Stash Stuff and a 2017 Quilting Ambitions Update

This post is a day later than planned.  Let's just say that July didn't start off as planned and leave it at that for now. 

June was not a nice month.  The washer went out, a job change required quite a bit of overtime the last half of the month.  Both problems are now solved.  I was going to say that stitching didn't go so well, but it really wasn't a bad month on that front, other than my 15 minutes of stitching time went out the window for a week while I dealt with the fall out from the job change.  The end of June also marks the end of second quarter.  So it's a good opportunity to check how I'm doing on my 2017 quilting ambitions that I posted to Quilting Jetgirl's 2017 Planning Party.  

Since this is the stash management report, I'll start with that and if you are not interested in the rest you can stop there.  

Quilt Ambition #3:  Manage the Stash/Organize the Sewing Room

Used last week: 0.41 yards
Used year to date: 38.79 yards
Added year to date: 215.55 yards
Net added year to date: 176.76 yards

The one advantage of being really busy with work is that I've not had much time for fabric shopping, so the incoming numbers stalled this month.  That's a good thing.  Even so it's not likely I'll meet my goal of using more than I buy this year.  Fabric usage is on track.  I've used more than half of the 70 yards that is the goal for this year.  

Organizing the sewing room has seen a few fits and starts. I found a good way to organize the fabric pieces for all the in progress quilts.  I showed that off here. Now that my deadline sewing is done, I've been spending more time working on organizing the rest of the sewing room.  I still haven't done anything with the scraps.  But I have done a bit in the fabric closet.  Here's how it looked last July.  

July 10, 2016

Here's how it looks now:

As of June 18, 2017

Not a lot of progress, but this chore takes a while.  I'll keep chipping away at it. 

Quilting Ambition #1:  Finish a Few Quilts

I've done really well on this goal.  There are four finishes so far this year:  Poinsettias, Bejeweled, Geometry and The First Amendment Quilt.  Three of these were high school graduation gifts.  They were finished in time to gift them the last day of school. 

The graduation quilts:  Geometry, Zombies in Paris and Bejeweled

They were a big hit.  I got hugs from all three girls (and none of them are big on giving hugs). 

There should be at least two more finishes this year.  The 2016 Meadow Mist Mystery  is being bound and Blooms and Butterflies has been shipped off for quilting.  That will make at least 6 finishes for 2017.  Definitely not shabby.

Quilting Ambition #3:  Participate in Challenges and Mystery Quilt Alongs

I've gotten a good start on the blocks for the 2017 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Though I still need to finish up the yellow blocks for June. 

The Magnolia Mystery from Meadow Mist Designs starts up in a few days.  That will be the next quilt along for 2017.  There are a couple of other mystery quilt alongs that are very tempting. I'm contemplating if I can start one or both of those two.  I probably won't start either because the UFO list is still pretty huge, but I can dream anyway. 

Quilting Ambition #4:  Make Time to Sew

The goal is to spend at least 15 minutes each day stitching.  The second quarter of 2017 hasn't been as good as the first, but I've found those 15 minutes more days than ever before. 

Days with 15 minutes of stitching:  165 days out of 181 days 
Percentage success:  91%

More fabric out and more finishes this year.  Pretty sure that's tied to this one goal.  

Quilting Ambition #5:  Work on Blogging Skills

My goal was to blog three times a week.  I didn't do so hot on that each week during the second quarter.  Some weeks I managed 5 posts, other weeks just 1.  On average I posted about 3 times per week for the year.  Not sure yet if I consider that success or not. 

I've written 2 of the 4 tutorials that was in my goals for this year.  On track with that one.  The last goal was to improve my photography skills.  I've been more conscious of staging my photos this last quarter.  Not sure that equates to better photos, but it's something different I'm trying.  

It's been a really good year so far.  I'm happy where I'm at in my ambitions for the year so far.  Now to keep up the momentum over the hot summer months and into the fall.  How are you doing on your stitching goals for 2017?  

Linking up with QuiltPaintCreate for the weekly stash report.   

WIPS: Rest in Peace Zombies

The joyful hubbub of the holiday season has definitely lessened.  Now My Guy and I are enjoying our end of the year vacation days.  We spent yesterday morning tackling our over stuffed walk in closet.  It's amazing what stuff accumulates on the shelves in there and what's hidden in those piles.  We'd been looking everywhere for my keys to My Guy's vehicle for the last few months. I was convinced they had fallen out of my purse.  But we found them in the purse I was carrying last Christmas!  We're about a quarter done with the whole closet.  So far we've taken a box worth of luggage/duffel bags/purses to Good Will and have filled up one trash bag.  We'll be back at it later this morning.  No telling what else we'll find.  

That was my morning, but the afternoons this week are reserved for more fun stuff.  My Guy went for a bike ride, while my plan was to sew for a while.  It was a nice sunny day, so I took the opportunity to get photos of my last finish, Zombies in Paris.  It's been finished since the end of November, so was definitely time to get those photos.  

I couldn't resist doing some staging for the final photo shot, for once I actually had the time.

Zombies in Paris by Kate
Finished November 30, 2016

The colors photographed much truer outside.  It's a fun quilt.  The zombie fabric is a perfect fit for it's intended owner. 

Trudy did a wonderful job with the quilting, the double hearts echo the quilt blocks. 

The backing used the fabrics of Paris landmarks that didn't make the cut for the front of the quilt.  

The lighter purple was used for the binding. 

Drama Teen helped with the label, we kept the message simple. 

DT asked for the quilts for her best buds so they would have something to take to college that they could cuddle with when things got stressful and to remind them of their friendship.  

So one down, three more to go.  

Linking up with:
Let's Bee Social
Needle and Thread Thursday
Finish it Up Friday

Best of Life in Pieces for 2016

Hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone already.  The New Year is just around the corner.  It's a good time to reflect on this year, decide what worked and what didn't before nailing down next year's directions for the sewing room.  Cheryl over at Meadow Mist Designs is again hosting the "Best of" linky party, except it's the 2016 version.

Cheryl leaves it up to the blogger to decide what constitutes the "best of" for the linky party.  I considered her suggestions of most views and most comments, but those tended to be posts over pretty much the same two projects.  So following the form of last year's post, my "best of 2016" posts are the projects that I got the most joy out of over the last 12 months.

Number 5: Zombies in Paris
This quilt is one of 4 graduation quilts that needs to be finished before May of 2017.  This project started out one way and ended another.  

Number 4:  Midnight Mystery Quilt
Mystery quilt alongs are one of my most favorite things in blog land.  The 2015 Midnight Mystery Quilt from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs certainly didn't disappoint. 

Number 3.  Blooms and Butterflies (Back Porch Blooms Sew Along)
When I saw the Back Porch Bloom blocks on Podunk Pretties, I was pretty much in lust, but I was able to resist until Lea Anne started adding in butterfly blocks to the mix and challenged her readers to come up with their own design using these blocks.  Once the design was in EQ, I just had to make it.  

Number 2:  Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quilt Allietare
My second Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  It's fun and educational to stitch along with Bonnie.  And I loved the final quilt.  

Number 1:  Vintage Dresses
The Rainbow Scrap Challenge has been one of my favorite stitch alongs in blog land.  It's amazing what you'll try when you only have to make a few blocks a month.  I'd tried some very simple paper piecing before this pattern, but I didn't realize what I was in for, good thing the plan was to make only two blocks a month. 

Those are my "best" posts for 2016.  You can see more of the best over at Meadow Mist Designs.  

Week 48: Slow Stitching and Stash Busting

We had a wonderful holiday with the family, but I'm glad to be back home.  I've got the day to get a bit of laundry done, plus make a start on the Bonnie Hunter mystery.  The fabrics are picked out, but that's as far as I've gotten as yet.  I'd also like to finish stitching the binding on the Zombie quilt.

You can't tell from this picture, but the last corner is only 5 inches away, then there is just one long side left to stitch.  That should be doable this afternoon.  Even with the holiday prep, I was able to sneak in 15 minutes of hand stitching time every day last week. That brings the total sewing days for 2016 to 263.  

Since most of the week was hand work, there's not much going on with the stash report. 

Used last week:  0.23 yards
Used year to date:  57.98 yards
Added year to date:  69.02 yards
Net added year to date: 11.04 yards

I'm slowly gaining ground on being back in the black.  Hopefully between the Bonnie Hunter Mystery and Bejeweled, I'll move a little closer to break even for the year. 

Hope you have time for some slow stitching today.  Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.  

Weekend Stitching: A Bit of This and a Bit of That

It was a good weekend for stitching.  Drama Teen was off at a debate tournament on Saturday and My Guy ended up mowing the yard.  Hopefully that will be the last time till spring.  It's been such a warm fall that the yard is still green and growing.  We had our first freeze this weekend, so that will likely start the spread of winter brown across the landscape.  

There was a bit of this and and bit of that going on in the sewing room.  Poinsettias is pressed, de-threaded and ready for shipping to Trudy for quilting.  Once that box is dropped off at the post office, November's One Monthly Goal will be done.  Prepping quilts for quilting is probably my least favorite activity.  I'm glad to have that off the to do list.  

A few more blocks for the Bejeweled quilt are finished and up on the design wall. 

   
The last four blocks are at the sewing machine waiting for the corners to be added.  Once those are done, these blocks will have to move to the big design wall to stage them for assembly.  I'm not in love with the dark plaid, it may get replaced with one of the other fabrics.  But I'll wait till  all the pieces are laid out on the design wall before making a decision on replacing it or not. 

The Zombie quilt moved a bit closer to being finished.  The binding has been sewn to the front. 

I'll start hand stitching it to the back this evening. It will be nice to have the first graduation quilt done well before graduation.  Hopefully Bejeweled will be finished before the end of the year.  Plans are to start on the third graduation quilt next month.  I just need to get Drama Teen into the sewing room to help pick the fabrics.  

Linking up with:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday 

November One Monthly Goal: Prepping for Finishes

We really only have two months left in 2016.  I've accepted that fact, though I'd really, really like to think it wasn't true.  So just two months left to make progress on this year's quilting plan.  I've started 2 of the 4 graduation quilts, plus the Rainbow Scrap project and the Meadow Mist mystery.  Those were on my "to be started list".  I've got plans worked out for the last 2 graduation quilts and may actually get one more of them started before the end of the year.  Bonnie Hunter doesn't start up till later this month and there's no reason to think I won't manage to get that one started.  I only started one project that wasn't on my list, Blooms and Butterflies.  So as far as starts go, I've pretty much stayed true to the plan.  

Finishes are another story.  The plan was to finish 8 quilts this year.  That was a pretty aggressive plan as the most I've ever finished in one year was 7.  But there have been three finishes this year, Vintage Tea Time, Midnight Tulips and Allietare (you can see all three here).  So in contemplating November's One Monthly Goal I've been trying to decide if there is anything I can do to improve on that finished number.  Zombies in Paris just needs to be bound, so that's one option.  Poinsettias is a finished flimsy, but it needs a back before it can be sent out for quilting.  

Poinsettias
By Judy Blok for the December 2013 issue
of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine

If I can get Poinsettias sent out and back, it has a good chance of getting bound before the end of the year, as does the Zombies quilt. I have the backing fabric for Poinsettias.  It's just a matter of piecing the back and getting the quilt prepped for Trudy.  I really hate prepping quilts, so maybe it's the better option for the One Monthly Goal because I need some additional incentive to get it out the door for quilting.  So prepping Poinsettias for quilting and getting it mailed to Trudy is the goal for November.  

There's a new host for OMG, Patty who blogs at Elm Street Quilts is taking over for Heidi of Red Letter Quilts.  So I'm linking up with Patti for the November OMG.  Many thanks to Heidi to coming up with the concept of the OMG. It's been a great motivator for me this year and I'm so glad that Patti is going to carry it on into next year.     

Weekend Stitching: Zombies in Paris Ready for Next Step

Not much happened in the sewing room on Saturday.  We attended the company picnic for most of the day, then napped the rest to recover from the fall pollen.  I love autumn weather, but my allergies certainly don't.  

Sunday turned out to be a good day for stitching.  The backing for the Zombies in Paris was finally finished. 

The back uses up two of the fabrics that didn't get used on the front.  I like the large panels.  It was a little more work to piece, but if DT's friend decides she wants to present a less silly side to the world, then she can use this side.  Just for reference, here's the front. 

Hopefully she'll like both sides.  Now all that's left is to press both the top and backing, as well as clean up any loose threads.  I probably won't get that done till next weekend. Still it's nice to have this one just about ready for quilting.  

Linking up with:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday

Weekend Stitching: Odds and Ends

It was a nice relaxing weekend.  Some much needed yard work got done on Sunday, which has unfortunately left me a bit sore this morning.  There was lots of stitching time this weekend, but it sure doesn't look like much when you look at what's up on the design wall.  

Good progress was made on piecing the backing for the Zombies quilt. 

All that's left is the borders to bring it up to size.  Hopefully this quilt will be ready to send out for quilting next week sometime. 

The other blocks up on the design wall are from the second graduation quilt, Bejeweled (my EQ version is here).  

Drama Teen selected the swirly gray background.  I wasn't sure it was going to to work, but it looks fine.  I've got 32 more of these Economy blocks to make, then there are 36 more in another color to construct. The goal this month was to get started on it, which in my book is when I start cutting the fabric.  I'm looking forward to making this quilt. It uses a lot of bright and fun fabrics, with lots of blues.  

Linking up this week with
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall

August One Monthly Goal: Back on Track

One more week in August.  That's hard to believe. Not sure where the summer went.  The beginning of the month was a bit busy, but it's slowed down a bit.  Last weekend was really nice as I got to spend a lot of time in the sewing room.  There was lots of progress on numerous fronts, including getting Zombies in Paris to the point of being a finished flimsy. 

Zombies in Paris by Kate

The border is a really dark purple not black.  Even Photo Shop can't seem to bring out the true color.  This is the first of 4 graduation quilts that Drama Teen has commissioned for next May.  She wanted each person's quilt to be something that they could wrap them selves up in next year at college when they feel they need a hug.  I think this quilt will do that.  I've got some left over fabrics and some that we bought, but didn't use in the front that we want to work into the backing.  I've been playing with layouts.  Hopefully, I can get the back made soon so it can go out for quilting.  

August's One Monthly Goal was to reach the finished flimsy stage.  That's done, earlier than I expected.  That's 7 out of 8 months where I've reached my monthly goal.  These monthly goals have helped keep the focus on moving one project ahead each month.  The progress hasn't hit my finished quilt list as much as I would like, but if I keep it up, there be a few more finishes to add before the end of the year.  

 I'm linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and with Red Letter Quilts when she posts the end of August One Monthly Goal link up.  

Weekend Stitching: Zombies

As fun as vacation was, it was really nice to spend a relaxing weekend at home.  Thankfully I was able to do some laundry before we came home.  So there weren't piles of dirty clothes that had to be taken care of.  I had planned on doing some yard work, but it rained both weekend mornings and it was too hot to tackle later in the day.  So there was lots of stitching time this weekend. 

Progress was made on all my WIPs, but the biggest milestone was finishing up all the Zombie heart blocks.

I'm not in love with this project, but Drama Teen assures me it's perfect for her friend.  Now to get the blocks stitched together. That should be pretty easy, I won't have to worry about matching seams till I start sewing the rows together.  Assembly should go pretty quickly. 

With Zombies nearing completion, I should start getting the fabric ready for the next graduation quilt on the list for May 2017.

EQ mock up of Bejeweled, pattern from  All About Strips by Susan Guzman

The fabric for this one needs to washed and pressed so it's ready to go when Zombies is shipped off for quilting.  The piecing is pretty simple, so it should go together pretty quickly.  

Linking up with:

Main Crush Monday

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

August One Monthly Goal and Future Weekend Stitching

July was such a dismal month in terms of sewing room time, just too much going on in the rest of my life.  I'm hoping that August will be better.  Drama Teen starts her senior year of high school on the 18th.  With her back in school, travel should die down a bit, though I think she wants to do a college trip one weekend in August.  Even so, I'm hoping to get back in the sewing groove this month.

That brings me to deciding on what to tackle for August's One Monthly Goal. 

Looking at what needs to be done by May of next year, I'm thinking that it's time to get really serious about finishing up Zombies in Paris.  I've got three more quilts to finish by next May, so it would be good to get this one done now.  

Zombies in Paris by Kate

The last 5 hearts are all in various stages of assembly, so it really would not take too much to get those finished.  Then all that's left to get to the finished flimsy stage is to sew the blocks together and add two borders.  That should be doable.  So getting Zombies to the finished flimsy stage is the plan for August.  

Linking up with 
Red Letter Quilts for the August One Monthly Goal
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Patchwork Times for Monday Design Wall

Weekend Stitching: Zombie Progress

Yesterday was a good day, most of the afternoon was spent in the sewing room.  Well it was a good day till I came downstairs for a snack late in the afternoon and wondered why it was so much warmer downstairs than it was upstairs.  It's usually the other way around.  After some investigating, we found that the downstairs fan was running, but the air conditioning unit wasn't.  Thankfully it was cloudy most of the afternoon, so we didn't have the sun beating down on the house.  It rained late in the evening which cooled things off enough to sleep. We are hoping we can get someone to come out today and fix it. 

There was lots of progress on the Zombies in Paris quilt this week. 

Zombies in Paris, Self designed

Just seven blocks left to make, then it will be time to stitch it all together.  This should be a finished flimsy before the end of July. Zombies was just started in May.  This may turn out to be my fastest finish ever.  Considering how long my UFO list is, it will be nice to not add another one to that tally.  

Linking up with 
Making Monday at Love Laugh Quilt
Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts
Monday Design Wall at Patchwork Times 

Weekend Stitching: More Zombies

Happy Summer!  Summer has been in full bloom here for the last 2 weeks at least.  Hot, humid and just generally miserable to be outside at midday.  Which is a good reason to stay inside and stitch in the early evening and weekends.  I did a lot of that Sunday.  Add in what got done on Saturday and there's been quite a lot of progress on the Zombies in Paris quilt.  

Zombies in Paris, Self designed

All the pink hearts are finished.  That's the last set with the gray background, the rest of the hearts will have a medium purple background.  Hopefully when I start adding those to the design wall my dark purple hearts will look purple rather than black.  The lettering is dark purple too.  I've learned that between the lighting in my sewing room and my camera, some colors are hard to get right if there are certain other colors in the frame.  That appears to be the case here.  Even using Photoshop, I couldn't get those three solids hearts to look purple without throwing the rest of the blocks way off in color.  I should note that what looks like an "E" now, will  be a "B" when the next block gets added to the design wall.  Each block was designed as a 12" x 12" unit, and the "B" got split between the last two blocks.  

Zombies is the first of 4 quilts needed for graduation next year.  I've got the fabric and pattern picked out for the second quilt.  Some of the fabrics have been acquired for quilts 3 and 4, but no pattern picked out yet.  I need to get some decisions made about those last two fairly soon. 

I'm hoping to get in a few marathon stitching sessions this weekend.  I'll have an extra day and a half to stitch.  Though part of that half day off work will involve picking Drama Teen up at the airport.  She's in Washington DC attending a journalism conference.  I expect she'll be ready to come home and sleep as the conference has some really long days in it.  

Linking up with:
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts
Monday Design Wall at Patchwork Times  

Weekend Stitching: Zombies Finally Making an Apperance

There must be some perverse law of the universe that causes weekends to go faster than a workday.  It seems it was just Friday night.  Now it's Monday morning and time to contemplate getting ready for work. I've got a few minutes before I have to get serious about the getting ready part so hopefully I can finish writing this post.  

There wasn't much sewing time on Saturday due to errands and such.  But I did get in a nice long stitching session on Sunday. Allietare is ready for shipping.  It should go out to Trudy today.  That's my OMG for June, so that goal is almost complete.  

The other project with a lot of progress is Zombies in Paris.

Zombies in Paris, Self designed

  
All 6 of the black Paris fabric hearts are done.  What looks to be solid black in the top two rows is really a dark purple. It doesn't photograph really well in  my sewing room.  The first pink zombie heart is finally done.  The remaining 5 are in progress, I should finish those up this week.  Then I can start on the hearts that have the lighter purple background. 

Now that Allietare is out of rotation, I really should get the binding ready for the Midnight Mystery quilt and get another finish on the books.  The goal for this week is to at least decide on which fabric to use for the binding then get the it stitched and prepped.  

Linking up with:
Monday Making over at Love Laugh Quilt 
Main Crush Monday over at Cooking Up Quilts
Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times

May One Monthly Goal Progress

Happy Memorial Day if you live in the states.  It's been a nice, relaxing weekend here.  It's supposed to rain off and on here today, so it's a perfect opportunity to spend some quality time in my sewing room.  My Guy is hoping to fit in a bike ride sometime today between storms.  Not sure that is going to happen. 

I've been participating in the One Monthly Goal over at Red Letter Quilts since January of this year.  

Committing to just one goal each month has helped me make progress in some key areas, mainly in getting quilts done.  But this month my goal was to actually start a project.  Usually that's not a problem, but Drama Teen asked for 4 graduation quilts to be done by next May.  These are for her best buds and one teacher.  Which means I'm sewing for someone specifically.  I always struggle with projects that are for a specific person.  It's two fold, I want the right pattern and the right fabrics. It often takes me a while to come up with both.  This month's goal was to actually start on the blocks for the Zombies in Paris quilt.  That meant getting all the fabrics washed and prepped, finalizing the design and actually getting some blocks made.  

Here's the final pattern:

Zombies in Paris by Kate

And here's the first 6 blocks:

The solid hearts are a really deep purple.  For some reason that color is just hard to photograph in my sewing room.  So I've met my goal of getting a good start on this project.  This one should go pretty fast as the blocks are 12" finished.  The letters will take some time, but I've already got a start on those.  

I'm 5 for 5 on meeting my One Monthly Goals.  Many thanks to Heidi for hosting this challenge.  It's been a great motivator for me. 

Linking up with 
May OMG at Red Letter Quilts
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts
Monday Design Wall at Patchwork Times

WIPs: Progress and a Plan

It's the rainy season in Oklahoma.  We lucked out last night and all the nasty storms went south of us.  But we got hit with a doosy of a pop up thunderstorm just a bit ago.  The lighting and thunder were impressive.  According to the forecast, it's going to be intermittently stormy all day.  Today is also Drama Teen's last day of school before summer break.  After today, she'll be a senior in high school.  Wow, where did all those years go?   She'll be playing host to 3 other girls this afternoon for her annual "Last Day of School Watch TV and Veg" party.  Which means I'll be spending most of my evening in the sewing room.  Works for me. 

I've been in the sewing room most nights the last week so you'd think I'd have gotten more done on the Zombies quilt, but I only added one block to the collection up on the design wall. 

Zombies in Paris, self designed

The seam ripper spent a lot of time with that black and pink block, the framing strips got added in the wrong spots so they had to come off and be restitched in the right positions.  But there are two more blocks under construction at the sewing machine, so there will much more progress this week.   

Well maybe not.  Lea over Podunk Pretties has a sew along and linky party to go along with her latest tutorial, Back Porch Blooms.  I've been slowly re-organizing the sewing closet and last weekend came across a stash of red and blue 1930 reproduction fabrics bought many years ago for a BOM.  They'd be perfect for a project using that block.  This project is not on my 2016 Quilt Plan, but oh it's so tempting.  I gave in to temptation just enough to do some mock ups in EQ.  There's a very red version:

Flower Blocks are Back Porch Blooms by Lea Anne Brummett of Podunk Pretties
Quilt setting is self designed. 

  

And a very blue version:

Flower Blocks are Back Porch Blooms by Lea Anne Brummett of Podunk Pretties
Quilt setting is self designed. 

Lea showed off her butterfly blocks yesterday and I knew if I figured out how to add a few to my project, I'd be a goner.  So since we have a 3 day weekend and Allietare should make it to a finished flimsy stage before them, I'm going to dig out all the 1930 yardage and scraps to make one these quilts.  I'm leaning towards the blue one, but I have more red yardage.  Decisions, decisions!  

Linking up this week with 
Let's be Social over at So Fresh Quilts
WIPs on Wednesday over at Esther's Quilt Blog
Needle and Thread Thursday over at My Quilt Infatuation 

WIPs - Progress on a New Project

It's been awhile since there's been a post to link up with the mid week "Works in Progress" posts.  Generally, there's just not that much progress in my sewing room to write another post after Monday's. But I finally got started on a new project this month.  The blocks are 12.5", so they go together fairly quickly.  Here's the progress so far:

The hearts are a really dark purple and all three are the same color.  The lighting in my sewing room is really bad for capturing dark colors.  These are the first three blocks for the Zombies in Paris quilt.

This is the first of four graduation quilts that has to be finished before May of 2017.  Thankfully, this one should go pretty quickly since the blocks are so large.  All the fabric has been purchased for the second graduation quilt, but I'm hoping to finish this one before I start on another new project.  

Linking up this week to

Let's Bee Social
WIPs on Wednesday
Needle and Thread Thursday

Weekend Stitching - Allietare Progress

Weekends are never long enough it seems. I didn't do much sewing on Saturday as Drama Teen needed some help getting ready for prom and then we spent the early evening taking prom pictures of all her friends and their dates.  Everybody looked so cute, and so grown up, including Drama Teen.  I posted a picture of her dress yesterday, but this is a much better picture of her.  

So Saturday was a bit of a bust for sewing room time, but there was significant sewing time on Sunday.  Allietare is well on it's way to being a finished flimsy.

 Allietare,  Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quilt

Blocks in the first 4 rows have been sewn together.  The blocks kept falling off the design wall, so all that's up there now is the blocks that are sewn together. I'm pretty happy with how this project is turning out.  It's my favorite Bonnie Hunter Mystery to date, well at least of the ones I've made.   

The other thing I did on Sunday was finalize the layout for the Zombies in Paris project.  

Zombies in Paris

Starting on this project is my One Monthly Goal for May.  It needs to be done by next May and since there are three other graduation quilts to make, I'd best get busy.  I just need to wash and press the pink Zombie Love fabric, then I'll be all ready to start cutting and sewing.  

Linking up with:
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Monday Making
Monday Design Wall

May One Monthly Goal

Hard to believe it's already May.  Just a few short weeks and Drama Teen is done with her junior year of high school.  Hard to believe we've only got one more year before she heads off to college.  There will be a lot of college planning to do this summer.  Thankfully, all I have to decide on at the moment is what will be my May goal for the One Monthly Goal Challenge.  Heidi at Red Letter Quilts is hosting this very helpful challenge to pick one goal each month and see it through.  

So far I'm three for three.  I'm not sure what May is going to look like.  There may be a couple of weekend trips in there. Since weekends are my prime sewing time, I don't want to be too ambitious.  Looking at what's on my quilting plan, I really need to start stitching on next year's graduation quilts.  I've got all the fabric for the planned Zombies in Paris quilt, but it's not all washed and pressed.  Plus I'm still dithering about the pattern. This month's goal will be to decide on the pattern and start making the blocks.  I should be able to handle just getting started even if I'm out of the sewing room a lot this month.  

This was the original plan.

Adapted from the pattern Bird's-Eye View, designed by Jackie Robinson of AnimasQuilts.com
Published in the December 2015 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting

But I'm not loving that plain center block. It needs something.  After playing around in EQ, this is what the project has morphed into. 

Drama Teen likes this layout.  I'm still not sure about all the fabrics and the block placement, but I think we are using this pattern as the base for the final quilt.  DT has some very unique and one of a kind friends.  She assures me that this pattern is absolutely perfect for the intended recipient.  Though we may have to change the name of the quilt to Zombie Love.