so you have to be really careful when making the bed so you don't have mattress showing on one side or the other. 

The cutting directions for the Mosaic Mystery Quilt along have been posted, so that's on the list for August. I've printed off the instructions, but that's it so far.  I'm looking forward playing with these rich colors. 

The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap quilt along with Kevin the Quilter is on the list for this month as well.  Clue 1 and clue 2 are making 4-patches.  

 

These are pretty easy to fit in with the other stitching that's going on.  

Stitching on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, Wild and Goosey, will continue this month as well. 

 Modified Wild and Goosey
Based on Bonnie Hunter's pattern in Addicted to Scraps

These blocks take a good bit of time to make, but I'm slowly adding blocks of each color.  

The last project on the August to do list is this year's leaders and enders project, On Ringo Lake.  

On Ringo Lake, Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery Quilt

This is an old photo of the blocks, there have been a few more made since this photo, but I've not had the design wall space to throw them up for an updated progress photo. I need about 4 or 5 more blocks to be done with that part of the project.  I'm hoping to get this project to the finished flimsy stage before this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery. (fingers crossed on that goal) 

I'm also playing along with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2019.  I'm not doing so hot.

 I've not added any finishes lately, just two more starts for 2019.  So it's doubtful I'll earn my quilty PHD this year, but it's been fun and motivating to play along.  

That's my list for August.  Hopefully your list is shorter and full of almost finished projects.  

The July One Monthly Goal and Other Stitchy Stuff

Hard to believe the end of July is almost here.  It's been another busy month on both the work and home front. We've not been home much so plans to complete the July One Monthly Goal have been on hold for several weeks. 

I finally bit the bullet and ironed the 7 yards of backing fabric, figured out how to piece the back, cut the lengths and stitched it together. 

The light blue check matches up nicely with the blue in the Vintage Dresses borders. 

So the July OMG is finished just in time to figure out what's the OMG for August.

I didn't post last Monday due to the business trip to St. Louis and New Orleans. I just couldn't get my act pulled together to get a post written before I left town.  So there's been a bit of progress on a couple of other projects over the last two weeks.  The second round of borders for Storm at Sea is one accomplishment.

 Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

Next is a narrow white border, then the pieced border, another narrow white border and finally a wider dark blue final border. So there is still quite a bit of work left to do on this project.

Kevin released clue 2 of the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt last Thursday.  More 4-patches in color number 2. 

My initial color choices were blue and brown. But the more blue 4-patches I made the less I liked the brown with them.  I have lots of yellow scraps, so made a last minute substitution.  I'm so glad I did.  Here's the progress with the blue 4-patches.

This scrappy quilt needs lots of 4-patches, but they are easy to make.  I'm not caught up on this mystery, but that's OK.  I'm just moving along at my own pace. It will get done eventually.  

That covers the stitchy stuff going on in my sewing room.  Linking up with Monday Making and the July One Monthly Goal. 

2019 Finish Along: Third Quarter Ambitions

Monday will mark the half way point in July.  Seems this month is going just as fast as the rest of the year has gone.  So fast that it's hard to believe it's time to select a set a few projects that might just get finished before the end of the September as part of the 2019 Finish Along. 

I have a quilt plan for the year.  The three quilts for first quarter are done, but none of the quilts planed for second quarter finishes are off the list yet.  So those are a good place to start for third quarter. 

1.  Vintage Dresses

 Vintage Dresses
by Charise Randell

The borders are on, so the next step is to piece the back and get it ready for quilting.  This quilt is likely to get done before September. 

2.  Red, White and Blue Stars

 Red, White and Blue Stars

This quilt needs to have the setting strips cut and pieced, plus add the borders. I'm not sure this one will be done, but I hope to at least make progress on it sometime this quarter. 

3.  Twinkle Stars

Twinkle Stars

Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

This quilt just needs the blocks sewn together.  I'm not sure yet if there will be borders or not. Actually this one probably needs to put ahead of the RWB stars as this one is supposed to be a Christmas gift for one of the Scientist's in Training's friends. So it needs to get done before December. 

I've not been faithfully following my quilt plan and have a couple of unplanned starts that just need borders, so they might actually get finished before number two and number three above. 

The first of those is Storm at Sea.

 Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

The borders are already in progress for this one, so it's likely to get done before the end of the quarter. 

Another "off plan" project is the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt.

Daisy Chain Mystery
2019 Little Bunny Quilts Mystery
by Alison of Honey, Bunny & Doll Designs

This project also just needs borders before making a back and sending it out for quilting.  

That would be five finishes for the third quarter.  Three finishes is more probable.  I'd be thrilled with that.  

Linking up with She Can Quilt for the third quarter session of the 2019 Finish Along.