WIP Wednesday/Goal Achieved

On my Goal page, I noted a design wall was needed. Every quilter knows that having a place to view your designs is essential to any project. It could be a fancy padded wall with grid lines, a DIY ceiling tile wall covered in flannel, or even a clean kitchen floor (like my Mom uses!). In the past, I've used the queen-sized guest bed and then taken pictures from a chair placed at the foot of the bed. There's a funny story about a friend who came to stay and didn't dare ask why a chair was in such a position! Note to self: always put the chair away when company comes over. But now I don't have to worry about mistaken assumptions. I have the best design wall known to quilters everywhere: The plastic tablecloth! I learned about this at last weeks Sewn Together meeting. It has many great qualities:

1. It's cheap. More money for fabric!
2. It's stickier than flannel.
3. You can roll it up with your blocks on it and bring it with you to meetings. Your friends will love this when you show up at dinners with your tablecloth roll.  
4. You could roll it up like a window shade to hid secret projects.
5. The color of the front shows through a little so you can imagine different backgrounds. Mine has a light blue tint perfect for the Christmas quilt going up next.
6. It only takes a few tacks to hold it up so there's way less damage to your walls.

If anybody still is wanting to make a ceiling tile wall, I have tiles up for grabs! One panel is already wrapped in flannel. Also in today's pictorial, you'll notice a DIY zipper holder. I attended the Sewing and Quilt Expo in MN on Saturday and couldn't resist this bag of zippers. Guess how many zippers you can fit in a quart sized ziplock? 49! For only $7. Insane! Notice how I hung them in color order. Jeni Baker would be so proud.

And on the design wall are the Avairy 2 blocks. Which design do you like best for this throw-sized quilt? Consider these rough drafts, of-course.

All the star blocks were made from the awesome tutorial
 series on www.freshlemonsquilts.com.

Sewn Together - COH Quilt Club!

Tonight was a new experience. My church, Community of Hope Lutheran Church in Rosemount, MN has started a sewing club called...you guessed it, Sewn Together! What a great name, thanks to Tori. We gathered at 5 pm, set up tables, unpacked our totes, and were sewing within minutes. During this time, not only did I complete another paper pieced block, but I got to know four brilliant ladies.

Tori, doing her meandering thing

Julie and Sarah comparing notes

Each of these ladies brought a unique personality and their projects represented them well.


Julie is a tough (marathoner!) grandmother who sticks up for you and sacrifices her own interests for others. This is a BOM quilt that isn't 'quite her style' but she's gifting it to her niece. The Design within a design is stunning!

Sarah brought this great rectangle ironing board that lays right on top of a normal board. Her Dad made this after she got outbid at a quilt auction. Sarah comes from a prestigious sewing family, her mother owned a fabric and quilt shop in central MN. Can you imagine being so lucky?  Hello, Daaaddd!, are you reading this? HINT. HINT.

 

This wonderful quilt was made with Soho Chic, the most fabulous collection ever! It wasn't until I snapped this picture that we saw the white crosses emerge. In person, the colored blocks are the focus. Sarah's points are dead on as is her advice on all things Quilty!

 

Tori is our bubbly organizer. Her energy matches her quilts - bright and fun!

This dedicated lady is Tori's mom, Barbara, visiting from down south. Ok, just Iowa, but still. Her warm demeanor made up for her lack of parka (it's single digits, Barb!) and she toiled away all evening without the faintest trace of fatigue. Obviously, Tori's energy and spunk came from the maternal genes.



Tori meandered this with a variegated rainbow thread which looked amazing against the black background. Her lucky brother will stay warm this winter!

Oh, and I just about forgot - here's another paper pieced block. One more to go!

From FreshLemonsQuilts.com, Summer Series.



WIP Wednesday - Paper Piecing

Hello!
Over on my Bucket List page I've been checking Paper Piecing off the list. I had been wanting to try this for months and even took printed sheets with me on my last trip home thinking my mother and I would try it out. Well, that time was spent on other things and it got pushed off. Well, this week I felt inspired to try it out with my fat quarters of Aviary 2. That collection has stretched over many projects!

Whirly Star

I love how that turned out, so tonight I whipped up another star from Faith's Solstice Stars series, www.freshlemonsquilts.com. This one isn't paper pieced, but it still had techniques that were new to me. You can see my iPad with the series notes from Faith's website. The directions were clear and the dimensions worked perfectly.


Another Star (seriously, that's the name)



Here's the two stars on my Design Wall...well, one section of the DW.

Fast Forward to Halloween!

Fall Wall Hanging

This is designed from a Mini-charm pack of The Boo Crew. I knew I wanted a big pumpkin with the orange, but using the other colors was a challenge. I have the black and purple prints for next years Halloween project.

New Content on my Pages!

Whoa! I've gone back many months and uploaded many finished quilted projects and WIPs. Also check out my goals and bucket list items. Maybe I should make a Dashboard Page and tally some metrics! Nah, that's too much like work.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! I'll be sorting the sewing space and making room for the DESIGN WALL. In the words of the immortal Mr. Kool-Aid, "oh, yeeeeaaahhhh!"

Wednesday WIP!

Hello! I'm so glad to be a part of the online communities WIP displays! I have about 25 unfinished projects - I mean - Works In Progress - neatly stored at home. For my 50th birthday my sister-in-law gave me a $100 JoAnn's gift card and I spent it on a multi-colored chest of drawers. It's so pretty and efficient.
So this is one of those projects. A Christmas quilt made from a slice of Figgy Pudding.

For Christmas 2014!



Finally Finished

This is one of the first fabric collections I bought when I first became obsessed with quilting. Now I see what great Christmas vibe it has.

Artful Home (ignore the green/pink FQs)

For some reason, I couldn't get myself to put the binding on even though it was all pieced and quilted. So it sat for over a year. I'm very happy to see it finally finished!

Kelly's turn

Last week, Kelly reminded me that I hadn't sewn anything for her. I was looking for a new project so she suggested a Kindle Case. With help from Pinterest, it didn't take long for her to select a design and a color scheme.

One side would have HSTs and the other a bunch of set-in strips, highlighted with gold thread. Before long, it started to take on a nautical look!

I've been accused lately of not finishing anything I start, so I stayed on task and am proud to say that it was finished in a timely manner.