Material girl's BOM almost done

Well it's almost completed. Got all the pieces together, and now I'm free style quilting it. The quilt is king size now, so backing it was difficult, but I'm doing my best.  The background is small white dots on black, so I'm making free style circles on the black.  It will take me quite a while, but I have until the end of the month to get this done for the "2014 - A lovely year of finishes."  I promised myself two quilts finished, and I almost have the backing completed on the other one.  I'm so happy with how the quilt looks below!  Three inches in between each block and each block is 12 inches in size.  It's a big quilt!  Click on the size tags to see the process.

I would definitely do another quilt like this, maybe do one or two blocks only.

Another "A Lovely Year of Finishes" for June.

It's time again to make ALYOF for June.  I don't really think I should win for May because although I finished a number of BOMs for May, I did not finish (quilt, bind, etc) a full quilt. I only did one top and it wasn't listed.  So this time, I'll put down what quilt I want to finish, and there are five that need to be finished but  I will really try to do two of them and save the others for another time. 

The first one is a quilt BOM that was very fast and the squares were completed with Material Girls Layer Cake Sampler which was completed with two layer cakes or one layer cake and a background piece of fabric.   I've been working with subtle pastels and with a background of black with polka dots. All the pieces are completed, but I need to put the squares together, with the sashes and borders, and then quilt it.  I'm excited about it.  It was suppose to be completed two weeks ago, but with a number of things working against me, I know I can finish it.  Here are some of the blocks.

There are 24 blocks.

The 2nd one I am looking at completing is another BOM that I have been working on from Jennifer at

Border Sample blocks

Gable House and Company.  A friend of mine gave me 50 pieces of fabric for my 50th birthday.  This quilt was difficult in a way because I had to use only the pieces of fabric I was given and some plain green I included.  So there is one more row to complete, and I want to make it slightly bigger, but the top is almost done.  It's bright, cheerful, and I would love to complete the entire things so that I can show it to my friend before I move schools and not see her for a while.  I still have to add another border and another row (saw tooth).  then layer it, quilt it, put on binding, and that's it.  Here's what the quilt looks like so far.  

Center piece

And as usual, in my list of things to do are the different BOMs that I need to complete.  I am behind in all the appliques, and the Star quilt from my Quilting Guild.  But the guild won't meet until the 2nd week in June so I'm safe  ;)

Good luck to me.  Although my list is smaller this time, I still have big jobs to do.

Busy Sunday...

Block Lotto

Been going at it really strong to catch up with the Block Lotto modern quilt and I have to say it was really fun!!!  I had to do 12 blocks of the May block which was stripes.  Many people said it was hard, but I guess my sewing foot is on the mark for a 1/4 inch because once I started I had no problem doing them.  The ones on this bed have been sewn together into units of four.  Now I have to put them on on the Block Lotto site and tell them now many I made.  Not only did I do the 12 for my queen size quilt that I am building (been at it since January - but you can start late because all the patterns are there, you just need to catch up) but I also did 4 more to enter the lottery and 2 others that were the wrong size.  So that's not bad - 2 out of 18 that didn't work.  The secret, I made the side triangles (you make a square and cut it in half to make

two triangles) from a 5" square, much bigger then what they ask for, but really, it's easier to cut down to being short on the size.  The size of each square is 7 1/2" which makes the large square.  They had to be true blue, and that's what they are with cream on the lines.  But as you can see from the above picture, I made a couple with the orange/yellow/wild colour original quilt colour that will be the border as well as more squares.  It's in some of the circle blocks as well.  

So I have to remember (and ladies we know what it's like to remember anything.... with the large list of things-to-do we have  ;)  to enter the block lottery before the end of May.  Check out my post!!!

The other Quilt that I've been working so hard to get done from my list of things-to-do this month is the Layer Cake Quilt from Material Girls' website.  It was an excellent QAL that was fast (truthfully, with working full time and only quilting every second weekend this was quick for me but so much learning) and teaches you so much that each square can before a quilt of it's own.  All you have to do is choose one or two of the blocks you liked and make a complete quilt on it.  Here are quilt blocks 13 - 18 (I did 19 and 20 last month).  All are done now and I need to sandwich the quilt.  I missed the deadline for this one (by one month) but that was because I had to go into the hospital (nothing serious) and the medication before that got me size for 3 days before and a week after.  So darn, no final prize, but the quilt itself is a prize.  Judge for yourself.

They look fantastic all together, with a border of 2 1/2 inches and a large finish border of 3 1/2.  I won't show the final picture until it's all together and then you can be the judge yourself.  If you want to see the blocks along the way, click here.  Everyone says the background is what makes it, the layer cake was a simple, light, pastel layer cake, but it pops with the black and white.  The borders will only be the black and white, so all will really show up in the end.  I'm excited about it and I said I would put the quilt together and have the top layer by the end of the month, then in June, I'll quilt it with tiny circles in black thread only on the black material.  That would be so good looking, it will be approximately a queen size quilt.

I've done more but I'll blog about it in another blog. 

Thanks for listening.

Busy weekend, but always time for sewing.

With my list fresh in my mind and a couple of quilt due dates coming up I spent about 4 hours sewing today.  I did most of the cutting on Friday, so it was nice to just sew and see what appears.  I wanted to keep up with many of my BOMs that I caught up with last month, so here they are, the steady ones.

There's the steady one, the Quilt Doodle which is really turning out so well, I am so happy with it.  I sewed 3 of the large blocks together to make a complete row.  Showed it to my husband and his only comment was "Its a Christmas quilt??"  I explained to him that it won't be finished until Christmas anyways so that's perfect.  Then dutifully he said it was very nice and continued to watch his hockey game  ;)

Doodle Quilt - did the tree on the right.

I completed the Aurifill block.  My entire quilt is all flowers, so it will be very bright when it's done.  It's a chain on point.

I also tried to catch up on the Material Girl quilt - layer cake quilt which will be due on May 16th, but it will take quite a bit of work.  I still need to do quilt blocks 13 - 20, but at least today I finished 13, 19 and 20.  They looked so intriguing I wanted to complete the last two.  And it turned out exactly like it should, so take a look at all three then some close ups.

All three together.

Love the colors.

The pastels look well in the black dotted material.

Looks like the disappearing pinwheel I want to do.

But as I said before I still have so much to do:  blocks 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18, then put the borders on them to put all together.  I'll also need to quilt, and that will take some time.  I want to do a circles on the black all around the pattern.

To continue on, I had some extra material from before and I did a table runner.  I practised my quilting on them.  Did leaf design and flowers in the centre.  Take a look.

Square table cover.

Notice the quiltings?

I was finishing off the edge, and this time I machine sewed it.  It looks perfectly fine.  Will show this and the 3D quilts to my Quilt Guild on Tuesday.

At the same time I tried to catch up with the Block Lotto March block (Irish Chain).  I did two of them

April's Block Lotto Quilt

but I still need two more.  They take quite a bit of time.  One thing that does not take a lot of time is May's lottery block.  It's a simple block with three fines of white and blue.  I love the look.  It's very simple yet beautiful.  I need to do a good amount of them but with creams and simple blues.  the instructions say do not do any in aqua blue and of course that's the one I did  ;)  So I'll have to make more but I'll use these in my quilt.  I love the look of them.  Considering doing an entire quilt of them.  They look so modern, that's what I like about it.  

Notice the block below that is suppose to go all together.  I finally got one whole section completed.  Notice also the Irish block, March's block that I did not complete and one of the things on my list of things to do. It's simple but does take a lot of time, especially the centre star.  I would like to do the block in a different color, I don't like so much green in it then the white.  It would be better to do the opposite.  Maybe for the other two blocks I need to complete I'll do that.

One of the sections all done.

What else?  I still need to do a lot but  when looking at all that I have done today, I still feel that I've done well, and I'm happy with myself.

Quick upload of what was done today

All the Blocks caught up.

I had to take another sick day today because the voice was gone.  Vocal cords had blockage on it, so between gargling and drinking hot tea all day, it's partly back but still not 100%.  But in between sewing and sleeping, and just keeping myself from being bored (that darn AHDH again!!!) I was able to catch up with some of my BOMs.  So here they are. 

I'm very proud that I caught up with the Aurifil blocks.  At first I was afraid to use all the flower pattern ones that I had been gathering for some reason, but to tell you the truth, it's really looking very good.  What's your opinion?

Still working on a end quilt for my bed with this pattern.
January.

February - Mother's Day Block.
Will quilt a flower pattern in the canter.

March - love the selection of colours.

April's Block
Some hand stitching on the white.

Four more blocks I did (two more entries caught up)

But that was not all, I had some blocks all ready to stitch together, so I started to do that.  Now remember, I was sewing, then sleeping or taking a break, then sewing, then doing something else, then sleeping, and so on.  So I am amazed at how much was done and quite proud of how well I'm doing in catching up with all the blocks of the months.  Here's the next group of quilt blocks that are 18' (quite large) and with Material Girls which do two blocks every two weeks.  Should be done that full quilt by the end of this month.  THIS quilt was hard to keep up with all the others, and not hard to do, but a lot of work never the less using HST blocks for all the quilt.  Take a look and you'll see what I mean, all the pieces are half squares.

Block 11

Block 9

Block 12

Block 10

I still have 13 - 16 to catch up, but it's getting there.  Missed out on the first contests, for those who kept up.  I'm hoping to enter the 2nd contest which is the quilt completed.  But I have uploaded to their flickr account.  Truthfully, you feel guilty for not being on time  ;)

Will stash the quilt with that poka dotted quilt.  Love that my background is the busy part and the blocks are different shades of yellow, blue, green, purple and light tan.  Can't wait to play with placement to see how the complete quilt will be.  It will be big enough for a queen size quilt.

Voice still gone but up for more quilting...

I got the timing right, I sew a bit, then sleep, sew a bit, then sleep, well, you know the drill by now.  But I am getting things done, just in smaller quantities.  So here's what I did today...

fixed the Vise Versa April Quilt. Had to undo one of the sections.  But looks great now.

Perfect points!!

Block 7 of Layer Cake Material Girl

Block 5 of Material Girl

Block 8 of Material Girl.

All the blocks so far.

Galaxy of Stars from my Guild - Corner one.

Had to make 4 - 1st block before I joined.

The good news is that I am feeling better.  The bad news is that my voice still has not come back but I'm back to school tomorrow.  Missing the students.  I just won't be able to talk that much.  ;)

Two down seven to go and a little extra...

It's driving me crazy that I get so tired after going out for coffee and shopping for food.  It took me 2 hours just to do that and after I was tired as heck.  But I wanted to sew and yesterday I cut out some material once I received the pattern, so Saturday I thought I would try it.

The pattern wasn't too complicated.  It's from ViceVersa and the pattern is really very challenging.  This one had 2 inch squared for the centre star and 3.75 for the corner ones.  The colors look great in this picture, one of the best pictures I took of the quilt so far, so it worked very well. 

April's Block 1

April's Block 2

I even love the look of this one.  The points came out perfect here.  This is the first time that I like the look of both of them.  But I just noticed right now the mistake...  The top and bottom are opposite, I need to change that...  Opps!!!!  This will be the third time that undo something.  You had to take your time with this one.  I didn't mind undoing, and I'll change this one because I just love the look of this one.  Would like to make a big one of this one, maybe I'll put it on my list  ;)

The two together...  Looks great.

I also finished this month's April block for the Quilt Doogle Design.  This quilt is really coming along nicely, and everyone is putting up their blocks so quickly I feel pressure to do so as well.  But this one was fun, and looks great.  See The full string and the one block.  Nice points.  I think it's a top line of the quilt.  It will really be a picture quilt.

Star block.

Finally I need o catch up on some of the applique but more importantly I need to catch up on the Layer cake because it's suppose to be completed by the end of May, and I'm down about 5 blocks.

Every two week Material Girls puts out two squares using only two layer cakes or one layer cake and a background material.  

Here are the details for the full quilt along schedule:

Quilt finish

• February 21st - Blocks 1 and 2
• February 28th - Blocks 3 & 4
• March 7th - Blocks 5 & 6
• March 15th - Blocks 7 & 8
• March 21st - blocks 9 & 10
• April 4th - Blocks 13 & 14
• April 11th - Blocks 15 & 16
• April 18th - Blocks 17 & 18
• April 25th - Blocks 19 & 20
• May 2nd the final quilt layout options and piecing instructions.
• May 16th - finished lyaer cake sampler top link with prizes for random chosen winners....

This schedule allows plenty of time to get their blocks done but as you see there is two per week, and boy, that's a tough schedule to follow but this is the only quilt that is finished in May, so I am excited about that one.  This quilt takes late comers so come join the fun!!  Here's a picture of the finished quilt and come see the pictures on flickr, they're amazing. Just so you know there are 20 blocks in total and this picture only has 156 of them.  I also think I'll put a different border around each one, not sure what yet, still thinking.  Was considering flying geese on the front and flying curved geese on the back.  Something from the book "Flying Colors" from Gail Garber, a wonderful designer.  See her designs on here web site here.  

Flying Colors.

The book is below and you can purchase it from Amazon.  After reading the book, I was able right away to make my own designs.  I highly recommend it.  It also comes with a number of patterns at the back to practise with.  I never did one but I was able to right away add a curved lined of flying geese to one of the exchange blocks that I was working on in my last guide (unfortunately no pictures to show) and as I stated before it was really easy. 

Here is the block that I made last night. I skipped one of the blocks but I will get back to it.  Each block is about 18 inches and contains not one but two layer cake sheets and two backings.  You at least need 40 sheets from a layer cake.  I bought a Moda cake of pastels of different shades and the background is poka dots.  So that's my goal for Sunday, to do at least 5 more of these blocks.  I have four layer cakes sewn together, and cut up, and now I have to iron and resize them.  They'll make 3 more blocks.  NEED TO CATCH UP!

Busy catching up with the BOM's and my homework.

OK, my plan today was to catch up on the Layer Cake block of the month. So here they are, the 1st two.

Square 3

Square 1

Square 2

Square 4

Star 3

Also I had to finish my homework on the "Galaxy of the Stars" quilt from the FVQG.  I had to do paper piecing, not one of my favorite.  And to top it off, the pattern was off, so we had to add .5 to the pattern on the outside section.  They need to be 12 1/2 inches, and some areas were off, but it turned out OK in the end.  Check it out.  Love the colours.  I love how this quilt is turning out with the batik.  How can you go wrong with batik.

2nd Star 3.

Also I was interested in continuing on with the Thangles quilt.  So I finished with block 2 and 3.  Here they are, it's my Apple Quilt.

This one is bigger then the others

Nice to mix and match.

So that's what I did today.  I did cut up another layer cake, but you need two for each square, so I'll have to continue on.

BEST MOMENT:  finishing the galaxy squares for the guild.

WORST MOMENT:  having to undo the galaxy squares a couple of times to get the material to flip over correctly and cover the area needed.  But it will be worth it in the end.