Rainbow Scrap Challenge - The Last Vintage Dress

It's a bit early in the day for Happy New Year.  But this is likely my last post for 2016, so wishing everyone a great evening and a wonderful start to 2017.  It's also the last Rainbow Scrap Challenge post for 2016.  I don't have a finished quilt to show off, but I did finish the last Vintage Dress block last night.  

 Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

I think this fabric has all the rainbow colors except for brown, black and grey.  The print reminds me of confetti, so it's a perfect dress for New Year's Eve.  

After finishing off this dress, I cleared off part of the big design wall so I could put them all up together. 

This isn't the final setting, I'll play a lot more before deciding on that.  These dresses were such a fun project this year.  My paper piecing skills have definitely improved.  Each block now needs to be framed with a narrow strip of the tone on tone white, followed by a frame the same color as the primary color in the dress.  Not sure what I'll do for this month's dress, I've got some other rainbow scraps, so that may be the route for that particular frame.

Looking forward to seeing the first color for 2017 and checking out everyone's new or continuing projects. My plan is to start another paper piecing project, but it's going to be a much simpler block. Linking up with Soscrappy for the end of year Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  And on Sunday, linking up with Oh Scrap over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework. 

Ambitions for 2017

As the year winds down, it's just natural to start looking towards plans for the incoming year.  I've taken a bit of time the last few days to assess how my 2016 went and where I'd like to see things go in 2017.  I've had the extra advantage of reading many of the posts over at Jet Girl's 2017 Planning Party. 

Now I'm finally ready to post my ambitions for next year.  Mine are rather plain Jane vanilla, but they focus on where I want to go next year. 

1.  Finish a few quilts.  Participate in the One Monthly Goal and UFO-2017 to help with this effort.  My 2017 quilt plan can be found on the 2017 Quilt Plan tab.  The "have to" finish quilts are Bejeweled, Geometry, and The First Amendment Quilts.

 2.  Participate in challenges and mystery quilt alongs.  These are some of my most favorite quilting and blogging activities.  Yes I have a long UFO list, but saying no new quilts just takes the joy out of the sewing room.  Plus planning which ones I'm going to participate in drives me to finish the quilt along projects from the previous year.  Here's next year's list:

     1.  RSC 2017 - Fan and Log Cabin blocks
     2.  2017 Meadow Mist Mystery
     3.  2017 Bonnie Hunter Mystery

3.  Manage the stash/organize the sewing room.  This is an ongoing battle for me (like most quilters I think).  I have lots of pretty fabrics, but not all of it is where I can see it and use it. 

     1.  Use 70 yards of fabric
     2.  Spend 30 minutes per week on sewing room organization
     3.  Make Wild Goose from Bonnie Hunter's book Addicted to Scraps (I have a ton of scraps that need to get into a quilt and this one looks like a good one to make that happen).  

4.  Make time to sew.  Seems obvious, but with a full time job, a husband and a daughter, there are lots of other things in my life too.  Making a conscious effort to get to the sewing room for 15 minutes will make a big difference in fulfilling my first ambition of getting a few quilts finished.

5.  Work on my blogging skills. The blog community functions as my quilting guild since the local one only meets while I'm at work. The quilty blogsphere is a wonderful source of friendship, feedback and inspiration.  This year was my worst in terms of posting and content since I started blogging 7 years ago.  So it's time for some refocusing here.

     1.  Post three times a week
     2.  Improve my photography intended for the blog
     3.  Write 4 tutorials this year
     4.  Review progress on these ambitions at the end of each quarter and report the progress or lack thereof on the blog.  

Those are my ambitions for the year.  Putting together the list is a good start, but sometimes the implementation doesn't go so well.  At any rate, good luck on your ambitions for 2017.  We'll know in about 12 months how we all did.  

Linking up with Jet Girl's 2017 Planning Party.  

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.  

December One Monthly Goal - Calculations In Progress

Hope everyone had a very happy holiday.  We spent the holiday hanging out with my family.  We had lots of fun, my family really gets into the gag gifts and we had a couple of spectacular ones this year.  So it was a memorable evening.  

There's not been a lot of sewing this week with all the holiday prep and other activities going on.  But there's been a conscious effort to make some progress on December's One Monthly Goal.  

This month's goal was to get started on Geometry, the third graduation quilt that needs to be finished before May 2017.  This quilt is for one of Drama Teen's friends who is a math whiz and thinks she wants to teach math.  I found the perfect fabric for this project earlier this year.  

Then came up with a Drama Teen approved pattern.  

That's where I was at the beginning of December.  The goal for this month was to pick out the rainbow of brights and then get started on making the quilt.  Drama Teen made the final fabric selections during her finals week, it was a nice break from studying physics she said. 

Last week squares from both the math fabric and the bright orange tone on tone were cut. I count a quilt started when the fabric is cut. So that means my December One Monthly Goal of getting Geometry started was met. But I did manage one step more and finished the first few HSTs.  

There was one unexpected wrinkle in the quilt kick off process.  That math fabric is directional.  How I missed that I don't know, but thankfully it became apparent before I started cutting the blocks.  I'm going to be able to keep the fabric facing the right direction in all the blocks, but I'm going to have to be very conscious of how the blocks are sewn together and the orientation when placed in the quilt.  I fully expect there to be some unsewing on this project at some point.  

Thank you to both Red Letter Quilts and Elm Street Quilts for hosting the One Monthly Goal this year.  It's been a great way to lower the activation energy on stalled projects.  I met 11 of my 12 monthly goals this year, so it really was a great motivator.  You can check out how December went for everyone else over at Elm Street Quilts.  

Also linking up with:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall