Quilt in a Day!

Two of my co-workers gave birth this week.  I told myself I wasn't going to start anything new, that I had enough things going on without adding new quilts to the mix, but I couldn't help myself!  Babies need quilts!  Luckily, both new babies have short four letter names (Otto and Liam) so as I sat up sketching possible quick and easy "Welcome to the World" quilt ideas last night, what I did for one would easily work for the other, too.  I've always wanted to make pineapples...

After lunch, I got started picking out fabric and sewing.  Much of the squares came from my pre-cut scrap bins, and the background is a larger scrap from my neutral drawer.  The size of that scrap pretty much dictated how big the quilt would be.  I was thrilled to have very little of that fabric left - it will quickly be cut up and added to the scrap bins.

I'm moderately pleased with the final result.  There seems to be too much white space on the bottom and in the middle, but I'm leaving it.  It measures 40" square. 

I hope to get the second one pieced by Wednesday, and get at least one quilted (by machine, yikes! but there's no time for hand quilting) this weekend.  By next weekend I'd like to have them both ready for delivery.  That's pretty ambitious for me, but I'm gonna give it a go.

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Pursuing my Good Fortune

Now that my last quilt is in its new home and in use

The recipient posted this photo of the quilt (I cropped it) on her Instagram

I've turned my focus back to finishing my Good Fortune quilt.  All of these blocks are done, time to finish the alternate blocks. 

I accidentally made too many blocks...

Of course, I should also finish LAST YEAR's On Ringo Lake mystery quilt,

I have made no progress since getting to this point.  C'mon, Erin, you're so close!

but the colors in this year's quilt just make me happier, so they seem to always get top billing.  And I'd love to finish my 2018 Temperature Quilt, but I seem to have lost my paperwork/chart, so that project is stalled out until I find my worksheets or redo them (I still have December and part of November to complete).

This is everything through September assembled.

And then there is this quilt that I need to finish hand quilting before my niece's first birthday in April. 

I've finished quilting all the white spaces - now to the colored stars

With all these things to finish, I sure hope I can be disciplined about not starting anything NEW!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

A Fast Finish!

Last Monday, I received an email from a friend, inviting me to a co-worker's birthday celebration on Thursday evening.  She's one of my favorite people at my current job, so, of course, I wanted to go.  She has also spoken admiringly of another friend of hers who is a maker, so it seemed like she'd be a good candidate for a handmade gift.  Off to the stash of completed quilt tops I went!

I chose my Sister's Choice top for her, because, if I were given the chance to choose a sister, I'd choose her.  She's fun, supportive, clever, vulnerable, fierce, silly, mischievous, smart - just a great person!

First, I needed a backing, and it had to be something I had on hand because there was no time to go shopping.  I love this sun and moon print, but I didn't quite have enough, so I added a strip of dark blue batik.  The backing was pieced and the 56" square quilt was basted on Monday night.

Since I didn't have much time, I wasn't going to be able to hand quilt, so I put aside my fear of machine quilting, slapped on the walking foot, and started straight-line, stitch in the ditch machine quilting on Tuesday night, finishing it up on Wednesday night.  On Wednesday, I also made the binding (luckily, I had already set aside the fabric to do this and stored it with the quilt top), and stitched it down on to the front.

On Thursday, I woke up early to start stitching down the binding by hand, skipped lunch, and spent two hours after practice and dinner but before the party to get as much done as I could.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough time.  I still had one side of binding left, and while I had buried all the thread ends on the top of the quilt, I hadn't yet gotten to the back.  I wrapped it up anyway.

She did not disappoint when she opened the present - she seemed to be both genuinely surprised and honored.  I reassured her that it was a utility quilt, meant to be used, and then asked for it back so that I could finish the binding and burying the quilting threads.

It is back in her permanent possession now, and I am feeling mighty pleased with myself for FINISHING something.  I much prefer hand quilting, and I am infinitely better at it (it is HARD for me to consistently quilt in the ditch by machine - why?  It's just a straight line, for goodness sakes!), but I feel empowered knowing that I can finish something with some simple machine quilting in a pinch.

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Good Fortune Progress

I was still plugging away at Clue 7 of the Good Fortune Mystery quilt when the BIG REVEAL happened, so, of course, I abandoned Clue 7 in order to play around with the final layout.  I love the spinning star block

and this secondary block seems warm and exciting to me.

Hello, little blackbird!

We'll see how well they play with each other and the THREE pieced borders in the final analysis.

I know they are a lot of work, but I LOVE pieced borders!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Catching up

I'm back in Massachusetts after a wonderful couple of days relaxing with my husband and kids.  I knitted, I quilted, and I binge-watched TV shows.  I LOVE VACATION!

After an uneventful drive home, I finished up Clue #5 for my Good Fortune Mystery Quilt.

Clue #5 done and trimmed

I'll start Clue #6 tomorrow before heading up to NH to spend Christmas #2 with my sisters and their families.  In the meantime, I'm quilting like crazy, trying to finish my 8-month-old niece's quilt before her first birthday!

I've really enjoyed hand quilting these last few days.  Why do I set it aside for so long???

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

A Wild Ride!

The time between Thanksgiving and New Year's always seems crazy, but never more than this year!  My husband started a new job in New Jersey in mid-October - and yes, I live in Massachusetts.  He comes up to visit most weekends, but this is my third time driving down to New Jersey with the kids since Thanksgiving.  I know that many, many families live apart in order to make things work financially or because of the nature of their jobs, or for any number of other reasons.  I always thought, "wow, that must be a challenge."  I was right!  I miss him terribly when we are apart, and I don't want him (or me) to leave when we are together.  That's normal, I guess.  What perhaps isn't so normal is how much I RESENT the traveling!  All I can think of when I'm stuck in traffic (usually somewhere in Connecticut) is that if I can't have my family all together, I at least want to spend the time apart doing something I love - quilting or knitting - not stuck in a car surrounded by other cars.  Ugh!  (OK, pity party is over)

As a result, I've not been as productive in the sewing room as I normally would strive to be during this time of year.  My main project has been Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune Mystery Quilt.  I'm behind, but not too behind.  Another clue will be released tomorrow while I am still working on last week's clue - and I still haven't finished assembling last YEAR's quilt, but I'm enjoying the process.

Clue 1 done and trimmed

Clue 2 done but NOT trimmed

Clue 3a done and trimmed

Bonus triangles from Clue 3, NOT trimmed

Clue 4 done and trimmed

I've been keeping my finished pieces in a butter cookie tin (much like the HSTs that I shared last month).

I dutifully ate 5 lbs of butter cookies so I could use the tin in this way.  :)

In the meantime, my 16-year-old son has been sharing memes (is that right?  Are these memes?) with me, letting me know that he isn't the only one who doesn't know what to expect when he finds a tin of  butter cookies:

I'll have two days back at home before I get back to work.  I'm hoping I can get completely caught up with this year's mystery, make some more progress assembling last year's mystery, and plan out some baby quilts.  I have two showers in February and one in April - better get cracking!

Good (and bright) Fortune

After spending a wonderful and relaxing few days in New Jersey with my husband's family for Thanksgiving, I'm back home.  I'm proud of myself for feeding the dog and unpacking my suitcase BEFORE sprinting to my sewing room to start my Good Fortune Mystery Quilt!

First, I needed to pull fabric.  I decided on ORANGE and GREEN because I have so much of them and they are my absolute favorite colors, and then YELLOW and PURPLE because those are the two colors I have the least of and because it should make for a bright and cheerful quilt (I hope!).  And lots of scrappy neutrals make my heart sing.  I took this photo to remind me which color corresponds to which color in Bonnie's directions (please, Please, PLEASE let me remember that my green is actually blue in her directions and that my purple is her green!).

Before cutting any fabric, I went into my precut scraps to see what I could make from those.  I had a bunch of the appropriate sized squares,

and I had a bunch of neutral strips the correct width for which I just had to cut yellow to match.

To my absolute delight, I was able to sew together almost 25% of Clue #1 without even cutting into my neutral yardage, and just cutting a couple strips of yellow!

Of course, the next 75% will take much longer since I'll have to iron and cut fabric...

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making as well as Bonnie's Monday Mystery Link Up.