Made just for me

Picture from Allpeoplequilt.com

I have found the perfect quilting challenge for me. Per. Fect. When they were thinking this up, they thought of me. Let's do a challenge for Ann, oh and whomever else wants to participate. American Patchwork and Quilting is sponsoring a Polka dot challenge. Make any quilt that has appeared in their Quilts and More publication with at least 50% polka dot fabric. Pffft 50%. HA! Go big or go home I say.

As you might have guessed, I like polka dots. I blame it on my mother for decorating my childhood bedroom in nothing but pin size polka dot fabrics in yellow, orange and lime green. OK, a) it was the 70s and b) I loved it. It was sure cheery. I have to admit I'm a polka dot purist. I don't care if they're in rows or scattered randomly, tiny or big, or overlapping, but they must be dots. Squares, hearts or flowers don't count. I'll make an exception for ovals, but that's it. Do I still buy squares, hearts and flowers? Sure! They're just not polka dots.

I've narrowed it down to three projects. No, I mean I have enough fabric for three projects, except for a couple of specific pieces for backgrounds that will arrive this weekend. Hee hee! I'm giddy just thinking about it. I'm going to try and use up every polka dot fabric i have, you know, so I can buy more. I even found a neat pattern to use that precious japanese polka dot fabric I've been treasuring for a special moment. (It's the light green one with the big white dots below.)

Special shout out to my peeps at The Fabric Shack. I placed an order for 23 different pieces of fabric about 10 pm on Thursday. I already got the shipping notification in my inbox before 9 am the very next morning. Way to swing those scissors! Edited to add: The box arrived on my doorstep on Saturday morning. And they include treats!

This should give me the energy to push through a couple of lingering projects and the remaining quilts for Japan. I have to get the final borders on my April UFO for Judy's challenge (today, eek!). Stay tuned for a post on that one. I've got to put the binding on my nephew's graduation quilt. I'll post on that one after he receives it. I have one Japan quilt quilted and three more tops to go.

Then, EEEE, DOTS!

ann

UFO finish for March and looking for a long-armer

Hi Everyone,

The best laid plans do seem to get derailed. I did finish a UFO this month, but I didn't get everything done I wanted to. That's ok, though. After the earthquake in Japan, I set aside my projects to make quilts to donate. Go here for details. I'll post pics when they're done. So far I have 3 tops done and two more cut out.

Here's what I wanted to finish:

I have made great progress. In this picture, only one basket is appliqued. So far I've gotten everything you see here plus almost all the stems done. I've got a couple more stems and enough leaves to make my own tree, then I get to do the fun stuff....the flowers.

I also wanted to get another row of my Subway quilt done. This also did not happen. I've got one more block almost together. That's ok though. No deadline on this. I would like to get it off my design wall to make room for other things though.

Here is what I did finish to the flimsy stage: [before]

I think the original pattern was called Scotch Granny which doesn't fit on mine, so I need to come up with a better name. I've been calling it Chez Moi after the fabric designers. Maybe that will stick. The pattern called for plain borders. I had a bunch of bits leftover from the block construction that I sewed into pinwheels.

The book suggested making these into another smaller quilt. I decided to use them for the borders instead. This took a lot of figuring to make them come out right and I had to add some strips to fudge it a bit.

All in all, I'm really happy with it. I also pieced the backing complete with racing stripe, as Mr. Belfry calls it, because as we all know, 42" is the new 45".

AND I finished the binding too. Yay me.

Now I just need to find a long-armer to quilt it. My gal is hanging up her needles this spring. Anyone have a quilter to recommend or not recommend?

Oh, I almost forgot. I finished the Tennessee Waltz quilt this month too. It is currently at my soon-to-be-retired quilter's. No pictures here of that one. So I do have two finishes for the month. I'm not pleased with the piecing on that one, but I'm hoping the quilting will hide it. A guy going by on a bus wouldn't notice it.

Happy Spring!

A

Not bad for three days of work

I just finished this lovely baby quilt last night. Rail fence has to been one of my favorite patterns. I made this for some friends who are expecting a new arrival any day now. This is made from Kate Spain's new Central Park line. It's such a delightful, springy line and a much needed visual break from the three days of snow we've had. I'm actually looking forward to mud.

I pieced in a section on the back both to stretch the fabric, but also to bring in more of the yellow from the front. I quilted it in straight lines. Not to exciting, I know, but it will hold together. I hope they like it.

February UFO finishes

Hi All,

Here's my February finish for Judy's challenge. I quilted and bound my Amy Butler pinwheels quilt. I used a fusible batting which works great for quilts of this size (36ish x 45ish), and I quilted it in random straight lines. I hate marking quilts. It's time consuming and I'm not very good at it. Usually the end result doesn't look much like what I marked either. This was a lot of fun to do and I just kept going til I ran out of thread.

Here's a detail pic.

And here's after washing.

And the back:

I also crossed the squares table runner off the list.

I decided I didn't want to finish the whole thing. It was another test project, so I just finished it up as a table mat. It has gone to live in my laundry room under my bucket of detergent.

My other goals for February are to finish the Tennessee Waltz quilt top and get it ready for quilting and to make 5 more Subway blocks. I'm close on the Tennessee Waltz. I just need to do the borders. You don't get to see pictures until after the recipient sees it, sorry. I've got three of my Subway blocks done, but I ran out of white squares, so I need to cut more of those. It should be no problem to finish those up this week and next. I've also got a baby quilt and Christmas presents on the to-do list too. Whew! Well, that will certainly keep me off the streets for the foreseeable future.

Ta!

Ann

UFO Challenge Month 2

Here's the next project I've chosen for the UFO challenge. Yes, I know I'm marching to my own drummer here. This is another quilt like the last one in that I got the top finished and set it aside. It just needs quilting and binding.

Here's a couple of detail shots. I bought one of those Lil' Twister templates and a charm pack of Amy Butler fabrics, and was just playing around. I had a blast playing with it, and it deserves to be finished.

I'm also going to cross this one off this month too. This is listed as the squares table runner. Only...I don't want to finish it. The sashing is tedious, and the fabrics were leftovers from another project. I was just playing around with my Accuquilt GO! cutting squares. Well...that part was fun. So, I'm going to finish what's together as a table mat and call it a day. It's about 16" square. I've already dispersed the rest of the project into the scrap pile, the stash closet, or the trash.

I'm also working on two other long term projects this month. One is Tennessee Waltz. That one's a gift, so I won't be putting pictures up. My goal is to have the top finished this month.

My other project is my Subway quilt (pattern from Elizabeth Hartman at Oh Fransson!). For Judy and Chris, here's how it looks with the second row finished. I've put a couple of chunks together....partly so it would take up less room. I'm done with the dark green squares now. I really like how the blue and orange lines look next to one another. Hmm...maybe I'll make a blue and orange quilt. No...must...focus.

I'm still looking through all the UFO finish posts. Way to go people! More than a hundred UFOs finished!

Keep warm!

Ann

Obligatory Blizzard post

Snow-mageddon. Snowpocalypse. SNO-MG. Yea, that pretty much says it.

The snow started on Tuesday around 2 pm. It quit this morning around 11:30 am. Overnight we had thundersnow and 60-70 mph gusts. Our house shakes when it blows that hard. Very hard to sleep between that and the roaring wind. We finished up with 25". Parts of the driveway and yard had drift of 6-7'. We chopped down the drifts with a shovel, then the snowblower removed the snow. Rinse repeat. Why would we do it that way? This is why:

This is the driveway before we started. Most of it was 2-3 feet deep with a couple of 4' spots.

This is the middle section of the driveway and the part that was blocked from the wind. It's about 2' deep.

This is the front walk during shoveling:

This is the public sidewalk. Yes it's under there. That stone wall is about 3 1/2' tall. The whole sidewalk in both directions is drifted in.

This is the biggest drift over the driveway coming in at nearly 5'.

The big drift with snowblower.

We took a break at that point to warm up and get something to eat. We had been shoveling for over 4 hours. Past the big drift was another 2' deep section, then the rest of the driveway was 5' deep all the way to the end. I looked out the window when i heard the snow-blower start up again and saw this:

Thank you so much, city employee, whoever you are. He was going along our street and clearing out the end of everyone's driveways. His 10 minutes probably saved us another 2 hours with shovels and the snowblower. If he had gotten out, I would have kissed him.

Right now I'm going to go take the world's hottest shower and hope I can move my arms tomorrow. I've pulled out my next UFO, so stay tuned for that post.

Ta!

a

First UFO finish!

Yay! I have my first finish for 2011. Here's the table runner in its completed state. I quilted it in the ditch and did an outline/echo pattern in the border. Nothing too exciting, but part of the reason this project got set aside was that I wasn't sure how to quilt it. Rather than over-think it, I just did something.

I originally estimated it would take me two total hours to complete. Ha! It took 2 1/2 to quilt and sew on the binding and another two to hand sew it down. So now I will take my estimates for future projects and double them.

Below is my secondary project for the month. My goal is to finish 6 blocks. I did blocks 5 and 6 this weekend, and need to complete #7-10. It takes about an hour to do a block or about 5 hours per row. I'm hoping to do a row a month for the next 4 months, then put the top together and quilt it. Of course, I realized this evening that it will finish at around 80" square which will take awhile to do.

This is why I never participate in the design wall Mondays. This project and all its pieces have been up since I started it and will probably hang out here til it's finished leaving me to rely on my design table and design floor for other projects.

Good luck on your UFOs.

A