Unfinished Business

A Confession of Sorts

The idea of starting a super awesome and fun brand new quilt for me is very tantalizing.  However, fresh off the finish of my second Lisa Lam Diaper Bag, I have found myself wanting to continue the high of finishing things.  As a result I have been eyeballing my pile of unfinished quilts.  I have quite a large pile of unfinished quilt tops and blocks.  For hopes that public declaration will spur me to action here is a complete list with photos of the current state of progress:

Mom quilt

I started this for my mom well over a year ago.

Excuse:
I don't have the skills to finish it the way I want

I really want to learn how to do free motion quilting and am close to working up the nerve to try.  I want to work on something small first, so I may take some of my Jitterbug blocks and practice on those.  They would make cute pillows, even with sub-par quilting, they themselves are sub par afterall :)

Pinwheel quilt

My mom won a stack of fat quarters of Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley
when we saw her at a book signing. I stared these blocks the next day!

Excuse:
I'm mad at the blocks

I definitely need some work on my flying geese construction and my poor execution is one of the reasons I got mad at the pinwheels.  The other reason is that I just could NOT decide on a layout, so I put them down and never went back.

Chevron quilt

For my shop.

Excuse:
Just plain not excited

Honestly, I have never been excited about this quilt.  I made it only because I thought it would sell and I quickly learned that is not a good reason for me to make a quilt.  I am just not as motivated by money as I thought I was when I opened my Etsy shop.

Elephant quilt

Also for my shop.

Excuse:
I don't know how I want to quilt it

Originally I thought I wanted to do something loopy to add some softness and girliness, now I'm just not sure.  Again, I really want to do FMQ but in the interest of finishing in this millenia, I may do a tight grid pattern like this.

Choices choices.

Star quilt

A gift that is now well overdue, but the intended recipient do not know this.

Excuse:
It got too darn hot to quilt!

It just so happens that my craft room is the hottest room in the house and after the brother moved out, I relocated my machine out of the dining room back to its rightful home.  I had no interest in having a quilt draped over my shoulder in a hundred degree room.  But Fall is coming . . . and the husband gave me a new fancy fan . . .

Reed quilt

There are still two rows of blocks on the ground!

Excuse:
It's so big that I am totally intimidated by the prospect of quilting this thing!

Um, its. just. so. big.  I did take a class on using a quilt frame that is available to rent by the hour, clearly the best option for this monstrosity.  I just need to get motivated and make it happen.

Hopscotch

For me.

Excuse:
I'm mad at the blocks

When I laid out Hopscotch I realized that I was missing blocks, and managed to tackle that hurdle.  However, I also realized that this quilt is going to be LOUD, which normally I love . . . but, not loving it here.  I do generally go through a phase of not liking a quilt and thinking it won't turn out, typically when I get all the blocks done, so I should probably just forge ahead so I can get over it.

Phew.

Wow, I am full of excuses.  Some more lame than others.  Now that's over with, let's get on with some finishing!  What to tackle first?

Onto the Next

Quilt for Me, Take Three

After lots of internet and fabric store searching here are the three finalists to go in place of the defunct Jitterbug quilt (you can read all about that here and here).  And maybe, just maybe, I have already acquired the fabric and patterns to make ALL of them . . .

Pastels in "Window Pane"

This pattern:

I love, love. love this quilt! By Janet.  You can visit her shop here.

I don't actually have a pattern for this but I have seen this design and variations on this design several places.  The above photo just happens to be my favorite example.  The only drawback is that I don't really like square quilts and in order for the design not to be weird, it needs to be square.

This fabric:

I am super taken with this weird pastel + black palette right now.

Cross Roads in Tsuru

This pattern:

By Sherri McConnell. You can visit her blog here.

I have been wanting to make a plus quilt and I want to conquer half square triangles, so this is a pretty good option.  When I saw this pattern at Fabric Depot, I put it in my cart right away :)

This fabric:

Sunrise in Berry with a Hint of Citron

This pattern:

From the book Modern Basics II by Amy Ellis

I really like this quilt (again, very much like a plus quilt) and have been collecting fabrics in the below colorway for a while, but I am just not sure it's my winner.

This fabric:

I want to use a variety of low volume fabrics in the background.
I am hoping for a similar effect has this quilt.

I keep hymning and hawing over what will be the most fun to make AND I will be most excited about actually finishing (meaning sometimes tedious things are worth the effort).  Open to thoughts, suggestions and voting . . . 

Quilt of Honor Top

My New Team

Is super awesome!  I love being part of the local Portland Etsy team, and being able to get together in person and talk shop.  However, despite my efforts, I have not been able to find another quilter on the team. (If you are out there, make yourself known!!!)  Quite frankly, that is what all my questions are about, quilting and selling quilts.  Enter the Quiltsy Team :)

Okay, so I found these ladies intimidating when I looked at the requirements to be on the team but I really wanted to ask quilting questions, so I wrote up some shop policies and forged ahead.  I was gleeful when I got the message that I had been accepted onto the team!!!

And of course, there wasn't anything to be scared of.  Everyone was so friendly and welcoming.  Also, SO. MUCH. TALENT.  To learn more about the team, you can visit our blog, here.

A Call to Action

A discussion thread was posted to the group on August 11th asking for help making five quilts to be presented on September 11th to a group of veterans that were being honored at an event in New York state.  A month was a short timeline to be sure.  BUT I really wanted to help and a fellow team member had offered to quilt and bind a completed quilt top, so I said I would make the top for her.  Eek, this is exciting! Quick like a bunny, not time to waste on this one!

Quick Quilt Top (that I can still be proud of)

I really liked the idea of sewing something from my stash and was surprised how much red, white and blue fabric I have (mostly thanks to my mom and all her good garage sale finds) but the idea of trying to do something scrappy and improvy seemed like too much for the short time frame.  I decided that I would see what I could find on Pinterest.  You can see all of the ideas I gathered here.

In the end I decided on a variation of the quilt below.

If you look closely you will notice that the strips aren't actually full rectangles.  They are a little wonky, but in a very specific way.  The pattern called for a template ruler which meant individual pieces, which was a no-go in this situation.  Luckily, I have done a few other variations on rail fence.

A purple skull quilt for my mother in law:

A pink quilt for my Nana's pink house:

and I knew I could achieve a very similar effect with regular old strips AND at blazing speed.  Off to Fabric Depot!

Let the cutting commence!

This quilt top went together beautifully!  And quickly, just three evenings!  After all the trouble I had with my Jitterbug quilt, it was so nice to have all my blocks line up and seams match!  See, I told myself, you do know how to do this. I have also learned the importance of squaring blocks after sewing them together.  Ah, the fun of being self taught :)  Thanks to all my unknowing internet guides and teachers I am slowly filling in the gaps in my quilting know how.

And here it is!

The blocks all laid out before being sewn together.

A quick snapshot before being mailed off!

I sent it off to Vivian in South Carolina to finish!

She turned it around in just a few days, amazing.  Her quick snapshot before it was in the mail once again :)

At Last!

This project was super duper top secret so I couldn't share before the event.  Finally the day was here! I was so excited to see the below photos from last night!

A shot of the quilt tag, with my name on it!

The quilt and recipient :) So awesome!!!

Skulls and Hearts in Hot Pink: A Finish

Custom Order

Remember how I told you that I brought my Lisa Lam Diaper Bag to work to feedback on pockets and such?  If not, you can read about that here. Well one of my co-workers loved it so much she ordered one! She plans to use it to carry all the crap that her husband and kids hand her while out on vacation.  What a perfect idea!

I ran off to Fabric Depot and clicked off some pics of fabrics I thought she would like but I had a feeling this would be the winner:

So Fun!  The skulls have hearts for eyes!

Lo and behold, I was right!

I gathered additional supplies, including the elusive hardware.  I decided to go with a 1.5" strap as the pattern calls for and save myself the heartache of finding a 2" slider and O-rings.

Also, Michelle had the fabulous idea of using lime green zippers.  I said I would look even though I was pretty sure that was too tall an order, but Fabric Depot didn't let me down:

I was very pleased with the black and white fabric I chose for interior.  Plus for the inside zip pocket I found a gray on black heart fabric that I thought was perfect with all the hearts on the exterior.  I was getting very excited to see it all come together!

Other than not really remembering just how many steps go into making this bag, it went together pretty easily.  I had to remind myself to slow down and follow the directions a couple of times.  I manged not to do too much ripping and re-sewing.  I would have been done faster, but there was a very distracting Castle marathon on TNT for Labor Day :-P

Finished

It came out even cuter than I could have guessed!