Orphan Blocks

If you have been following my blog long, you know I love the challenge of taking orphan blocks and making them into something fun.  I thought I would share two finished baby quilts I made from pieces that were headed to the trash bin.

A friend of mine brought me this lovely piece to be quilted up.  The pattern is Northern Lights by Jaybird Quilts and it is done in beautiful Kona Solids.


(The straight line quilting is actually done in 5 different colors of thread.)






As she was piecing up the top, she decided the quilt was getting too long and ended up not sewing on the last two pieced strips.

When she brought me the quilt, she gave me these little beauties.








Easiest quilt ever....I simply ripped out one seam on each strip and attached the strips to an older Alexander Henry fabric I had in my stash.

Is this not the most adorable fabric!?

I think the fabric is called "Just Hangin".

My friend also made this quilt using the Ballerina pattern by Jaybird Quilts.

Once again the quilt top was too long but this time a rotary cutter was used to take a few rows off the bottom.





This added a bit of a challenge as once I took a seam ripper to the strips, the triangles were missing big hunks out of the corners.

...but I love a challenge!

With a lot of creativity and a little quilter's caulk sashing, I ended up with this little quilt.

I think the only fabric that came from my stash was two of the side triangles and the 4 strips of sashing.  Everything else was salvaged.

And because yellow and black always make me think of bumblebees,  I ended up having a little fun with the backing.







So I am off to a good start this year in my goal of finishing up some projects.  The yellow and black quilt I had as my January goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes over at Sew Bitter Sweet Designs.

I will be celebrating this finish with others at Can I get a Whoop? Whoop? over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF, LAFF at Richard and Tanya Quilts, Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Show off Saturday at Sew Can She and A Stitch in Time at Such a Sew and Sew. 

A Long Time in the Works - FAL

Looking back, I can't believe I started this quilt in January!  Well, here it is mid-September and it has finally made it to a finished state.  Yippee!

As it is a holiday gift, when I started it I thought I had lots of time to get it done.  But this quilt fought me the whole way.






If you have been following along on this one, you may remember I had a big setback during the cutting and piecing stage.  I cut about half of the triangles the wrong size so everything had to be carefully remeasured and re-cut to salvage the quilt.  Ugh!

Once the top was done, it quickly was folded up and stuck away because I was so tired of looking at it.

Note:  The quilt pattern is Ballerina by Jaybird Quilts.  It was a great pattern with good instructions.  I just got distracted gabbing with friends one night and cut everything using the wrong line on my ruler.  Hmmm...wonder why nothing fit when I went to sew it together?!?

When I wrote up my 3rd quarter finish along goals, I knew I had better list this one in the hopes I would get it out and finish it up and ...and I am happy to say it worked!

I quilted just a simple scroll meander in a black thread all over the quilt.  The fabrics are so busy, the quilting doesn't even show so I am glad I chose something quick.

I did piece a large inset of this great Wintergraphix holiday print by Jason Yenter up the back.  I had purchased it and many others from the same line at a great sale after the holidays a year or two ago.  I knew they would make a beautiful quilt one day.

The quilt is a nice large lap size at  50" x 70".

Giveaway Alert!!  

And if you haven't entered yet, there still might be time to enter the giveaway I am hosting in the previous post.  It will be open until September 18th so hurry on over.

 

Linking up with Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River and Show & Tell Tuesday at I have to Say. 

My Q3 FAL Goals

I'm great at starting quilts.  Finishing....Not so much! 

 

To help me in getting some of these projects finished around my sewing room, I thought I would join up with Leanne at she can quilt for her 2013 3rd quarter Finish-A-Long.  The rules sound easy enough.  I just need to make a list of what I hope to will finish by the end of September.....

Here we go....Fingers crossed I can get all this done. 

This cute little baby quilt just needs borders and quilting. As a WIP it is not that old but I did fold it up and put it in the closet so it would be really easy for it to be overlooked and re-discovered years from now.  I need to prevent that from happening!

I have cut and pieced one row on this fish quilt.  I am now bored with it!  (Does anyone else get that way?)  I have started a couple other quilts since sewing on this row and I need some incentive to stick with it and finish this one. 

 This quilt top just needs to be quilted.  As customer quilts always seem to "bump" my quilts out of the quilting queue, I always have a large stack of my own waiting.  Quilting is the hardest thing for me to get done.  This quilt is a christmas gift and I would love not to be working long hours days before the holiday to get this quilted and bound.

 Here is another quilt top I need to finish up.  This top does need a backing sewn from my stash.  I will probably need to get a little creative as I have worked through alot of my older fabric in these colors.  In fact, I am really tired of these colors and a great deal of determination will be needed to get this one done.

Here is one of my REALLY old projects.  This top has been done for probably 4-5 years and just waiting in the closet for me to quilt it.  Most of my friends have never seen it and I will share it more fully when I get it done.  This one I am a little nervous about getting it quilted with everything else on the list.

This next little project won't count toward the FAL but I need to spend some time on it.  My lovely niece is an amazing dancer and will be graduating from high school in two years and I want to make her a word quilt filled with dance words/phrases.  Hopefully it will be something she will take away to college with her.  I am committing to all of you that I plan on finishing 3 more blocks in Q3.

Whew!  That is a lot to get done!  Knowing myself, I bet there will be a ton of other projects that sneak in next quarter but I am determined to not let them interfere with accomplishing the above.  Wish me luck - I know I am going to need it!!

I will be linking up these goals at she can quilt.  Follow Leanne's button to see what others are doing this quarter.  There are some very talented people out there!

Also linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation and Really Random Thursday at Live a Colorful Life.

Not my Best Work

To be truthful, I never thought this top would get finished.  It was definitely a test of my patience and I'm a bit surprised I stuck with it.  It was made using the Ballerina pattern made by Jaybird Quilts.  If you follow the pattern, the pieces go together beautifully. Unfortunately,  I miscut a number of my blocks so the entire quilt had to be reworked so the blocks would fit together. 

Not all the points come together as well as I like them to be but once it gets quilted and laundered, it will be less noticeable.  Right?

I really like the fabrics in this quilt top.  I mainly used Jason Yenter's Winter Solstice fabrics and back filled with some fabrics from my stash.  

This will be a Christmas gift so now I need to get it on my quilting schedule.  Any fun ideas on quilting?

Previously this year, I had quilted a quilt from the same pattern for a friend.  I like the texture of the straight line quilting in a few of the swirls.  The quilt above is far busier and I am not sure the quilting will show much.

Too many decisions!  Thankfully I have a few months to figure it out.

Linking up with Connie at Freemotion by the River, Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story and WIP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced Quiltsy and Esther's Blog..

A Screeching Halt

March has been such a successful month for me.  I have finished a number of old WIPS that have been hanging around for years,  I purged my fabric stash again and cleaned out older fabrics for scrap quilts, and worked on some new piecing designs.  My design walls were constantly full and a total of 8 quilts were finished.

But the quilt I was really hoping to get off the design wall was the christmas quilt I started back in January.  I have been slowly cutting it and piecing the blocks between all the other projects.  It is one of those designs you really have to get it all up on a wall before you start sewing the blocks together.

Well, I got it all laid out so I finally decided to start to piece it all together and it quickly came to a screeching halt...

The first color went together perfectly but when I got to the next color.....
Oh crap dear!

It appears I have proceeded to miscut about half of my blocks!  I am hoping I just need to trim off  about 1/4" but I will need to go through and check each one to identify which ones need trimming.

Grrr....Usually this is where a project is bagged up and thrown in the closet.

But I am determined to persevere through this and keep working on it.  I will try and trim a few each evening until I'm sure everything will fit...

The truly frustrating thing is I know exactly what I did.  I cut the blocks over two nights and on one night, I obviously misread my ruler and lined up the fabric to a white line rather than a black.  And the sad part is, when I teach a class using these specialty rulers, I always suggest to my students to mark their rulers with some neon highlighting tape.

That will teach me for not listening to my own advice!

If you haven't seen this product, it is made by Omni-Grid and is called Glow-Line Tape.  It has three rolls to a package in fun neon colors.  The tape is low tack so it doesn't leave a residue on your rulers when you peel it off.  I suggest having some on hand.  If you are a local customer, I have some in stock if you can't find it.  It is a simple thing that can save you so much time....

Thank goodness this quilt is for next christmas so I have another 8 months to work on it!

Sharing this time saving idea with a few linky parties:

Let's Get Acquainted at Pixels to Patchwork

Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River
Show and Tell Tuesday at I Have To Say...
WIP Weds at Freshly Pieced

Paint - Done!

Recently I posted that I was going to do something about the condition of my sewing room.  Remember this mess?

Even with only a few hours a day to work on it, I am glad to say I finally have the walls painted and the room somewhat cleaned out.

I painted the walls two shades of lavender and trimmed with a bright white.  I find the color very calming and I now smile when I enter the room.

Check it out - there is finally room on my cutting table for my mat!  No more cutting fabric in the livingroom....

And there is actually space around my sewing machine.  If it wasn't a project up on a design wall, it was boxed up or moved out of the room.

No more clutter on the table....

Started projects are now stored in plastic tubs and waiting to be worked on.  

Once I get some time, I hope to paint this shelf - Maybe if the sun ever comes out....

I did "hide" a few projects in a convenient cupboard under the stairs.....but I am hopeful that I will pull them out soon as I finish some of the works in progress.

As you can see, I spent some time last night working on the quilt on this design wall...Fingers crossed - it will be a finish soon.







And the christmas quilt is filling up the other design wall quite nicely.






My sewing room is such a wonderful place to work, I actually got quite a few more blocks completed on this quilt as well.

Now that the room is painted, I can start making some other improvements.  The first item on the list is to recover the ironing board - so stay tuned to see pictures of that process.  There are also some other fun projects I want to share with you - you might even want to incorporate them in your own sewing room or studio....

Finishing UFOs

This time of year, about the only UFOs I get to work on are the quilts of others.  Thankfully, I do know to plan ahead and complete any of my own holiday projects in the early fall so I can work like an elf and get as many of my customer's holidays gifts done as possible.





This quilt for Julie is not a holiday gift but I couldn't wait to work on it as I was really taken with it.  Love the colors, the pattern and had some great fun with the quilting.

The piecing pattern is Ballerina by Jaybird Quilts.   It might be one I will have to make in the future when I can get back to my own projects.

 

 Luckily the sun popped out from behind the clouds for a minute and I was able to snap this photo of the entire quilt.  Great job Julie!