CQJP March block

I finished stitching the seam treatments for my March block of CQJP (Crazy Quilt Journal Project) 2013. The fabrics are all black, but when I take close-ups, they look a bit washed out.

Almost all of my seams are from Carole Samples' book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches. I could make crazy quilts until I die and probably not use every stitch in that fabulous book! There is one seam, above, that was inspired by Susan at CQ4fun. The half circles above are kind of similar to a stitch she did recently, although when I went to copy her stitch, mine didn't quite turn out the same. If you haven't seen her wonderful CQJP blocks, you have to go over to her blog. She's making all of them with mini "war propaganda posters" - very fun!

Here's how the whole thing looks now. The March block is the one in the upper right corner.

Happy stitching!

April First Friday UFO

Happy First Friday in April! For my March UFO, I got the two rows of my All Star Quilt sewn together. It's fun to slowly see this quilt coming together, after some of the blocks have sat in my armoire for so many years.

 

Happy stitching!

Design Wall on April Fools' Day

Here's what's on my design wall design ping-pong table today, Fibonacci's Challenge:

 

I have the stars on three sides of the third border appliqued. You can see the slight shadows under the stars on the left border; that's the side I still need to applique. I am doing the applique by machine. None of the sides of this border are sewn onto the center yet.

 

I hope to get this border finished up this week, so I can take it to the shop and show them my progress. Then I'll get my April border guidelines.

 

Go check out more design walls (or design floors or design ping-pong tables or whatever) at Judy's.

 

Happy stitching!

 





March and April Goals

Happy Easter...He is risen!

We had a wonderful church service this morning, celebrating Christ's resurrection. We weren't able to get together with my sister and her husband today, so we had our Easter celebration yesterday, which was very nice. My parents and my younger sister live 1800 miles away, so we couldn't celebrate with them. So today we've had a quiet day at home.

Since it's the last day of the month, it's time to talk about monthly goals. Even though this past week was Spring Break for me, I didn't get all my goals accomplished. But it was a good week off work, so I'm not complaining. These were my March goals:

1. Piece the 3rd border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. Done, but I also decided to do some applique on this border, which is not finished yet. See here for the latest progress.

2. Sew twelve blocks together for my All-Star UFO quilt. Done. But you'll have to come back this Friday for my First Friday UFO post!

3. Embellish the February and March seams of CQJP 2013. Done with February, about half done with March seams. The photos of the February seams are here.

4. Trace, cut, and fuse appliques for McKenna Ryan 12" mini-quilt. Done. Here's the post about this project.

My two extra credit projects were:

1. Finish 3 block B's of Easy Street. Done. Here's how they look, along with the first B block that I made back in January.

2. Baste my AP&Q Mystery Quilt. Still not done! I guess this is getting transferred to next month's goal list, again....

April Goals:

1. Finish the 3rd border and make the 4th border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt.

2. Make label for my QOV quilt.

3. Finish top of All-Star UFO quilt.

4. Embellish the March and April seams of CQJP 2013.

I have three extra credit projects this month (I know, wishful thinking for sure):

1. Finish 8 setting triangles for Easy Street. This is my current leaders/enders project, so there's a good chance it will get accomplished.

2. Quilt McKenna Ryan 12" mini-quilt.

3. Baste my AP&Q Mystery Quilt.

Here's this month's poster for the studio wall:

 

See how other quilters are doing on their goals over at Judy's Get it Done post.

 

Happy stitching!

Happy Mail!

Look what the mailman brought me today:

My Quilts of Valor quilt, all quilted and sent back to me by Leisa, a long-arm quilter who I got connected with from the QOV website. The pattern for the quilt was a freebie from Judy at Patchwork Times. Leisa did a fabulous job on the quilting! I did a little happy dance when I opened the box :)

In each of the centers of the blocks, Leisa quilted a little flag with one star and some stripes.

In the "frame" of each block, she quilted a star in each corner, connected with wavy lines.

In the inner  (red) border, Leisa quilted different words such as thank you...

...USA, freedom, liberty, etc. There's a star in between each word.

This little corner was too small for a word, so she made a cute little flag.

For the outer border, she stitched around each large star then quilted swirly lines in between each star.

When my husband saw the quilt, he said it's beautiful and then he asked me where in the house we're hanging it up. Ummmm, we're not. It's being sent to a soldier!

Now it just needs a label and some binding.

Happy stitching!

Work on Fibonacci's 3rd Border

I've taken a bit of a break from my laptop this week...it's been a nice change of pace. But I have been working on my 3rd border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. The four border sides are each sewn, but not attached to the center part yet. The quilt is on the ping pong table, so there's actually some green that's not part of the quilt.

I really like the way this border looks as it is, but one of the requirements is that I use the challenge fabric in each border, so I am currently working on appliqueing 5-pointed stars onto each side. Once I'm done with the applique, I will sew the borders to the center.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Happy stitching!

First Day of Spring Break

Today is the first day of Spring Break! We're staying home this week, so it will be a great week to sleep in, hang out with my husband and kids, get a few jobs done around the house, and work on some quilts!

This weekend, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and their two boys came to visit. Their older son is the same age as my youngest, and their other son is a year and a half younger. The three boys are inseparable when they're together, which is so much fun to see! We had a nice visit, but I didn't get much quilting done. Since their boys had spring break last week, they had to leave Sunday to get back home. So Sunday afternoon, I worked on my McKenna Ryan 12" X 12" mini-quilt from her "Out & About" series.

Since I had cut all the shapes out last week, I spent the afternoon peeling the backing paper from each little applique piece and placing it where it goes.

For this type of fusible applique project, I use The Applique Pressing Sheet, made of Teflon. I placed the pressing sheet over the diagram. You can just see the black lines showing through in the photo above. Then I place each little applique piece where it goes. Once things are where I want them to be, I press them while still on the pressing sheet. Then I can peel the fused piece off the pressing sheet and place it onto my base fabric.

Here's the whole block, all fused together. Now I just need to pin-baste then free-motion quilt. Since it's only 12" X 12", it's easy to maneuver while I'm quilting. It just takes awhile because you have to quilt around each of the little pieces. But I've made two other blocks in this series, and I like how they turn out, so I think it's worth the time.

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

Happy stitching!