2016 Finish Along {Q1 Goals}

Looking back on my 2015 finish along goals, I didn't do so hot.  Sure I got a lot finished in Q1 but not much of what was on my list.  In Q2 I did much better at following and finishing what was on my list.  I didn't even manage a list for Q3 or Q4.  Check out all of my posts related to last years finish along here.

I'm aiming to be much better this year though.  I have some big plans for that long WIP list from last year.  So let's get down to it with my list of goals for quarter 1.

1. Finish the match for this commissioned quilt.  

I'm really excited about this one!  No picture yet though so I'll just share one of the first memory quilt I made for this customer.

2. Complete a T-Shirt quilt for my cousin using her college tees.

Sarah made this lovely quilt with her Gramma and I'm totally stealing her idea.  It's a Sweetwater pattern made with embroidered blocks but I'm thinking it's going to be perfect for the t-shirt quilt too!

Photo courtesy of Smiles Too Loudly

3-4-5. Finish quilting three baby quilts.

This fall I made three baby quilts while I was at retreat.  I have one about 70% quilted,  The other two still need to be basted but then they are ready to go.  They are surprises so I only have this one WIP picture to show you for now.

6-7. Complete these Open Wide Zipper Pouches.

I have several pouches started so far.  Some are for a trade with girlfriends (they crochet, do needle point, and weave, I'm very excited!), others are for gifts.

8-9-10. Quilt the three different versions of this Liberty and Peppered Cotton butterfly quilt.

I have been having so much fun playing with these Liberty of London scraps and some pretty forest green peppered cotton.  I made two quilt tops and one mini-quilt out of these absolutely lovely fabrics.  I'm planning on keeping one and perhaps selling the other two.  We'll see!

11. Quilt my Tree Skirt

Over Christmas a close family friend was state-side for a bit and she let me borrow her pattern and ruler to make a tree skirt.We went shopping together the year before when she bought the fabrics for her two versions and they are absolutely lovely!  I finished sewing my Cotton + Steel and Carolyn Friedlander version in an afternoon!

So there you have my list!  Looks like I'm going to need to buy some more thread and batting so I can get all this quilting done!  Let's see how I do!  Linking up with A Quilter's Table for the FAL and with WIP Wednesday today too!

This year the FAL is hosted by several different bloggers.  Be sure to visit them for all the details!

Debbie - A Quilter's Table - USA

Jess - Elven Garden Quilts - Australia

Stacey - SLO Studio - Canada

Jennie - Clover & Violet - USA

Helen - Archie the Wonder Dog - UK

Nicky - Mrs. Sew and Sow -UK

Cindy - Fluffy Sheep Quilting - Ireland

Rhonda - Rhonda's Ramblings - USA

Leanne - She Can Quilt - Canada

Open Wide Zipper Pouches, take two

I have been on a role since I got back from retreat in October.  I guess all I needed was a little extra time with my creativity and others like me to really get my sew-jo back.  This Sunday I worked on making a bunch more of the Open Wide Zipper Pouch by Noodlehead.  I made my first one back in May of this year and have been using ever since.  I love it so much and I thought that they would make great gifts this year (although to be perfectly honest my ulterior motive was to make more for me! Don't tell anyone.).

I have a bunch of canvas fabrics that I have been wondering what do do with for ages.  I found them again when I was cleaning out my sewing room post-retreat and left them out on the table figuring I'd make a bag or something.  on Sunday, I was having some trouble with the thread tension on a baby quilt I was quilting so I set it aside, picked up these fabrics and just started cutting.

The first fabric I used is Itsy Bitsy, by Heather Ross, which you can still find here.  The other is a fun records print by Melody Miller called Ruby Star from Spring 2012 for Kokka on an 85/15 cotton linen blend.  I have the color ambrosia, which is a lovely sage-mint green.  This is a really large scale print with the records measuring almost 7" across.  I made three pouches in these fabrics, one large in the records and one medium and one small in the the Itsy Bitsy.  I used a heavy weight Pellon fusible interfacing on all of these bags because I like them to have a little more structure and substance and I think they hold up better personally.  Overall, the added weight/bulk didn't impact my sewing.  They are also all lined with the same grey-brown Moda Grunge as my first pouch; perfect for hiding stains.

The second versions that I made are using a fun black and white forest animal canvas, that I think came from Spoonflower, and Essex Linen for the bottom.  I'm pretty sure the color I used is either Graphite or Black.  I made two large pouches and two medium pouches in this combination I love on these how the only color comes from the zippers.  I switched up the colors using various bright zippers.  Aren't they fun?!

My personal favorite is this Bear Boogie in Red by Kokka, a cotton linen blend.  I have no idea where I got this fabric but since it's just so darn cute I'm glad it ended up in my stash some how.  I only made one large pouch out of this one but would love a little set of them to use.  This one isn't completely done yet, I still have to sew the tag to the end of the zipper, but I was so excited to use it that I decided to do that part later.

While cutting/piecing this one I tried to make sure that all of my seams would line up around the bag  and was so pleasantly surprised when I flipped in right-side out and saw this perfectly matched seam!

I still have a few more to finish up before these are completely done.  And they're so fast and easy I might just cut out a bunch more for gifts and to list for sale sometime.  I think a fun modification would be to use laminate fabric for the inside for shower supplies or things that might leak.  I'll have to explore that further too.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday today over at Freshly Pieced.

Nearly Wordless WIP Wednesday

package received

sneak peak of packaged received

finishing the quilting for my package to send

mini to send complete

All pictures are from my instagram feed.

Satisfying Quilts

Good Morning!  I had the pleasure of spending the better half of Saturday working on a baby quilt for my husbands cousins wife.  They are expecting their first child together and contacted me to ask if I'd make them a baby quilt.  Obviously I agreed!  I'm only sharing some progress pictures because I want the finished quilt to be a surprise for them.

When we first talked, the mama-to-be had a few ideas about designs and colors and we made a Pinterest board to collect some ideas, but basically left the rest up to me.  She asked for a chevron or triangle pattern in the colors: Mint, Aqua, Navy, White, Grey, and Apple Green.

I pulled some fabric and shared it with her before I started and she was thrilled.  It's a mixture of Cotton+Steel, Lotta Jansdotter, and some printed fabric from Modern Yardage.  (On a side note: the Modern Yardage fabrics suggest prewashing.  The colors faded pretty significantly.  Not sure if I would try fabric from them again.)  In less than an hour I had a lovely stack of triangles ready to sew up.

I laid the pieces out into rows on the floor.  A quick black and white photo ensured that the different values were spread out and I was ready to sew.

I just love how quickly these types of quilts sew up.  Especially in a baby size.  By about 4 PM I had a finished quilt top ready to go!

On Sunday afternoon I pin basted the quilt, using two layers of batting to help make it extra soft and cuddly.  In less than 2 hours I was able to finish about 75% of the quilting.  I'm using a grey/blue aurifil thread and echo quilting on each side of the diagonal lines.  Quick.  Easy.  Satisfying. 

I had hoped to finish this up this week and use the rest of the time until her baby shower to make a bumper (I'm hoping to channel my inner Rachel) and a few other surprises for the parents-to-be but life threw a curve ball at us.

On Monday, my husband was hit by a truck while cycling and is currently in the hospital recovering from arm surgery and a partially collapsed lung.  He is in good spirits but tired and sore.  He has no broken bones and just some scrapes and bruises besides the lung and arm.  We acknowledge how incredibly lucky he is.  All things considered, this is the best case scenario in a bad situation.  They expect he'll make a full recovery but for someone accustomed to being highly active this will be very hard for him.  In the meantime your prayers would be appreciated.

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Finishing a Commission Quilt {WIP Wednesday}

I'm on a tight deadline to finish up the first of two commission quilts before I head to Florida for a week with my Mom.  I know I haven't shown you much of this one yet but hope to share more soon.  In the meantime, I need to get back to sewing!

quilting like a mad woman this week

Martin Cat thought he was helping me sew the backing up

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Round #4 - Christina @ WIPSandTUTS {Round Trip Quilts}

For Round #4, I had the opportunity to work on Christina's (from WIPs and Tuts) Round Trip Quilts Top.  You can see all of my related posts here and all of our updates here.  Christina can be found all over the web.... on Flickr, Instagram, and Etsy.

Christina asked for an Autumn and Woodland themed quilt.  When her quilt left Liz's she had a lovely scrappy star, some yummy apples, two hungry squirrels, and some falling leaves.  Well being a "woodlands" girl myself, I knew the minute I saw it what I wanted to add to her top:  the forest!

Image from Green Cheese Quilting.

I grew up in the woods.  My favorite place to play was literally in the trees... my brother and I would climb trees all day in the summer and hide under the lowest branches of the pine trees in the winter.  I love the peace and quiet that exists in deep in the woods; when all you can hear is the sound of the wind running through the trees and the animals chatting with each other.  There is no place better than that.

To make my trees I started out by cutting 5" strips by various heights out of the green and various sized squares out of the blues.  Then I made the two into REALLY wonky flying geese, not worrying about losing the points.  I actually preferred when they did lose their points.

After everything was pressed and trimmed to neat 5" wide I sorted them out into eight roughly equal piles.  I ended up making another, neater wonky goose for the top of each tree, as that was the only place I didn't like the lost points.

Trees in progress

Once my trees were assembled I used what I guess I would call a slash-and-insert technique to make the tree trunks, again varying the heights of the trunks.  Then the whole thing was brought up to size using strips of blue sky for the background.

Finished trees

I really love the height and weight that this gives the quilt and I hope that Christina does too!  What was really fun about this round is that while I was working on Christina's quilt, she was working on mine, and though I haven't seen the finished product of my top, I'm pretty sure we both made trees.

Christina's top after my finished addition

The trees do add a lot of green and blue to the quilt top, but I'm confident that Leanne, Mary, and Chelsea will be able to bring in some more of the oranges and yellows that Christina loves.  I didn't actually measure the top when I was done with it but I know it's about 50" across and long enough that my dear, quilt holding friend had to work hard to keep it off of the ground.  When it's done this is going to be a great cuddle quilt.

Leanne this will be in the mail first thing tomorrow!!

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Instagram Progress | Challenge Quilt

Last week I made a quick trip to Quilted Threads in Henniker, NH for some new fabrics.  They are one of my favorite local quilt shops.  They carry a great selection of new and modern fabrics.  One of the only places in the area that does.  My plan was to make a Marsala Quilt for the Pantone Color of the Year Quilt Challenge.  I also wanted to make something for the annual challenge at my local quilt guild and thought why not combine the two??

I left with this lovely bundle of pinks and reds.  The main fabric I purchased is an American Made Brand solid in Brick Red.  It was the closest I could find the Marsala.  That's the bottom fabric in this picture.  I rounded out the bundle with some Kaffe Fasset, Cotton + Steel and Anna Marie Horner plus a few more solids.  I also picked up some Doe Ladder Lines in a white on white print for the background.

Using the templates here I got to work sewing and cutting HST.  You are essentially paper piecing when you use this method.  It's quick and easy to make a ton of HST at one and there is very little waste or trimming... when you print the right size template.

I printed the templates too large and had to trim all of them down by a half-inch on both sides.  Luckily my husband took pity on me and actually helped me trim them!  He did great and I only had to touch up a few of the pieces.  I even offered to let him trim all of my blocks from now on ... an offer he declined quite quickly.  Oh well!

I'm using several different methods to make my blocks but the end result will all be Birds in the Air blocks.  The blocks below will finish at 6".  I plan on making 12" and 3" and 2" finished blocks also! I was mostly inspired by this quilt when I was thinking about my design.  I can't share much more because some of my guild mates do read my blog but after the quilt reveal in March, I'll be sure to share more progress pictures!

Can we also just take a moment to appreciate the octopus peaking out of the corner in the center HST of the bottom right block, and the perfectly lined up critters hanging out in the center HST of the top right block?  So cute and fun!

Last night I had some more time to sew while my husband was in a class and have another 20 blocks completed in addition to the four above.  Our adopted cat, Martin, also got in on the action and decided to visit with my on top of my sorted HST.  The sewing went a little slow at that point because his tail was dangerously close to my sewing machine.  But I was glad he came to visit!  He and his brother Archer are finally starting to warm up to us after almost a year.

All of these pictures are from my Instagram feed.  You can follow me here, @NeverJustJennifer, if you'd like to stay up-to-date.  I tend to share there the most.  And if you want more of the cats (you know you do!) they are at #MartinCat and #AgentArcher.

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

WIPs Update {part 3}

As part of my goal to finish all of my WIPs and UFOs in the next 12 months, I'm blogging about all of them here in their various states of completion to help keep myself accountable to actually doing what I have set out to do.

The past two weeks I've posted about my overwhelming pile of WIPs and UFOs.  I've blogged about 11 of them now.  I am happy to report that I finished one of them for a yankee swap at my annual Friendsgiving celebration with friends from college.  I did forget to take a picture of the finished quilt before gifting it but hopefully I can get one from my friend who got the quilt so I can share it with you here.

WIPs

2014 Aurifil Block of the Month

These blocks are from the 2014 Aurifil Block of the Month.  I started them in January and have completed blocks through August.  I don't know what I'll do with these blocks.  I debated throwing them in with my 2014 Sugar Block Club quilt, since I used the same colors, but I'm not sure that the blocks play nicely with each other.  I might finish one more then just use the nine to make a baby quilt.

You can find all of the related posts here.

2014 Sugar Block Club

At the beginning of 2014 I started three different year long bee's.  The Sugar Block Club was one of them.  It is hosted by Amy of Stitchery Dickory Dock.  These are "traditionally rooted blocks, full of lovely vintage charm" that still feel fun and lively today.

I've finished blocks through August and just need to piece the remaining four months.  I think I might make doubles of some of my favorites in order to fill out the blocks a bit more and make the finished quilt a bit larger as well.  I plan on keeping this quilt for myself.

You can find all of the related posts here.

Jeweled Forest Quilt

I picked up this Jeweled Forest Kit for a great price about two years ago.  It is all beautiful batiks.  I had planned on finishing it for my Mom at the time, since she loves batiks.

It's all paper piecing and should go pretty quickly once I start but I'm not sure when I will.  This may be one of the projects I decide to unload instead of finish.

Low Volume Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee Quilt

These blocks started as part of the Scrappy Trip Along block swap on Flickr, hosted by Julie of 627 Hand Works.  I first joined this bee in July 2013 and ended up participating in four rounds.  It was so much fun and I love having special blocks made by quilters all over the world to include in this top.

I currently have 26 blocks finished and another 31 sewn into strips and waiting to be cut and resewn into the finished scrappy trip block.  I planned on finishing this quilt as a large bed size for my bed at home.  I may change my mind and split the blocks into two smaller quilts instead.

2014 Orange Peel QAL Top

This quilt was made as part of the Orange Peel Quilt along hosted by Quilty Habit.  I finished the top and backing in early September but at that point it was still too hot to consider quilting it at home.  Now that it's cooler I think I'm ready to start.  I just need to purchase additional batting and baste this one so that I can begin quilting it.

You can find all of the related posts about this top here.

Wedding Guest Book Signiture Quilt

This is a very special quilt to me.  It's the guest book from my wedding last October.  In lieu of a traditional guest book I decided to make quilt blocks for our guests to sign using our wedding colors for the stars and black and white for the background.  I love everything about this quilt and plan to finish it to use on a guest bed or as a large wall hanging that we can enjoy all the time.

I have a few blocks I need to piece still to fill in some holes and then I need to piece and quilt the top.  I think I will probably send this one out to be quilted since it is so special to me.

These projects and all the others, seventeen in total so far, can be found on my 2014-2015 WIP/UFO Challenge page at the top of the site.


I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.