I accomplished my goals from last week!

Listen, I know my goals are miniscule compared to other quilters. But I still appreciate what I accomplished!

I prepped the binding for my daughter's quilt and made the label. Now I just need the quilt to come back from the quilter. They said just over two weeks, and it's been two weeks and four days, so it should be anytime.

I also made the final block for my string quilt and I sewed on the first border. See how neglected and sad it looks hanging unfinished on the wall? Now, if this was just a quick snap shot of a moment between borders, it wouldn't be sad. But it has looked like this for many days now.

The reason? I got caught up in this...

They are kind of improv log cabinesque (haha) blocks out of my scrap 30's reproduction fabric. They are more like wonky log cabins, I guess, but I'm not even sure I can go that far, because I sometimes made mistakes and sewed a strip in the wrong place, thus making the log cabin pattern null and void. BUT... I didn't care. And that's what made these so fun. They are easy and mindless. And scraps actually get used up! I made one just to see what I thought. Pretty soon, I had four:

Then I had a set of ten:

Then a second set of ten:

These little guys are addicting. See my poor table runner, still waiting for it's final border? I should have that border on and the whole thing pin basted, ready to quilt. But the improv blocks are so relaxing. They are an easy default.

I also did one part of the Saturday Sampler for next month. It was the easy part. The next part is probably not bad, but the third part is prepping ***75*** leaves for applique. Seventy-five!!! I will admit, I'm not much of an applique girl. I don't mind circles. I even enjoyed the flower petals we did earlier this year. Maybe leaves won't be so bad, but 75???

This week has been kind of stressful and I haven't made my way back to the sewing room yet. My goals for the next two weeks are:

1) get that border on.
2) get the table runner pin basted.
3) if my daughter's quilt comes back from the quilter, get the binding sewn on so I can start hand sewing the back down. I want to get it done ASAP so she can start enjoying it!
4) if my daughter's quilt doesn't come back first, machine quilt the table runner.
5) finish the Saturday Sampler assignments. I will probably do the prepping for the 75 leaves during my church's General Conference.

I am going to try to limit my time on the improv blocks because they are just a random project I've thrown into the mix when I have a few projects that are more pressing. Maybe I'll just do one improv block each time I spend time in the sewing room... ;)

UCMQG is dangerous!!! And other quilting news...

Lots to catch up on here...

First, I have my sewing room back. Yes! It was nice to have the visitor (actually, a friend of my parents who came to see them while they were also visiting us), but I sure missed my brand new sewing room for those few days. 

When I was moving everything into my sewing room a few weeks ago, I came across this:

Seriously? How does this happen? (Actually, I know how it happens. I have children.) I don't do a lot with yarn, so it was easy for me to just start cutting and throw that mess away. This, my friends, is another reason I am so excited to have a sewing room! I can hide my stuff away and hope that "out of sight" will mean "out of mind" for those monkeys.

The biggest news is that I finished this quilt to the point of getting it out to the quilter:

You can kind of see the backing around the edges. I knew I'd have to do some piecing, so I made a little plan and I was pleased with how it turned out. More pics when I get it done!

My plan for the back. I know, I'm amazingly precise.

As for why attending the UCMQG is so dangerous... I'm telling you, there are some beautiful quilts in the Show and Tell at quilt guild. And the quilters are just other normal women with regular lives, like me. Ha! It inspires me to think I can accomplish as much as they do! THEN... the meeting is held IN a fabric shop. AND they give you discounts for buying on the day of the guild meeting. AND they give you even a few more perks.

Add to that, Saturday was also National Quilting Day, so another LQS (Corn Wagon) had a special deal... bring in food for the food bank and get 25% off your purchase. By the time I came home on Saturday from quilt guild and stopping at the other quilt shop, my arms were full with this fun stuff:

The bag with lighter fabrics is a bunch of fat quarters from the Bluebird Park line by Kate and Birdie for Moda. I threw in a few other fat quarters to balance out the colors. The Bluebird Park purchase was from Corn Wagon, where I also purchased the beautiful framed print (above) by Liz Lemon Swindle called "Hands of Time." I love it! It will be going in my sewing room, of course. I like how it represents the tradition of quilting from generation to generation. (I am still hoping one of my girls will want to be my quilting buddy!) They were giving out the print of Christ for free, so that was a nice gift.

Bluebird Park and a couple "filler" fabrics.

The darker bundle of fabric was purchased at Broadbent's where quilt guild is held. It's mostly from Camp A Lot by Riley Blake. I'm pretty sure some of the prints are from another line, but they were all grouped together with an easy pattern for a nice throw size quilt. One of the guild membership perks is that Broadbent's gives you a one time 25% off on backing, binding, batting, and borders to finish a quilt, so I bought what I needed to finish this quilt up. It will be gift, so I'm not saying anything else until I get going on it. ;)

Camp A Lot and some other camping fabrics!

This week my goals are to prep the binding for my daughter's quilt and make the label. It should be back from the quilter within the next week. I also want to make the final block for my string table topper, and possibly machine quilt it? I mean, yes, that's my plan... I am going to machine quilt it myself, and I hope to get that done either this week or next. It just depends on how busy the week gets!

I've got the binding strips cut! I hope to have it all prepped by the end of today. :)

Yay! A Sew Day!

So I did it... I actually did spend time sewing today! It felt really good.

I made one more block for this table runner:

I started these blocks at Quilt Bliss after taking Amy Smart's class. I was thinking I would make a throw-size quilt, but I decided I needed a bright and cheery table runner for spring, so that's where I'm going with it now. I only have one more block, so that's exciting. Arranging them so that I don't have matching fabrics too close together is kind of a challenge... I'll probably do more rearranging when I get that last block done. I love these blocks, though. They are so easy and satisfying to put together.

I also added a row on two sides of this quilt...

The other two sides will get their rows added Monday, then I only have the final borders and the top is done! Seems like the last couple of times I've tried to work on this surprise quilt for my daughter, she comes to visit. (I quickly had to tuck it in a drawer today when she walked into the house!)

Have you ever noticed that you see things in your quilts or block arrangements better through a camera lens than you do with the naked eye? In that picture above, I noticed I repeated a pattern, one row apart. Darker blue, clocks, pink. Just one row apart!!!  How did I miss that when I was laying out the pieces and checking to make sure something like that didn't happen???

Oh, well. I certainly am not going to pick apart the seams just to scramble a square or two. It will just be my "Amish humility block."  Haha. By the way, according to some things I've read, the idea that an Amish quilter would deliberately add a mistake to a quilt in order to be humble is a myth. As one Amish woman stated, the idea that your quilting is so perfect that you would need to purposefully make a mistake is prideful in itself. :) Not to mention that they freely admit to making enough mistakes without having to make any on purpose. (Great article on the "Humility Block" found here. Just scroll down to the second article.)

I made this block for my LQS's Saturday Sampler from start to finish today:

It was a bear. It wasn't that it was super difficult... there were just a few things to think about that weren't in the instructions. I had to pick apart several seams, but I finally got it finished and that felt good. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Here's a sample of most of the blocks we've done for this quilt so far... (I know I forgot to include at least one of the blocks we've done, but at least you can seen the color scheme.) I think it's going to be a really cute quilt. It's a mystery quilt, so I'm not sure yet what it's going to look like all put together...

So I feel really good about what I accomplished in the sewing room today. I don't know how much time I'll get to sew as the new week begins (we still have company, plus... let's face it... just taking care of the family and home and other responsibilities can definitely limit sewing time. At least, that's true for me. I think some of the other quilters out there must have cloned themselves to get as much quilting done as they do!)

I'm hoping to finish at least the quilt top for my daughter's quilt. It would be amazing if I get the back done, too, and could get it to the quilter by the weekend. I would really have to be focused to get it done, though. I would also like to finish that last block on the table runner. AND... I really want to update some of my previous posts with better photos and more thoughts on each quilt so that this blog will be my quilt journal. I am probably setting myself up with too high of expectations, considering the week ahead, but it's good to have goals, ya?

Or not...

I accomplished NONE of my goals last week. Not one. We have company in from a faraway land, and I find that I don't really get much done when I have company. Nothing more than the basic things that keep the house running, and even that gets iffy.

But today is Saturday and it looks like it's going to be a quiet day. I'm heading to my sewing room to finish up the Saturday Sampler block that is due next week and I HOPE to maybe get close to finishing the quilt top for my daughter's quilt. However, she could be coming out today, so it might have to get tucked away again.

Then we have additional company coming later this week, and my sewing room will be a faux guest room for several days. Even if I want to sew for those few days, it won't happen.

Before the extra guest arrives, I hope to finish the two things mentioned above. Bonus would be if I got the quilt back done, also. I would love to get it off to the quilter by the end of this coming week.