Hello, Fibonacci!

So, I've started a new quilt project. Yes, I know, I'm in the middle of my QOV quilt and Easy Street. Not to mention a few other things that are sitting on the back burner. But I have a good reason for this new one!

Many years ago, I made lap-quilts for my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, using Christmas fabrics. There were 6 other relatives I wanted to make Christmas quilts for. One is finished, but not given to the person because I wanted to give them all at the same time. I cut out the fabrics for one before I got pregnant with my 3rd child. (He's in middle school now, so you know this was awhile ago.) I am in various stages with 4 of the 5 that still need to be made. My Easy Street is one of these 4. My goal is to finish all these quilts for this Christmas. I think I will need all year to get them done LOL.

So when I heard that one of the local quilt shops is having a challenge called "Fibonacci's Revenge," I decided to try it with Christmas fabrics in my stash. It is based on the Fibonacci number sequence of 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... You add the previous two numbers to get the next number. Apparently this number sequence shows up in nature a lot.

For this challenge, you first have to start with a 12" (finished size) block of your choosing. I love using a star motif in Christmas quilts, so I thought the Rising Star would be an appropriate center block. For the inner star, I used a gold scroll fabric and the outer star is a beautiful green Bali. The background is a light cream tone-on-tone that doesn't show up real well in the photo.

One of the requirements for the challenge is to buy at least one yard of their "challenge fabric." There were three neutrals you could choose from. The other two choices were a bit too Civil War-ish for me, so I went with this cream and tan Moda Marbles fabric. It's a bit darker than I would have chosen, but I guess that's part of the fun of a challenge, right?

So, each month you go to the store and get your directions for the month. We will be adding a border each month to make a medallion-style quilt. If you bring in your progress from the previous month, your directions are free. If you do not have any progress, you have to pay $3.00 for that month's directions. Hopefully this money incentive will keep me on track. 

For January's border, you need to make a 4" border using only rectangles (squares are allowed in the corners if necessary). You have to use some of the challenge fabric, plus at least one fabric from the center block, plus add at least one fabric color. I will be adding red.

I stayed up later than I should have last night, sketching out different border possibilities. I think I'm going to go with the one on the left side of this photo. I was inspired by one of the quilts that Judy from Patchwork Times made and sent to Alycia for Quilts of Valor. Alycia showed a photo of the quilt at this post. 

I'm planning on making this a "controlled scrappy" with Christmas fabrics. I will probably make the borders my leaders/enders while I finish up my QOV. 

Happy stitching!

Easy Street Clue #8

Since my focus last week was on my quilt for Quilts of Valor (see here for my latest progress), I didn't get real far on Easy Street Clue #8. I did make one of each of the blocks, just to see how they look. Here's block A.

I love how the star looks, made with those house units or squatting turkeys or whatever you want to call them, in block B!

Putting the blocks next to each other. Some of my golds don't have a lot of contrast from the background fabrics, so you can't see some of the pattern as well as you can on Bonnie's quilt. I'm fine with that.

I'm linking up to Bonnie Hunter at quiltville.

Happy stitching!

January First Friday UFO and QOV photos

Well, after not having any success the past few days getting my photos to upload onto blogger using internet explorer, I tried installing google chrome as an internet browser. It finally worked. Here's the latest block I made for my All Star UFO. When I first saw the white background fabric with the eagle, I knew I wanted to fussy cut an eagle and frame it for one of these blocks.

 Here's a closeup of the eagle.

Some progress on my Quilts of Valor quilt, using the free pattern that Judy generously gave on her blog. You'll notice the small pieces of paper in the upper left corner of each row. Before I started sewing together the rows, I laid out all the blocks on the floor in the great room to make sure I didn't have a large cluster of the same fabric. I'm sewing one row together at a time, marking the rows as I go. I simply write "Row 1" (or whichever number it is) then safety pin it to the fabric.

I haven't had any more time to work on this. My extended family came over last night for our Christmas  celebration, so I've been busy this weekend cleaning and cooking. I'm hoping to finish the last few rows today, in between loads of laundry. Maybe even get the rows all sewn together? Sadly, today is my last day of break before we head back to school tomorrow. That of course means less time for me to sew. I'll have to make the best of my day :)

Edited January 7: I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!

First Friday UFO...maybe

Happy First Friday of January. I was hoping to show you the block I made for my All Star UFO and my progress on the quilt I'm making for Quilts of Valor, but Blogger is acting up. It won't let me upload any photos from my computer!

So I'll just tell you that in all the excitement of Easy Street, I was able to make another block for the All Star quilt. If you're new here, I'll give you the background of the "First Friday UFO" posts. A few months ago, a local quilt shop was hosting an "almost free" Block-Of-the-Month (BOM). To participate, you had to buy the fabrics for the first month's block. Then if you brought the completed 1st block back to the store during the next month, you got the 2nd block's fabrics for free. I was thinking of joining, because one of the colorways was patriotic, and I love patriotic quilts. Then I remembered that I had a patriotic UFO sitting in my armoire. So instead of joining that quilt shop's BOM, I decided to do my own BOM and make one block in my All Star quilt per month. On the first Friday of each month, I'm posting photos of the blocks. To see the other blocks in this quilt, click on the "All Star" label at the end of this post or on the left sidebar of the blog.

Since I've been off school this week, I was able to continue working on my quilt for Quilts of Valor. I was hoping to finish it on New Year's Day, but that didn't happen. My kids and husband wanted to eat! LOL. I have finished piecing all the blocks, and I got 4 rows sewn together.

I'll try to upload those photos later today.

Happy stitching!

Quilts of Valor New Year's Day Sit and Sew

Wow, this must be a record for me: three posts in one day!

Yesterday when I was looking at some of the blogs who were linked to Judy's Design Wall Monday, I read about the "1st Annual Quilts of Valor New Year's Day Sit and Sew." This is an invitation to quilters to make a quilt top for Quilts of Valor (QOV), an organization that gives quilts to soldiers wounded in war. Then I saw that Judy had posted a free pattern to make a QOV. I decided at the last minute to jump in, since I have lots of patriotic fabrics which I bought for my All Star quilt. This will be my first QOV quilt.

This large bin is full of my patriotic fabrics. Yesterday I looked through it to find the fabrics I want to use, then I ironed them and started cutting my strips.

Here are my strips sewn together into sets, ready to be cut into units for the blocks.

So far I have finished all the blocks with a blue "frame." This photo is just a representation of what I've done. I'm hoping to get the red-framed blocks pieced tonight also, but I needed to take a little break from the studio.

I'm really liking the way these blocks look. This is a great pattern for this project. Quick and easy and fabulous-looking when you use a lot of scrappy fabrics! I'm so thankful to Judy for giving us this pattern on her blog. This would also be a good pattern for a new quilter to learn some basics, since it doesn't have any angles.

Happy stitching!

January To-Do List

Judy at Patchwork Times is hosting a linky party where you list four quilting things you'd like to get done this month. Technically, you're supposed to write the list on the last day of the month, but I was busy with other things yesterday so I forgot all about it!

So here are the four quilting items I really want to get done this month:

1. Make Judy's free pattern for Quilts of Valor today, during the New Year's Day Sit and Sew.

2. Make 1 block for my All-Star UFO quilt.

3. Finish my Easy Street quilt top.

4. Piece the black fabrics for my CQJP 2013 project.

For extra credit, I have two more things I'd like to accomplish:

1. Quilt my AP&Q Mystery Quilt.

2. Start the Fibonacci's Challenge quilt that a local quilt shop is hosting, using more of the Christmas fabrics in my stash.

You'll notice that these all relate to my 2013 quilting goals :)

Happy stitching!

2013 Goals

Happy New Year!!! I hope you had a safe New Year's Eve. We spent the evening at home, just the way we like it :)

I've decided to create a list of quilting goals for 2013. Hopefully this will help me to be more accountable! Without further ado, here's my list:

1. Make one Quilts of Valor top.

2. Finish 5 quilts made of Christmas fabrics for gifts in 2013 (which are in various stages, ranging from not even started to having all blocks made but not assembled).

3. Finish my American Patchwork and Quilting 2012 Mystery Quilt (quilt, bind, make label).

4. Finish 2 UFO quilts (All-Star and maybe Red and White squares).

5. Stay up-to-date with my CQJP 2013 project.

Do you have any quilting goals for this new year?

Happy stitching!