Planning ahead

I'm planning a Fabric Embargo for 2014.  I have an enormous stash and with every new fabric purchase, something that I have wanted to make for months or years slips further down the list.  My plan is to use my stash for at least the first six months of 2014, possibly the entire year.  Heaven knows, I could go many YEARS without buying anything new!

I have 3 UFOs that I want to finish:

• Lily Pad/Atkinson Designs quilt - needs 2 borders
• 2010 Designer Mystery BOM - needs final border
• Second Story/Miss Rosie Quilt Company - blocks finished, needs assembly/pieced sashing

Since I don't do well with detailed planning of future projects, I'm just going to go where my whim takes me when I am ready to start the next project.  Some things I know I will be making in 2014:

• Baby quilt for my niece, who is expecting in June - planning will commence once baby's gender is revealed.  This will be my one exception to the "Nothing New" rule as the expectant Mommy wants input into the design and I may not be able to make it from my stash.
• Hubble/Miss Rosie's Quilt Company - using Basic Grey's Little Black Dress & LBD2
• This Square Root of Nine/A Quilter's Dream quilt for my mom
• Get started on graduation quilts for my twin boys (though I'm still in denial that they are going to graduate in 2015!!)

Hello, Old Friend

I've been having some piecing problems this year.  It seems like all the quilts I finished in 2013 had some kind of issue when I started to sew the blocks together.  After talking it over with some friends, I decided to go back to my old Trusty Pfaff and see if I can get back to being the piecer I once was.  Maybe I'll even blog more!

I did finish Nantucket and had some piecing trouble, but it's all together now.  I don't have a picture to share because Hubble has taken over my design wall.

This will put my piecing skills to the test!   I'm going to make 2 versions of this Miss Rosie's Quilt Company pattern.  I'm using Little Black Dress and Little Black Dress 2 by Basic Grey.

Here's to perfect piecing in 2014!

Say it ain't so!

Earlier in my quilting career, I had a real disdain for 9-patches.  I found the piecing "boring" and the blocks too plain for my tastes.

Then I met and took a class with these women...

And made this quilt...

And now the 9-patch block is one of my favorites.













Here is the start of my Nantucket quilt.  Like Sinta, I started with the 9-patches.  I know I'm really going to LOVE this quilt!

Seeing RED!

I've been smitten with Minick & Simpson's Midwinter Reds collection since it arrived at Keepsake Cottage.  Working at the counter and looking over at the beautiful red, cream and tan bolts was making me want to make something, very badly!

And then, in early October, we had a trunk show of three Midwinter Reds quilts sent by Minick & Simpson which only fueled my desire to make a red quilt!  The quilts are even more beautiful in person than they are on a pattern cover.  I chose Nantucket, and when Sinta received a FQ bundle for her birthday and was trying to decide what to make with it, I tried to persuade her to choose Nantucket, too!

She did choose Nantucket, and we convinced a couple other friends -Thelma and Nicole - to join us.  I hope you will check in to see our progress on this fabulous red & white quilt!

Look what's blooming!

Whew - I haven't finished a "garage door" sized quilt top for a long time.  In other words, one so big I had to take it outside to photograph because it's too big to fit on my design wall!

Thelma, Nicole and I all fell in love with this quilt last year when we attended the Buggy Barn's outdoor quilt show.  We've been planning to make this for over a year, and finally put the pedal to the metal and finished this gorgeous quilt.  It was a fun project to work on with friends, and made it even more special that we swapped fabric for it, too.  I have bits of both my friends in my quilt, and that just makes me smile.

The pattern is Autumn in my Garden and is featured in the Buggy Barn book, A Little Bit Crazy.  The 'Barn has also just come out with this as an individual pattern, which you can order from their website.  They also have a kit available, in case you don't have two great friends to swap fabric with!

One of these things is not like the others

One of these things just doesn't belong!  Yes, that blocky sunflower on the left does not belong!!

Note to self:  This last row of blocks went together so quickly because you FORGOT to add the flip corners to the center of the sunflower.  FOUR TIMES!   Argh...   I will be at one with my seam ripper today!

Autumn in My Garden

Wow, where has the summer gone?  Kids heading back to school in less than a week.

We've had an amazing summer in Seattle - hardly any rain and lots of sun.  But I can already feel a hint of fall in the air and it will be here in less than a month.

Another sign of late summer - I'm seeing fields of sunflowers in my sewing room!  This is Autumn in My Garden by the Buggy Barn.  It's from their book A Little Bit Crazy.

Thelma, Nicole and I saw this quilt hanging at the Buggy Barn quilt show last summer and have been talking about it ever since.  We've even traded strips of fabrics to give each quilt more variety.  Even better than raiding your own stash, is raiding your friends' stashes, too!

There is a lot of prep work involved in getting ready to make a block.  The centers are 8 x 8 squares that finish 1".   I've got some oldies but goodies from my stash worked in here!

It will be fun to see my friends' versions of the quilt, too.  Because even though I know we have some of the same fabric, I have a feeling all of them are going to be unique.