First Friday UFO - February

Happy First Friday of February! That means that it is time for another "First Friday UFO" post. If you recall, I started doing these posts back in August. I was contemplating doing an "Almost Free BOM" at a local quilt shop when I realized that I've got PLENTY of UFOs sitting in the armoire, so I could do my own little Block of the Month program. Each month, I make one block for my UFO and show it on the first Friday of the next month. Right now I'm working on my All Star quilt.

Here's the block I made in January. Does that center look familiar? When I was making my New Year's Day QOV from Judy's pattern, I had an extra 6 1/2 " piece of a red-cream-red subset. Since these stars finish at 12 inches, that piece was perfect for the center of this star. I also thought it was cool to put a bit of my first QOV into this All Star quilt. I will be keeping this quilt for my family room.

Here's a closeup of the blue fireworks fabric that makes up the star points. You probably can't see it real well in the photo, but there are silver streaks in the fireworks.

With this block, I've made 12 blocks for this quilt, and 12 was my goal. I made this little collage in Photoshop to show you all 12 together. Believe it or not, every block has the same cream background fabric! Depending on the lighting when I took each of the photos, it looks different in different blocks. I don't think this is how I will eventually set the quilt; I just made the collage to show all 12 blocks together.

I just have one problem. "One of these things is not like the others." Raise your hand if you remember that song from "Sesame Street"!

The block up in the top right corner doesn't work for me. For one thing, it's only two fabrics (the cream background and the blue print), while all the other blocks have at least three fabrics (the cream background, one or more red, and one or more blue). Also, this block is not a sawtooth base and it has the blue fabric in the four corners. I really like the block on its own; I made it in a class at a quilt shop. But I don't like it in this quilt.

My plan is to make this one block into a throw pillow and I'll make one more block this month so I have 12 for the quilt. This month as I work on that last block, I'm also going to be thinking about how I want to set the quilt.

Happy Stitching!

Monthly Goal Check-in: end of January

Can you believe we are about to say goodbye to January of 2013? This month has totally flown by...I think these next few months will be a blur, since my oldest son is in his senior year of high school.

At the beginning of January, I listed some quilting goals I had for the month. Here's how I did on them:

1. Make Judy's free pattern for Quilts of Valor during the New Year's Day Sit and Sew. Done. See this post for photos.

2. Make 1 block for my All-Star UFO quilt. Done. But you'll have to come back tomorrow for my "First Friday UFO" post to see photos :)

3. Finish my Easy Street quilt top. Not Done. This is one goal I totally overestimated on. When I was making my January list, it was at the end of my 2-week Winter Break, so I was a bit over-ambitious! This quilt requires lots of thinking and pinning, and I've been using it as my leaders/enders project for my other quilts this month.

4. Piece the black fabrics for my CQJP 2013 project. Done. See this post for photos.

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

1. Quilt my AP&Q Mystery Quilt. Not Done. Not even close. It's still sitting on the ping-pong table, where it's been since I finished the top. Here's a photo of the top.

2. Start the Fibonacci's Challenge quilt that a local quilt shop is hosting, using more of the Christmas fabrics in my stash. Done. I decided this was a higher priority than Easy Street. If I bring in my progress to the quilt shop, I will get the February directions for free. But if I don't have any progress, I'll have to pay $3.00 for the directions. Here are photos of the first border.

SO....

That's how I did this month. Judy asked on her blog if we thought having goals helped us get more done in January. I think it definitely helped me to stay focused on a few projects.

Here are my February goals:

1. Piece the 2nd border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt.

2. Make 5 blocks to send to Alycia for her block drive. You can join in the fun. For every 5 blocks of her pattern that you send to her by March 8th, your name will be put in a drawing for a gorgeous fat quarter pack.

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

4. Embellish the February seams of CQJP 2013.

My two extra credit projects are:

1. Finish 9 block A's of Easy Street (I'm trying not to be too ambitious with Easy Street this month!)

2. Baste and quilt my AP&Q Mystery Quilt.

I made a little photoshop document to print fullsize and hang up on the wall in my studio. I think it's more fun to look at than a hand-written list.

How did you do on your January goals? Have you written February quilting goals yet? Go visit Judy to see how others are doing with their goals.

Happy stitching!

Fibonacci border #1

I got my first border all assembled and sewn onto the center block for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. I will go back to the shop either Saturday or next week after school one day to get the instructions for the February border.

Here's a closeup of two of the blocks in the border. The green is the same fabric as the center block (that's one of the requirements for this 1st border). The lower cream/beige fabric inside the red frame is the "challenge fabric" that I had to buy from the quilt shop for this challenge. All pieces of this first border have to be rectangles (another of the requirements for the challenge).

I haven't really done anything on Easy Street this week, but I did get the black fabrics pieced for my CQJP 2013 project. You can read about that here.

Go see what others have on their design walls over at Judy's.

Happy Stitching!

CQJP 2013 background piecing

I've finally finished piecing the background fabrics for my CQJP 2013 project (Crazy Quilt Journal Project). As I mentioned back in November, I'm going to make a wall-hanging crazy quilt to hang up each Easter. My plan is to use black fabrics in the background (or maybe it should be called the border?) Anyway, the inside of the quilt will be a circle with a "landscape" of a hill with a cross and some flowers. I'm tentatively calling this "Celebrate the Resurrection."

The seam treatments for the black fabrics will start out with black threads on the outer edges, then progress to grays and white as they get closer to the circle. I know what I'm envisioning, but I'm not sure if I'm getting it across in writing. The big trick will be to see if the finished product looks anything like my vision ~ LOL!

Since I'm making more of a wholecloth quilt this year, rather than working on individual blocks, I'm aiming to embellish approx. 8 X 8 inch sections each month. The total size is 24 X 24 at this point; I might add a solid black border at the end.

This project will be a challenge to me for a few reasons:
1. I've never done a whole-cloth crazy quilt before, so the larger size will be a challenge.
2. I will need to stay consistent in how I progress from black to gray to white threads as I go around the quilt.
3. I've never done any type of landscape quilt, either in a crazy or a sane quilt, so this will be a new thing for me.

I started off piecing this basically like I would piece a crazy quilt block, putting a 4 or 5-sided piece near the center of each corner. I then machine-stitched pieces to each side. However, I got to a point where there were funny gaps.

At that point, I pieced chunks of fabrics together. (Yes, these are black, but the color is a bit off on this photo.)

 The 3-piece I sewed together will go in this spot above.

 I attached the 3-piece chunk by machine on one side.

Then I turned under a seam allowance and hand-stitched the left side of the chunk to the base. Since I will be doing fancy stitches over the seam, I didn't worry about making tiny applique stitches. Just enough stitches to hold it in place until I can do the fancy work.

When I wasn't working on this, I had it on the ping pong table, on top of some patriotic fabric and on top of my American Patchwork and Quilting Mystery Quilt top. Callie decided to rest right on top of this! I've never seen her on the ping pong table before ~ this must be her stamp of approval on my work!

After I hand-appliqued the chunks that connected the corner areas, I turned the piece upside down and stitched on the blue lines I had marked before I started the piecing. This white stitching will help me know how far to do my fancy stitching on the seams.

My plan is to piece the inner circle on a separate piece of muslin, do all the embellishing, then applique it onto the black. But that may change as I get further into this project.

No, I haven't forgotten about my CQ Anniversary Quilt. If you remember, my goal is to make 25 blocks for our 25th wedding anniversary (December 2015). So far, I have 15 blocks made and 2 years to finish. I'm taking a break from that to work on this project. I don't expect this new project to take all of 2013, so I will probably make a few more anniversary blocks at the end of this year. Click the "Anniversary quilt" label in the sidebar to see the blocks I've already made.

Happy stitching!

Calling all Quilters

Alycia is hosting another "Block Drive" to make into quilts for Quilts of Valor (QOV). According to their website, the mission of QOV is to "cover all combat service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor."

To participate, you just need to make blocks in the pattern Alycia has on her blog. It's a simplified log cabin. You can either make your block(s) in a patriotic colorway or in plaids.

To further entice you to make a few blocks for this worthy cause, a gorgeous fat quarter pack has been donated by Vicki Welsh. For every five blocks that you send to Alycia by March 8th, your name will be put into a drawing for the fat quarter pack.

See here for all the exciting details!

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday ~ MLK Day

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I've got a few things on my "design wall" this week.

First, I finished my top for Quilts of Valor. It's so long that you can just barely see my husband's toe peeking under the border! I used the free pattern that Judy gave out on her blog, but I eliminated the middle 1" border. Although I had plenty of scraps for the main part of the quilt, I did go buy some yardage for the two borders. And I had some leftover to add to my patriotic fabric bin :) I've had such a fun time making this quilt. Red, white, and blue is one of my favorite color combinations, and it was a joy to use many different patriotic fabrics. I know this isn't much, but I hope this quilt will help a soldier to know that we do care; we appreciate what they are doing for us; their sacrifices do not go unnoticed.

While I added the borders to the QOV, I made some more units for block A of Easy Street as leaders/enders. The 4-patches sewn to the double bricks are rotated from the ones I made last week, since you need some of both for this block.

After finishing my QOV, I got to work on the 1st border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. Here's some information about that quilt. After laying out some fabrics for my border, I decided I didn't like it, so I revamped my plan.

Since this border can only have rectangles, I sewed two 1 1/2" strips of creams and golds together, then cut into 2 1/2" pieces. Then I framed them with green 1 1/2" strips. So the finished width of each piece will be 1" and the finished blocks will be 4" squares. I will be alternating green and red blocks; here are the 8 green blocks I have made.

I'm hoping to finish this border later on today, since I'm off school for Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday.

You can see what's on other quilters' design walls at Judy's blog.

Happy stitching!

QOV and Easy Street Progress

This week, in between going back to work after two weeks off, getting a haircut, going to a parents' meeting for younger son's basketball, and spending 2 1/2  hours in the emergency room with younger son who sprained his ankle at basketball, I was able to sew the seven rows of my quilt for Quilts of Valor (QOV) together. Please ignore my husband's hands at the top of the quilt and his feet at the bottom. When a quilt top gets this big, he is my "design wall" ~ LOL! I just need to cut and piece the borders, then sew them onto the center of the quilt.

While I worked on the QOV quilt, I worked a bit on Easy Street, using it as leaders and enders for the QOV. At first I was going to assemble Easy Street one block at a time, but then I decided I'd rather piece together two units for all the blocks I'm going to make. Here are half of the 4-patches sewn onto half of the double bricks. The pattern calls for half of the 4-patches to be sewn on one way and the other half sewn on with them rotated. I had hoped to have my entire Easy Street quilt top finished by the end of January, but I'm not so sure that's going to happen now. When I have a break from my job at a school, I tend to forget that life gets pretty busy during the school year! I'm just happy to keep this as my leader/ender project for now. I know it will come together soon. I'm not whining, but these last two steps are pretty involved :)

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!