October NewFO - A Puzzleer

Wow, it's the end of October already.  Just two more months left in 2013.  I've already started my Christmas shopping, so I've got a leg up there.  Still have lots of reports due at work, but progress is being made.  

On the quilting front, it's been a pretty good year so far.  I've used more fabric than ever before.  Five quilts were completed and I'm likely to get at least one more completed before the end of the year.  My UFO pile has only grown by 6 quilts, so I'm up to a total of 10 UFOs, but more than half of those were projects started in 2012.  The increase in UFOs wasn't really deliberate, but I realized last year that I don't finish quilts if I don't start them.  That sounds like a "duh" statement.  Let me explain.  Once my UFO total was down to 3 in 2011, I'd only start one project and work on that one start to finish thinking that was the way to finish a lot of quilts.  But in 2012, I finished just 3 quilts.  Down from finishing 7 quilts in each of the previous 2 years when finishing UFOs took priority. What happened?  There was no pipeline of projects.  I've found over the last year that it's actually more efficient if I work on more than one quilt at a time.  Cat Patches' 2012 NewFO challenge was what helped me realize that.  So this year I made it a priority to participate in Barbara's 2013 NewFO challenge.

So for, I'm 10 for 10.  That's one new project for each month in 2013.  (It has absolutely nothing to do with the needle nannies, she's giving away each month).  So what's the new project this month? It's another one off my PIGS list.  Drama Teen had picked out a quilt pattern almost 2 years ago that she wanted for her room.  She wanted it made with batiks and she wanted it to look like a "rainbow".  Over the last two years, she's been picking out batiks for this quilt.  I finally got around to scanning in all the fabrics she's acquired and working up a preliminary lay out in EQ. 

Pattern is Jigsaw by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

Once she blessed this lay out, I starting laying out the fabrics to make sure they worked and played well with each other in real life. From some reason my scanner doesn't work well with purples, I usually have to edit the scans in Photoshop to get the color even close.  Since the each block incorporates pieces of the fabrics from adjacent blocks, you need to be sure of your lay out before you start sewing.  The first pass at a lay out looked much like the EQ mock up. 

The lower left hand corner needed some tweaking because the blues didn't flow right.  Then we decided that the lower right corner needed to be tweaked as well.  That dark burgundy in the corner didn't look right.  Plus DT wasn't trilled with a couple of the red violet fabrics in this layout.  So after a week of playing around with the layout on my cutting table.  This is the final color map for the quilt. 

Not much different than the first map, but the bottom edge fades better and the DT likes the red violet fabrics better in this version. So with this as my map, I've started cutting and piecing the blocks.  Only three done so far.   

Pattern is Jigsaw by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

You have to keep up with all the little "puzzle piece tabs".  Which ones go in which blocks.  I've developed a system of sticky notes and sandwich bags to keep all the block parts together with labels on where the block goes in the layout.  These blocks go together quickly.  It will be fun to see the puzzle pieces fit together as this one progresses.  

That's my NewFO for October.  Check out all the other new stuff going on over at Cat Patches. 

15 Minute Challenge - An Abbreviated Post

Drama Teen has 6 AM swim practice today.  Guess who forgot that she'd have to be out of the house by 5:45 this morning?
Consequently this will be a very brief 15 minute post this morning.
  
I had a really good week, finding at least 15 minutes to stitch (or in some cases play with a fabric layout) for seven out of the last seven days. 

No breaks for me this week, I've felt really energized about being in the sewing room.  There's not a lot of changes up on the design wall, but I can see the evidence of progress with all the little pieces piling up by the sewing machine.  We've been taking about taking breaks this month as part of the discussion on fostering creativity.  Sometime we need short breaks to energize ourselves when we are lucky enough to get a few hours to spend stitching.  Even during shorter stitching sessions stretching is a good idea to keep one from getting stiff and keep the blood moving.  If we've been stitching a complicated project or have just finished a project that had a deadline, sometimes a longer break is needed.  We go do other things for a day, two, a week or sometimes even a month, until our stitching mojo comes back.

So take a break, write a post about how you are doing finding 15 minutes to stitch.  Or are you on a more extended mojo building break?  

1. Julie in GA

2. Lesley A

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Design Wall Monday - October 28, 2013

We had a nice quiet weekend. No place we had to be, which meant we pretty much just hung out at home.  I did get to spend quite a bit of time in the sewing room, but you couldn't tell if from the design walls.  A lot of what I'm stitching is sub-units of blocks. At some point I'll lots of new stuff to show.   But for now, progress is best judged by what's pinned and waiting by the machine for stitching. There's been good progress on the second set of log cabin blocks for Back to Square One clue 9.  

  
I had hoped to catch up on Judy's mystery this month, but with just 4 days left in the month, that's not going to happen.  So not a lot of change to the design walls.  I did get the 4th border sewn together and attached to the rest of the quilt earlier this month.   

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

Back to Square One takes up most of the primary design wall.  There's enough room for a single row of Scrappy Star blocks.  Those are coming along nicely too this month.  Soon, I'll have enough of those to start setting that quilt together.  

So not much going on with my design wall.  Hopefully next week I'll have a few blocks of a new project up on the design wall to liven things up.  I'm linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.  Hop over to Judy's to see what pretties are gracing other design walls. 

Stash Report - Week 43 of 2013

It was a hectic week, but we've had a lazy weekend so far.  Dress clothes shopping was on mine and Drama Teen's schedule yesterday.  She's part of the school newspaper staff and they have a workshop/competition at one of the major universities in the state the first week in November.  Professional attire is required.  Since DT lives in jeans, prefers to wear only  t-shirts, owns only tennis shoes and outgrew the slacks we bought before she went to state science fair last year, a shopping trip was pretty much mandatory. Thankfully we found all she needed at one store.  She has little patience with clothes shopping, one session in the dressing room is all I usually get out of her per expedition.  So I grab and make exchanges on the fly, because if she leaves the dressing room, we're done. 

Not a lot of stitching this week.  What time that was spent in the sewing room was spent refining the fabric selection for Drama Teen's new quilt.  She wants a rainbow of colors that morph into each other for this quilt.  After several refinements, we got something that looked right using just my stash fabrics.  Which is good because my busy fingers pushed a lot of buttons last week.  So what fun packages did I get this week?  Connecting Threads had a fabric sale last week, so I ordered large cuts of three tone on tones because I never seem to have enough large pieces for projects. 

  

Then Craftsy had a sale last week and Moda's line of Midwinter Reds was on sale.  I'd been eyeing that collection since it came out.  I finally just broke down and ordered it.  

In addition to the fat quarters, I bought some yardage of  red, tan and beige.  I'm not sorry for the purchases.  Stashes need to be refreshed.  I've used more this year than I've used any of the previous three years.  I already have a pattern in mind for the Midwinter Reds, so hopefully, they won't stay in the stash for long.  So whats the damage?  It's not pretty.  

Used last week: 0.19 yards

Added last week:  40.5 yards

Used for 2013:  60.26 yards

Added for 2013:  198.33 yards

Net stashed for 2013: 138.07 yards

So much for my goal to keep the net stashed to under 100 yards.  I'll make some gains on that before the end of the year, but using more then 38 yards in the next two months isn't real likely.  

That's it for my stash report.  For more fab fabric reports, check out Patchwork Times.  

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2013 Edition

The crisp fall days have arrived in this part of the country, which means fall is here and so is the fall version of the Blogger's Quilt festival over at Amy's Creative Side.  

It's so hard to pick just one favorite quilt to show for the festival. After quite a bit of dithering, I finally decided to post my version of Judy Laquidara's Sweet Treats pattern. Judy posted the first picture of the pattern on May 2nd 2012.  I just fell in love with it, but I already had so much going in the sewing room, I told myself starting a new project was just not an option.   (Yeah right, you probably already see where this is going).  I'd been working on getting the stash closet organized.  Every time I pressed and folded a new bit of yardage, I'd put it in the closet and have to move one of the two stacks of the 1930 reproduction fat quarters in the process.  

Contrary to what you might think based on the size of those two stacks, I'm not a big fan of that style of fabric.  These fat quarters are left over from a quilt shop BOM that required everyone to use 1930 reproductions to participate.  Every time I had to move those left overs, I'd think they needed to be moved out of the stash completely.  Hmm, a new project I was dying to start and fabric that needed to be used. What better reason to start a brand new project? 

Sweet Treats
Pattern by Judy Laquidara

Definitely not a traditional quilt using 1930 reproductions, but somehow it works. Trudy quilted lazy daisies across the whole quilt.

When I made the 1930's BOM, I ended up buying yardage of a couple of different blues for the borders, but only used one of the prints.  I had enough of of the border reject to use on the back.  Even better in terms of stash reduction.  

The red binding echoes the middle red border and adds a nice bright frame for the quilt. 

It was a fun quilt to make.  And it did make a significant dent in my 1930 reproduction stash.  There is still probably enough left to make at least one more quilt.  I'm thinking about making a quilt of valor from what's left over.  That will have to wait till next year though.  I really do have to much going on to start anything new now.  

Elements (aka Sweet Treats)
Pattern by Judy Laquidara

This quilt became a retirement gift for Drama Teen's middle school science teacher.  DT spent three years in Mrs. B's class and made two trips to state science fair with her, as well as, a week long school trip to Colorado one summer.   DT just adored her.  DT decided that the boxes looked a bit like a periodic table, so the name was changed from "Sweet Treats" to  "Elements".  Mrs. B. loved the quilt.  

I've never blogged about that original BOM that was the reason for the scraps and left over fat quarters.  If you want to see what that quilt looked like, there is a picture of it posted on my Flickr account (click here).  

That's my scrappy entry for the Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival. Thanks for stopping by Life in Pieces.  Go check out all the entries, though you'll have to pace yourself, there's a bunch.