June goals

1. Post in my blog 7 times a month.  Even if I am just updating about how my leader/ender progress is coming.  I need to write!
- Woot! 7 posts in May.  Expect more this month since school is out!!!!

2. Finish Quilts for my nephew (it's started), B for graduation (no clue what to do!), A for Christmas (log cabin), J for Christmas (scrappy strings). Make tee-shirt quilts (3).
- Scrappy strings is coming along, B graduation is coming along, and I am working on two tee-shirt quilts

3. Organize and use my 2.5" squares.  I have been thinking about doing a color quilt with the different colored squares I have. 
- I have used some of them for a red, white, & blue table runner, and I used a bunch more for my monochromatic stars!Although I am not going to lie, the bin doesn't seem that much smaller!!!

And now for some sashing.

I now have 8 stars, and I wanted to see how it looked with the fabric I picked out for sashing.  I wasn't too sure how I felt about it.

I cut up some more strips and laid it out.  I am really liking how this is coming together!

I think I might add another border on the outside to finish it up. We will see how I feel once I get this put together.

Here is my new quilting buddy Earl helping me out.

And then there were 6

I am able to get a few done each night, they don't take much work! I shouldn't have any issues meeting my deadline!

I think the biggest issue I will have is not having enough fabric to make the quilt as big as I would like.  I have pre ordered this fabric, and finding more has been a struggle.  But I can add a border to make the quilt bigger.

And then there were 4

I got 4 blocks done tonight.  They are pretty easy to whip up.  I just need to figure out how many I am going to do, and how I will sash them.

Star block

I had said I had some ideas about how to use my 2.5" squares.  And this is what I came up with!  

 I decided to make it 4x4.  So I had to cut the background strips 8.5"x 2.5" and I just did a stitch and flip for the corners or star points.

I can't wait to get more of these whipped up!

Heat press

So I have wanted to start making memory quilts for people, and one of the things required for that is being able to put interfacing on shirts.  So I bought a heat press.  I haven't been able to play with it much.  We put it in the garage so the kitties don't mess with it. 

I had fun playing with it and figuring out the settings.

Table runner - red, white & blue

I am trying to make more table runners that are different holidays, Christmas is generally fairly easy, but I can't sell those well in the spring.

So I thought I would go through my scraps and wanted to make a red, white & blue one.

My husband helped me lay this one out.

May Goals

1. Post in my blog 7 times a month.  Even if I am just updating about how my leader/ender progress is coming.  I need to write!
- Woot! 8 posts in April! I am trying to make sure I document everything!

2. Finish Quilts for my nephew (it's started), B for graduation (no clue what to do!), A for Christmas (log cabin), J for Christmas (scrappy strings). Make tee-shirt quilts (3).
- I have been working on scrappy strings but that's about it! I have plans for the summer!

3. Organize and use my 2.5" squares.  I have been thinking about doing a color quilt with the different colored squares I have. 
- I have used some of them for a red, white, & blue table runner.  I also have been trying to just sew them together once in a while (by color).

Table runner - nightmare before Christmas

Man I sure love having a design wall, otherwise this would not be as easy to layout.

This quick table runner was a scrap buster for me, I got the nightmare before Christmas fabric at Jo-Ann's in the remnant bin, and I had the black!

Sadly I do not have a finished picture of this project, because it ended up selling at the craft show I was at.  There is a picture of it on the table.

Scrappy Strings

 

This is actually an addition to a quilt I finished in 2013. (Linked here)  I love the quilt, but it was too narrow, so I needed to add one more row to the side.  So here I am laying it out.

Have I said how much I love having a design wall?

Fabric!

I'm not sure how, but I found a group on facebook that sells fabric (like a quilt shop).  And I have been going a little crazy.  First I got this nightmare before Christmas panel.  I think I am going to use the left overs from my friends quilt to make another NBC quilt.

And then I got this LOVELY Harry Potter fabric.  I am not sure what Ia m going to do with it yet.  But for now I droll over it!

Craft show

 

This was the first craft show I have done on my own.  I definitely prefer to do them with someone else!  I did ok.  Not great.  

 

Of course as you noticed, most of my table runners are my halloween ones :/ life has been too busy and I haven't had too much time to sew.

I also made some cat toys, and those sold pretty well.

Kitty helpers

 

I had some help making sure my fabric wasn't multiplying!

 

Pepé was just sitting here waiting to come yell at me that it was bedtime.

 

I got smart and added a towel to this box so Minnie (or whomever) wouldn't get hair all over everything!

Leader ended 2018

Since I finished my bow tie quilt (well the top, but I do have quilting ideas).  I needed a new leader ender.  And I decided to do those spool blocks.  Of course some people think these look like bowties too!  But I am calling them spools! And right now I have 45.

A leader ender is a project you work on while working on something else, so there is always something under your needle.  It's amazing how fast they come together even if it's not being working on as a main item.  My bowtie quilt was started in 2012 and finished in 2017.  So 5 years.  Hopefully this one will go a little faster ;)

I got the pattern from Bonnie Hunter, the link is here.  She also explains leaders and enders there.

My sewing room

There was a Jo-Ann's near us that was closing.  Between getting giftcards and having some cash from a side job I was doing, I went a little overboard!

So if you bought a full bolt, you got 70% off.  So I went a little overboard, but I figured plans for most of it.  But some of it (that green at the bottom) I bought because it was pretty.

But after buying all that fabric I was feeling a little overwhelmed because of how much there was.

This is my IKEA table, I have a cutting mat on it, but it ends up getting left overs piled on it.

The bins on the left are new.  I am working on organizing them.  Some have my small squares (2 3/4, 3", 3.5", 4", etc).  And other are sewing supplies.

All those colored bins are projects that are started in some way. 

Here is a full shot of the closet.  I have so much stuff, I need to sew more and quit buying so much!

April?! What?! goals

Well I had hoped that posting goals for the month would help get me posting.  That has not.  Work has been crazy, life has been crazy.  But the school year is winding down, so I am hoping that I will be able to sew more, which means I will have more things to show!
 
Goals for 2018:
1. Post in my blog 7 times a month.  Even if I am just updating about how my leader/ender progress is coming.  I need to write!
- I barely posted in January or February, but I do have some things to show for April, and hopefully for May!

2. Finish Quilts for my nephew (it's started), B for graduation (no clue what to do!), A for Christmas (log cabin), J for Christmas (scrappy strings). Make tee-shirt quilts (3).
- I have been working on scrappy strings but that's about it.

3. Organize and use my 2.5" squares.  I have been thinking about doing a color quilt with the different colored squares I have. 
- Well I think this one went out the window. I have a few ideas of what I would like to do with them.  But I probably won't do it as a leader/ender.

Brook's Quilt - or finally a quilt

Brook has wanted a quilt since she moved in with us, but I tried explaining that it took me 15 years to make my dad a quilt, I probably wasn't going to be able to just whip her one out.

Well I found a design someone had posted on facebook to be real inspiring, so I found a way to use up some blocks I had, plus cut into some cute fabric.

 Here is Mochi while I was putting the binding on.  She would NOT get off of the quit!

And here is the quilt finished.  The darker blue fabric has French bread and macaroons on it.  I called this Quilt "finally" a quilt since has been asking for one for almost 3 years.

I used 2.5" blocks, and then the solid blue & macaroon blue were 8.5" x 4.5".  I think this pattern could be fun to do with certain colors too.

ACK! January goals fail :(

Goals for 2018:
1. Post in my blog 7 times a month.  Even if I am just updating about how my leader/ender progress is coming.  I need to write!
- I think I am going to change this one to 4 times a month (that's once a week) a) because I don't get to sew that much and b) I haven't been able to sit down at the computer much (except for work :/)

2. Finish Quilts for my nephew (it's started), B for graduation (no clue what to do!), A for Christmas (log cabin), J for Christmas (scrappy strings). Make tee-shirt quilts (3).
- I have been working on scrappy strings but that's about it.

3. Organize and use my 2.5" squares.  I have been thinking about doing a color quilt with the different colored squares I have. 
- When I was cleaning things up I found a LOT more of these 2.5" squares.  My box had been getting smaller, but boom now it's full again :/ I have an idea of what I think I will be doing with them, they will work as leader/enders since I ran out of strips for my current leader ender project.

My heart Quilt

One of, if not the first quilt I finished was for my grandma.

 I think I have shared it here before, but here it is again.

It has the only thing I have ever finished cross stitch on.   (and I think when I did it I winged it).  But it was in 2000.

Well it's been a few years, and been washed a few times, and wasn't sewn the best, so it's started to fray quilt a bit in some spots.  So my grandma had asked me if I could patch it up.  I am not sure how I will, but I am going to try.

BUT she doesn't want to be without her quilt, she loves it so much.  Well I didn't want her to be without one either, so I made her a second one.

I used blue because I used blue in her first quilt, and purple because that's my favorite color.  So I told her she always has my heart with her.

It wasn't a difficult quilt to make, but definitely outside of my norm, because of all the white, even though it's all scrappy, there is a LOT of white.  But I really wanted the heart to pop.

This was finish 4 of 4 for the year.

2018 goals!

Well 2017 has come and gone, I tried to post a little more in my blog, but I wasn't great about it, part of the issue ends up being that if I am making a gift I don't want them to see, I need to do better about scheduling posts for future dates.

In 2014, I posted goals for the year, and revisited them every month.  That helped keep me accountable in my posting and in my sewing.

So here are my goals for 2018.

1. Post in my blog 7 times a month.  Even if I am just updating about how my leader/ender progress is coming.  I need to write!

2. Finish Quilts for my nephew (it's started), B for graduation (no clue what to do!), A for Christmas (log cabin), J for Christmas (scrappy strings). Make tee-shirt quilts (3).

3. Organize and use my 2.5" squares.  I have been thinking about doing a color quilt with the different colored squares I have.