February Goals

And here are the February goals.  Of course I am ambitious!

Easy Street – Done done.

Orca Bay – Progress.  I will be happy if it is sandwiched and somewhere in the quilting process. 

Blue Boxy Stars – Done done.  This was in January’s homework pile; I've budgeted 2 months for this one, so now it’s time to finish it!

Beau’s – Started.  Nancy, Near Philadelphia hosted two lovely swaps, a quilt for Miss Melanie and Ashley’s quilt.  If you know anything about Gone With the Wind, you can see where I got the name Beau’s quilt.  I hope to combine all these blocks, pieces and parts together into a very large quilt for my king sized bed that holds two pretty fluffy people!  Any start on this will make my day!

Homework

5 LCRR blocks – I never finished a set for a swapper and she still has one of my sets.  There are 20 blocks total, so I am doing 5 per month.

Just Takes 2 (JT2) – I diligently saved all the downloads last year for me to make them this year.  My colors are unbleached muslin and pink.  Since there are 4 Tuesdays in February, I will do 11-18.

String Blocks – Many of these were done as homework last year.  Since the quilt will be 30 blocks, I am taking a third of what is made, making enough more to get to 10 blocks, and joining them together into two rows, as the blocks are QAYG. 

Color Challenge Sampler – This is actually 2 challenges in one.  One is a color challenge and another is a monthly free sampler off of someone’s blog.  I’m combining the two.  No clue at this writing on the February color.

Yellow Log Cabin / LCRR – Completely undo one row and start sewing the top together.

BOMs

Yes I do BOMs too.  I like free ones or the ones where it’s bring your block at the appointed time and get your next block free. 

So, yeah, 2 finishes.  When I need to quilt large quilts, I take over the large kitchen table for quilting and I put up a large table in the living room to hold the quilts when they are not being quilted.  It kinda takes over the first floor.  So when I do it, I try to get a lot done.  I did this over Christmas and got 4 quilts done, so it’s worth it when I do it.  I love my very understanding family!

January Month End Report

OK, way back on January 1 or so, I picked the items I want to work on.  Here’s where I stand:

Old Tobacco Road – Complete!

My version is named The Three Sisters, as it represents corn, beans and squash, the three complimentary crops in Illinois agriculture.  My pieces are 75% of Bonnie’s size, and the quilt is generally smaller.  It busted 1.46 yards and hangs in my cube at work.

Easy Street – Progress

I had hoped to be at the point where the binding was attached, but I am not.  I need to put a 3 inch border all around it so it looks like it’s floating and then sandwich, quilt, etc. 

Orca Bay – Progress

Since Orca Bay Wednesdays (OBW) have returned, I have really made some progress on this one.  At year end, I had one fourth of the top put together.  Now I have a full half done, the rest of the star rows done and I’m working on the last little 3.5 inch string blocks to finish up the connector rows.  Any progress on this one is wonderful.

Yellow Log Cabin / LCRR – Status changed to Homework

I am trying the various techniques in the Marti Mitchell book Machine Quilting in Sections.  However, this has been a disaster on this quilt and I love the blocks too much to just finish for the sake of finishing.  Yes, this means I’m ripping and redoing.  So into the homework pile it goes.  Right now it’s in time out.

Homework

Just like it sounds; I assign myself homework.  This means I only have to do a certain amount on a particular project and then put it aside for the month.  I have 5 items in Homework status here in January.  I am happy to report that I am caught up with my homework!

5 LCRR blocks – I never finished a set for a swapper and she still has one of my sets.  There are 20 blocks total, so I am doing 5 per month.

Just Takes 2 (JT2) – I diligently saved all the downloads last year for me to make them this year.  My colors are unbleached muslin and pink.  Since there are 5 Tuesdays in January, I did the first 10 blocks.

Blue Boxy Stars – I found a bunch of 2.5” blue strips pre-cut, so I decided to make some boxy stars.  The 120 little blockettes are done.  Then I did 8 star blocks.

String Blocks – Many of these were done as homework last year.  Since the quilt will be 30 blocks, I am taking a third of what is made, making enough more to get to 10 blocks, and joining them together into two rows, as the blocks are QAYG. 

Color Challenge Sampler – This is actually 2 challenges in one.  One is a color challenge and another is a monthly free sampler off of someone’s blog.  I’m combining the two.  This month’s color was hot pink.

BOMs

Yes I do BOMs too.  I like free ones or the ones where it’s bring your block at the appointed time and get your next block free.  I’m all caught up on these as well.

The Tale of Woe

I wrote this earlier this week - doesn't matter.

Today is a tale of woe. 

I have been working diligently on finding alternate methods of quilting large quilts, as my main machine is a Janome Gem and has about a 5 inch harp space.  You really can’t blame me for trying.  Meanwhile, Ed, an older Kenmore that I have, has been pressed into service as of late to handle simple quilting. Ed’s internal cams are cracked so he can only manage a straight stitch at this point.  I officially am no longer investing money into Ed in any way; I was told that parts cannot be found.  It’s OK – Ed was a donation from a guy named Ed. 

So in this pursuit of alternate quilting and finishing methods, I bought the Marti Mitchell book about quilting in sections.  One method was to do quilt as you go on small sections, then machine sew the top sections together and hand stitch the backings.  OK, I thought, let’s give this a whirl.  So I took a yellow set of log cabin blocks and got started.  I will tell you that I love these blocks more than I ever thought I would.

The blocks are huge – 18.5 inches unfinished.  I like this large size; they sew up quickly and are fun.  20 make a twin sized quilt no problem.  For those of you following along, I recently took 20 log cabin blocks that were green and white and made them into a lovely St. Pat’s quilt that was quilted on Ed over the span of a week.  Since I finally have a table to sandwich quilts and a machine to handle them, I began to rethink my approach to the yellow blocks.  After all, the St. Pat’s quilt really went together smoothly….

But I forged on.  By the time I quilted the St. Pat’s quilt, the 20 yellow blocks had all been made into individual quilt sandwiches and had all been quilted.  I was in the process of sewing the blocks into rows and then doing all of that joyous hand sewing.  Now, I don’t mind hand sewing, but usually that is the binding and when the hand sewing is done, so is the quilt.  Not the case with this one.

I fought this quilt.  I shoved aside; made excuses not to do handwork, you name it.  But I recently decided enough was enough and it needed to be done.  So last week I sewed a lot of rows together to make the quilt itself so that the final hand sewing could be done.  I even took it in the car with us to Chicago this weekend and made myself work on it.  I sewed on it last night during Downton Abbey.

And then I saw it.  On the front side, there are poofy mountains.  In order to get the proper overlap on the back, I had pulled the two squares together too much and thus the top would no longer lay flat.  It was all over the quilt. All over. I about cried.

And then I decided that I loved these blocks too much.  I had slogged on all this time with the mantra of done was better than perfect and I would never do this method again.  But now done wasn’t any good any more.  It was inferior to my quiltmaking; an insult to my art.  No way. 

I stopped what I was doing.  I made a new plan.  This quilt now has homework status, which means it will be worked on each month until completed, as all of the work is just no fun.  Necessary, but no fun.  For January, I will do no more.  For February and future months, I will have to think about it.  My goal is to have about 4 quilts available for a finish in a month and 5 homework assignments and then BOMs from Peddlers Way.  That’s like 10 things per month to choose from.  I may buy a new backing; there is a wonderful fabric in the sale room at my LQS that would work.  It will be OK.

Blocks are done

I did complete the blocks on Friday; it took about 3 hours just to do the last 13 A blocks.  When I sit down and try and estimate how much time the blocks took, I'm think somewhere in the 10 hour neighborhood.  I had to remind myself to enjoy the process.

I needed that 3 hours of quilting on Friday because work was a beyond stressful day.  We were accepting an accounting file into the accounting system for the first time from a new upstream system and it could have gone one of two ways: smooth sailing and done by 10am or we're working all weekend.  We ended up up working the weekend.  My part is done, but one of my programmers has pieces left to do.

I want to get the top done, sans borders, tonight, but there is a Girl Scout meeting to run.  We shall see.  There's a lot of football on and the return of Downton Abbey (which is thankfully on my DVR), so maybe I will be inspired to sew.

I also worked on cutting out more boxy stars.  When I sort through my precut blue strips, I decided to pull out all obvious prints - the airplanes, the trains, the flowers.  I want this quilt to just read blue.  So when I did all of that I only have 20 blocks and I really want 30.  So more strip cutting will need to be done.

Now on to next week - what are my goals?  I do know that I will be away from home for Monday night and I have to prepare for a large GS event on Saturday, so my time belongs there.  So goals for next week:  borders on Easy Street, backing for Easy Street, sandwiching Easy Street, something (anything!) on Orca Bay and continued work on the yellow LCRR.  On other fronts, 2 sessions in my bedroom and 2 chapters of insurance.

Short a Goose!

I knew I might be short a goose when I had an extra 2 * 3.5 black and white brick lying around.  I held on it it, just in case.  I'm glad I did.

I sewed for another 1.5 hours today (2 episodes on a TV show on DVD).  I got 6 of the remaining 7 B blocks done, but of course I couldn't get the last one done due to the missing goose.  I kitted up all the little parts and will sew that tomorrow.  I also finished sewing the centers of the rest of the A blocks, of which I had 13 left to go.

Tomorrow, thank the universe, is Friday, so I can hopefully get far on the blocks.  My goal is to have the top done, sans borders, by the time I go to bed on Sunday night.  I have a lot of things to accomplish between now and them, many of which do not involve sewing, so here goes nothing.  I am at least equipped with good DVDs.  I am technically ahead of where I wanted to be at this point in the work week, so that has to help.

I also figured out that I am at least #24 on the Queen's list.  I was declared on New Year's Day to be #25 and the queen has already abdicated, and I have no idea how many other finishes were in there.  I have no idea how quickly I can churn something out.  I do have Old Tobacco Road all sandwiched  which  is good, but it's small and I don't want to waste my small finish just yet.

Bit by bit

I can't work flex hours this week because we had a holiday (don't ask).  So when I got home at 4 today, I got right to it.  I planned to sew the centers of the block B (the star block) for Easy Street.  I sewed until 6pm and got all 7 of those centers done and also 6 for block A, plus I started on the outer parts of block B.  I was really productive!

So tomorrow I need to run some errands after work and then go weigh in.  Maybe when I get home I can get an hour in for sewing.  I would love to finish the 7 B blocks; I'm so close.

5 blocks done

I started on Easy Street and got 5 blocks done.  Since it is set on point, I did the 5 block row and now it's lying on my living room floor.  I hope to do 5 blocks per night, but with work, that is probably unrealistic.  I also finished all the side triangles, which I didn't get done last night.

I also made the backing for Old Tobacco Road and got it sandwiched.  I consulted with Ted and I think I even know how it will be quilted.  Whew.  Sometimes that is the hardest part.

I also found some blue 2.5 inch strips and so I started cutting them up for a Bonnie Boxy Stars quilt.  No idea where this is going; just making one for inventory.

I also thought for a while on homework and put it all on a post it in my sewing area.  No out of sight, out of mind if I can help it.

OK, so what can I get done between tomorrow night and bedtime on Friday night?  Let's aim for progress on the Easy Street blocks.  The centers are actually very easy for each block, so I may just line those up and get those done.  I also would like to get 5 boxy star blocks done and one long seam done on the yellow LCRR.

2012 in Review

I finished 17 items in 2012, busting about 77 yards.  Not quite 100 yards, but it's a goal every year.  I am super-happy with my finishes.

30s Barn Raising.

Barnyard Bats

Boxing Day

Christmas 2 BOM

Grandma Says (Anita's Arrowhead)

Mini Hopscotch

Layla's baby quilt

Red, White and Back mat and runner
Chiclets runner

Seaside Rose Jacket back

Seaside Rose Jacket front

Australia fat quarters

Red hearts

Sophia's big girl quilt

St. Pat's LCRR

Watermelon Slice and Seed

Purple Strings

77 yards busted.  A fun year and a lot of quilting.  Here's hoping 2013 holds even more finishes!