Wednesday, January 31, 2018

OMG for January Completed!

 It's the end of the month, and the start of February.  I can't believe how time is flying.  A month of 2018 already done??!!  And what do I have done you ask? well, I got my Monthly goal completed!!  

Not only completed, but I even added a bit to make the ViceVersa Quilt by Two Sisters to make it a queen instead of the lap quilt.  Why?  I have enough lap quilts, and you never had enough quilt tops for your bed to change with the seasons or change with your mood.  I know, I know, not everyone is like that, but I am.  

This quilt is five years old.  It was a BOM that I joined ages ago.  I went out and bought some beautiful material that was very old fashion for a quilt that is quite modern because I wanted to see the effects, and it's so different I don't know what to make of it.  You tell me???!!

Here's what I started with this month.  What's in the box and almost all of the blocks completed except for one.  Every month we did two blocks, the same block but the inverse of it.  To the right you can see two star blocks, one with all the fabric in the center, and the other with pink in the middle and the same fabric around the star.  Can you tell where it is?
And now take a look at the quilt in it's almost completed form. It's form sister Sampler quilts by AnnaMarie Chany. It is quilted, with straight stitch, and stitch in the ditch.  Then some other places with stitching straight in larger sections.  Take a look.

Completed

Notice the quilting

Vice versa means opposite blocks

I added bigger strips in the centres to make the quilt bigger

Look at the quilting.

See the beautiful colours, it does look like this.

So I've completed what I said I would do.  And to top it off, it's on my bed right now.  It looks fantastic, and really lights up the room with the vibrant colours.  I think this quilt is one that is truly old fashion, with such a modern design.  I love it.

But there's more than that to show you.  I made another lap quilt.  This one was made with batiques, a jelly roll of beautiful browns and oranges.  Wonderful design as well.  The pattern is called blue glass but doing it with all of these colours it makes me think of Africa, because some of the patterns on the fabric look like animal skins.  It's perfect for my sofa.



Look how great it all matches.

Stitched in the ditch.

Look at the quilting around the border.
Been pushing my comfort zone with free style quilting.
Enjoyed it.

Hooking up with the OMG club (One more gone) with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly goal.for quilts that have been started and not completed since the Vice Versa quilt is five years old.   The jelly roll was a year old (saving it for a rainy day - and in BC that's been all month long  :)

This is also two quilts that have been on my list for completed quilts in this quarter of the year for the Finishing Club.  I still have 10 more to go....



Tuesday, January 2, 2018

The 2018 Finish-a-Long is coming

I'm so pleased!!!  She Can Quilt is  continuing to do a 2018 finish a long which is made up in quarters.  It's a low pressure community group that encourages you to make a list of projects that have already been started but need to be finished, and boy, do I qualify for that!  I have tons of UFOs, some are more than 5 years old.  When I joined a number of years ago, I found it really motivated me to complete my UFOs and rewarded me sometimes with a prize.  You see you link up at the beginning of a quarter and then at the end of the quarter you link up a link for each item on your list that you finished. Each link is an entry into the random draw for great prizes sponsored by our generous sponsors. There is no penalty for not finishing something on your list but the rewards are great, from material to patterns to gift cards.  I'm very excited to continue on as I've completed a number of my UFOs because of this encouragement.  And I know I'll continue on.
I continue to have a list, and buying patterns often, wanting to make more and more of the beautiful designs I see, be a part of the online BOM's out there, the list keeps growing and growing, so I need to stop or control this little impulses of mine  :)

But there are a number of quilts that I've started, then started other ones without finishing and I made a promise two years ago of not buying without finishing two quilts to get the numbers down.  I was doing great, then for some reason I started again (three BOMs this year and I know I need to stop now) so the Finish a long will definitely help get me back on goal.

What's on the list for January?  I''m keeping the number low this quarter so I can feel the success more.  Here they are:
(1)  I need to finish quilting my Aunt's Quilt.  I'm bring the quilt to her this summer.  Using small squares in neutral threats all over it.
(2)  My Vice Versa quilt which is 5 years old, and all pieced blocks.  But not together.  The quilt project is from the Sister Sampler quilts by AnnaMarie Chany. It's a wonderful book, with three different samplers you can do with friends. All use traditional blocks with a modern twist as you can see from some of the blocks I have completed.  Same block pattern, but using the opposite of materials to make different blocks.   It looks like a big mess below but when it's done it should be spectacular.  The only problem is that the quilt finishes as a twin, and I want a queen so I'll be doing some edits as I go along.  This is also my One Montly Project as well.     

(3) My new bard door pattern.  I have one section almost completed, and have to make the other one.  It's a pattern form SewKindOfWonderful from their book "One Wonderful Curve".  The book uses the curve ruler, which makes all curves so easy to complete, I'm just getting side tracked to complete this one.  It's definitely on my radar this quarter.
(4)   This quilt is a Pixel Quilt class from Caro Sheridan on Craftsy, a free class with the pattern.  It's the class that taught me how to do my Sunflower Quilt.  I enjoyed that so much there's the drive to complete a second one.  This is the quilt for me.

(5)  This last one is called the Midnight Garden.  I have all the blocks completed but one. When that's completed, I have to do the trim outside on all of it which is small 2 and a half squares of different greens.  It's a wool quilt so that will take time as well to do, and I want to make it queen size which means I ned to add something to the overhanging sections, a rabbit by flowers maybe.  We'll see and hopefully, so will you.  Here's the pattern picture:
I'll need to buy some black material as well for the edges.

(6)  I have the material and the pattern from to make a Paper Piecing Star Wars Characters pattern, that I would love to do.  The pattern is from QuietPlay and is approximately 5" x 15" in the end.  I have the material for around the wall hanging.  Want to hang it up in my classroom before I get back next week.  The pattern is free here on Craftsy.  And here is what the pattern looks like.

(7) I want to keep up with my Sewology BOM that you can find on Craftsy here at this link.  It's a great quilt for a sewer, containing things like a stitch riper, thread, a pencil for marking, all blocks to make a large square quilt.  I was behind on this quilt when I first started, but now I have three blocks completed, and I want to make sure I keep up.  It's over in April, so that's right at the end of this quarter.  That makes it great to be on this list.  I'm not showing a picture of it because I want it to be a surprise, but sufice it to say I have three blocks completed, and the rest to be done in April.  Once more, I'm trying to make it larger so I can put it on my quilt.  We'll see what happens.  
(8)  This one also, I have the pattern and the material (bought it three months ago) and never started it.  But it is just sitting there, so I would love to get it off my desk.  It's called Birds of a Feather from Sew Fresh Quilts.  I have the material to make two of the birds (the red bird and the blue jay) for my small antique table to protect it.  See the table pattern look below:

(9)  This is the final one for this quarter.  I want to make a quilt using 2 and a half inch strips for a quilt for the back of my couch.  I have the strips in grays and browns in batik so I am looking for a square around a smaller square.  We'll see what it turns out to be.  

 OK, that's nine quilts in four months, stay tuned to see how well I do.  



One Monthly Goal start for 2018

It's good to have a goal, everyone says that, and I'm really a list maker and a goal maker.  So linking up to Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal (OMG!!!!) is perfect for me.  It makes me accountable to myself and others that follow this blog (and most days it amazes me that people do follow this blog and want to see what I create).  Anyways, enough of that and on to the goal.

I have joined three (not one, not two but three!!!  Oh boy, another year of that!) BOMs online.  As always I love Quilt Doodles designs.  You have got to follow her work and see her patterns online.  She's starting a new BOM and her work is outstanding.  Want to see some that I made?  Click here to see both I made.  I gave one to a friend and I miss it so much (but it went to such a great friend) I'm considering doing another one for myself.  And along came this one so I can have another one.  The black one is right now on the back of my couch.  


So here I start again, on that one and two more that I'll talk about later.  This    post is about my goal for January!!!!

I plan on finishing my Vice Versa Quilt, one that is about 5 years old, and was sitting there with only four blocks to finish.  So this week I completed the four blocks and now I have to put them all together.  Here are the pieces all together (what a mess) and I won't reveal it until I'm done.

It's one of the patterns from the Sister Sampler Quilts by AnneMarie Chany.

Linking up to January's One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.  Thank you for this wonderful encouragement.

Busy, busy, busy....

 I've been retired now for over a year and a half, and I can honestly tell you I am semi retired.  I work about 2 days a week, randomly,...

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