And another idea

This time from Pink Chalk Studio: She calls it Hopscotch Table Runner and I think I might make a variation of this for Christmas.

Upcoming Projects

I need to keep reminding myself of pending projects because otherwise - with all these ideas in my head - I will be losing track.

Since mid-July the list of upcoming projects has changed to:

PIF - not done yet, sorry

Coasters - not done either ... but then there's always Christmas

Stashbuster Quilt for my God-Daughter, well, sort of: used the fabric and finished the quilt

2 quilts in a day for new babies: working on No 1

a Big Zig quilt, based on Denyse Schmidt's pattern for yet another baby: this one has gone on the backburner after my cousin sadly miscarried

a long-term project: my first and only sampler quilt was meant for my first-born and to be ready when she starts school. She's in second grade and the thing still looks the way it did in November 2003. Yikes. I have plans to rework it and finish it off eventually. I will not hand-quilt and it will not be the size shown in that post dated January 2005.

And then there are: the WIPs and my Retreat Project. I am always itching to start a new project and have a million ideas in my head. Especially when work is tedious - like right now.

Finished and presented

Wow, this is the quickest quilting project so far: I started on September 2 and spent roughly four nights per week working on this. It was quite the hit with the recipient's family.

Hannah was christened this weekend and I am hoping that this quilt will accompany her throughout her life.

Fabric: Moda, Quilt Pink range plus Makower Pink Spray for the backing and vichy checks for the border.

Filled with Freudenberg 100% cotton wadding

I just had an idea ...

Again, Mrs MonkeySuit gave me an idea. She posted a fairly simple quilt, a variation of Crazy Mom Quilts' Quilt in a Day. And I will pick it up while also putting my failed attempts at Repetition to good use.

Yay!

Almost there ...

With the binding attached, using a zig zag stitch and a relatively unconventional approach of ironing and pinning down, then zipping around the binding by machine, adding a nice zig-zaggy embellishment, I move on to the last and least favourite job: cleaning up all the loose threads.

Half an evening to go! Delivery scheduled for tomorrow.

How can you tell I'm bored at work?

I fiddle with my links and trawl the web for new patterns such as this lovely little gem: Fig Leaves.

I've been hunting for a nice leaf patterns for the longest time! In 2003, just before we moved away from my beloved Manchester, I purchased a set of fat quarters of autumnal fabrics - see UFOs and fabric addictions. Now I know what to make of it.

Zig Zag quilt tutorial

Wading through Flickr-com groups simply because I am bored, I stumbled across this Zig Zag quilt tutorial. This will be an excellent guideline for babyquilt no 3.

Awaiting the final touches

There it now sits awaiting the finishing of its binding. We shall see how well that works. It will involve a LOT of pinning, that's for sure.

Two evenings till deadline!

Finished quilting

I finished quilting in the ditch and am quite happy with the simplistic results. Considering that not all corners lined up perfectly, the quilting is still relatively even.

All loaded and ready to quilt

I basted the quilt and to my dismay noticed that I have mismeasured the wadding, drat! Now I need to work around this tonight - not that I really have the time for that ... it'll teach me, I hope.

Also, this is my first attempt at quilting in the ditch while using my walking foot. I have noticed that quilting yarn does not appear to be a good choice for this exercise and will switch to regular yarn after I've quilted around all the blocks.

Counting down: 3,5 evenings till delivery!

Backing, Binding and Top

I've stopped fretting, decided on binding and backing, purchased wadding and am now stalling ... today I'm hoping to get started with attaching the binding to the front and then sandwiching the whole lot in order to bast and get ready for quilting

Quilt-in-a-day for Natalia

As mentioned, I started working on a baby quilt with no particular deadline. This is an incredibly stupid idea given that another project needs to be finished by next Thursday night.

Christmassy loot

I *plan* on making table mats and coasters for the Christmas Season this year - operative work being *plan*.

Also, today my grandfather would have turned 105 today.

Tiffany's Froggy Quilt

Somehow Tiffany is under the impression that I'd make a good quilting instructor and she wants to make a frog quilt. I had seen cute blocks but neglected to save them to "Favourites", sigh:

http://www.paperpanache.com/guests/amobirdfrog.htm
http://www.quiltdesignnw.com/ForKids.htm - scrool further down.

But none of these are the one I saw. Does anybody else have a good link for frog blocks, please?

Simultaneous Engineering

While I scare myself half to death with deciding the border for Hannah's Linens, I've started the first of two baby blankets based on Crazy Mom's Quilt-in-a-day. So far it's living up to its name, thankfully.

I'm using Kaffe Fassett scraps that I selected while prepping my ill-fated Repetition class project, its background fabric might also find its way into this quilt.

All of this necessitates a trip to my favourite fabric dealer in the area patchcom.de for wadding and such, all in preparation of a Friday evening luxuriously spent by myself at the sewing machine while hubby and my aupair are out on the tiles, separately, mind you!

Lay-Out 8: Finally decided on a lay-out

This time around, I have been relatively good about measuring and cutting and ironing!

Once I assembled each block, I ironed it and pressed the seams this way and that. Then the dreaded lay-outing began again and I noticed that my earlier plan of lighter blocks in the middle column didn't work too well.

But with the help of my "design wall" - two insulating boards taped together and mounted on an easel - I finally arrived at a solid lay-out. It only took me eight attempts ...

The two middle rows have already been sewn together, leaving me to increasingly fret about the border fabric and design.

You will notice that the photos of the lay-outs are not so great in terms of quality. In this case, it actually helped see which blocks are more contrasting than others or lighter or darker. Then again, I want to arrive at a point where I take reasonably good shots of my progress. Not using my phone camera might help with that ;-)

Close-up of Hannah's Fresh Linens

I watched Lipstick Jungle last night and did some sewing. Now I need to re-juggle the lay-out.

Not all seams line up perfectly which I blame on the absence of a non-dull rotary cutter blade a while back. But that way you can tell it's a one-of-a-kind home-made quilt - nothing like some good explaining-away ;-)

Repetition Class

Despite my early enthousiasm and all my good intentions, even taking the project on holiday with me, I have decided to give up.

There just isn't enough time or brain power to go around here these days and I have three quilts on a deadline as it is. I will disassemble what I have done so far and put the hearts away for another project / use. Thankfully I didn't do a lot of cutting yet so that I can re-assign the fabric to new projects that will surely be upcoming.

To re-cap, these were my goals for the next few months as posted in July:
- PIF
- Coasters
- in progress: Stashbuster Quilt for my God-Daughter
- fabric selected and lay-out decided: 2 "quilts in a day" for new babies plus a Big Zig quilt, based on Denyse Schmidt's pattern for yet another baby

Now I realise why

many US quilters machine piece and consider paper-piecing complete lunacy! It took me two evenings to assemble all my strips and squares to blocks of 4 strips and one square.

Tonight the fun begins when I have to cut them to size for further assembly. Last time, that didn't go so well.

Next on my mind is the quilting, I think I will just quilt in the ditch and be done with it. Also, binding and wadding are issues. I need to check whether I have enough wadding left for the job and it the fabric I planned on using for the binding will actually match. The backing will probably be some of the large-polka-dot fabric I purchased a while ago.

Debating suitability of border fabric

I'm quite happily crocheting along, usually when my mind is too numb to care about much else than this and a glass of chilled Riesling. I'm making good progress and am pondering a border fabric. This swirly paisley of sorts was picked up on a whim at one of the Traverse City stores recommended by my lovely readers. I'm just not entirely sure whether it matches the pinks stripes ... a good excuse to get some more fabric.

I have been asked about the projected size of this piece and my best answer is: I'll stop when I run out of yarn. I never sat down to calculate width and length and will just have to go with the flow.

Contrasting or Tonal

I've decided to go with tonal and this will be the colour scheme of sorts. I wasn't sure if contrasting the different pinks would make the entire thing too busy without adding any real contrast to the design.

Sewing begins tonight with a deadline of September 25 midnight.

Show off your Followers: has anybody tried this?

Show off your Followers feature info here.

Has anybody tried this yet? I don't even think I can implement it yet.