WIP :: 8/22/12

Already back around to Work in Progress Wednesday - this week is flying!  Makes sense considering Saturday is one of my biggest events of the year at work.  Our Kidz Day in the Arts program is here again (this will be my 2nd) and there are all sorts of things to finalize this week. 
 I posted earlier about the mini Olympic torch craft that will feature for Kidz Day.  I did not mention that I have 600 stars cut out (courtesy of the Go! cutter thank goodness) and 300 squares of construction paper cut into 3" x 4" pieces.   We are also doing an art piece based on the Olympic rings, so I have 300 12" squares cut and ready to go as well.  And that's only a couple of activities for the day!  It'll be a blast for sure and I'm hoping to beat last years' number of about 630 people.  :)

**prizes
I've recently won 2 contests! So exciting and am eagerly stalking the mailbox. :D
#1: I won a layer cake over at Sewn Studio's blog by playing along with her Project Runway bingo. so much fun!
#2: I entered the Moda...Cutting Table blog contest for the Quilt Olympics and won the Silver medal! Go check it out and see how fitting my comment about a team event was since Momm came down for a quilty weekend!

Momm & I had a fabulous time quilting this past weekend!  My living room becomes sewing central as we have a table for the machines, fabric stacks on the couch and chairs, ironing board in the hallway and a cutting table half in the hall under a light.  It's still not all back where it belongs yet but is slowly getting there.  So much for having organized my sewing room last week!

complete
-J's quilt: top is finished and plans for backing & quilting are figured out too!  Can't show a photo as that would ruin the fun.  ;)  We spent a lot of time deciding on colors and then deciding on layout once the pieces were cut.  It looks awesome though.



new
Again with the new projects this week!  
-Sample squares:  these are 12" quilt sammiches to practice some FMQ designs.  Momm had several done before coming, and I churned out 9 over the weekend causing Momm to make more & keep up. 

sample sammies

 These are so fun! and quick to do in the small size.  They will certainly be a good place to look when I need to figure out how to quilt the quilt! Some designs were inspired by Angela's new book Free Motion-Quilting.

-Book stashing:  In the last couple of months my quilt book collection has exploded!  I've received several as gifts and can't wait to really get into them and try out some quilts.  [must finish J's quilt and Swoon first methinks....]

in progress
-Christmas Quilt: I need to give this one a different name first of all. I attached the binding over the weekend and have one corner finished already.  It's sitting on my chair waiting for a free evening so I can work on it.

roman stripe blocks

-Swoon - still figuring out the last bit of backing

-Roman Stripe: aka the picnic/summer quilt. Made a handful more blocks and have about 50 of them now.  I want to lay them out soon and see how it looks when I get the chance. Love making these beauties.

no progress
-GS quilt
-summer sampler
-swap blocks

Hope you had a great weekend/week too dear readers.  Stay tuned for an update post-Kidz Day!  :)

WIP :: 8/15/12

Happy Wednesday readers!  Today is also the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven.  Whenever we sing 'Hail, Holy Queen' in Church, I have the Sister Act version in my mind, which makes it difficult to sing with a straight face!   :)

August is zooming by too - has anyone else noticed that?!  Somehow that seems to happen more often towards the end of the year - must be all the back to school vibes.  Meanwhile, I was prepping some bobbins for quilting and decided my sewing room was a bit too chaotic.  So I spent an evening cleaning, sorting fabrics and rearranging some drawers and got it all straightened up again.  The scrap bin is still overflowing, but that's a good problem.  ;)

It's a good thing I did neaten up, as Momm is coming for a quilt weekend!  Can't wait to pull everything back out and have several days of solid quilt talk and fabric play this weekend. 


completed
-Another zip pouch - this time using this tutorial from Skip to My Lou (it's awsome!).  This was a test run so I can use it with my Junior Quilters and teach the girls how to put in a zipper.  I ordered lots of pretty zips online and can't wait to use them.

new
-J's quilt:  J has been asking for a quilt for a couple years now, and has settled (mostly) onto a design.  So Momm & I will be working on that this weekend for sure - have the design already, just need fabrics and it should be fairly straight-forward to piece.

in progress

all quilted & ready to bind!

-Christmas Quilt:  I used free-motion quilting in loops & holly leaves to quilt this one in some green aurifil thread from my b!day box.  Love how it looks. Can't wait to have a finished Christmas Quilt before it's holiday season.

-Roman Stripe
-Swoon: backing is almost complete - hooray!  This was a summer goal of mine - to have the backing pieced and the quilt basted.  almost there....

no progress

- Swap blocks
- Summer Sampler
-GS quilt

WIP :: 7/25/12

I seem to be making good progress on my sewing related projects this week!  I'll attribute some of that to the fact that the Tour de France finished on Sunday so my evenings are once again free.  At least until the Olympics start.  ;]  I love watching the Tour and the finishing stage is always exciting & makes me want to go back to Paris.  History in the making as Bradley Wiggins was the first ever British rider to win the Tour.  To really make the point, 2nd place Chris Froome was also a British rider from team Sky; as was the stage win going to Mark Cavendish (4th year running) from team Sky as well.

Anyways, onto the sewing portion of our Wednesday. 

Complete

- My first zippy pouch!  I used the awesome Keep Calm print I picked up recently for the pouch and lined it with a blue circle/dot print from my stash.  It was easy to make and I love it!  Even if I'm not to sure what I'll put in it just yet...

 in progress
- Made more Roman Stripe blocks as well and they are making a happy little pile on the floor of my sewing room.  Picked up some more grey solids at Hancock's of Paducah on Sat. - including one of the new colors: Steel.

-Swoon: worked on piecing the backing together.  I may have to take this to work just to lay out the parts and make sure they will be large enough for backing.  

-leftovers II: I put together a little sample of tumbler blocks I had cut from scraps.  I may want to use this for quilt camp or a GS project in the future.  Especially now that I have the tumbler die for the Go! cutter at work! ( & still need a picture of it).  

no progress
I can't ignore this category for another week so here's the list of projects that are currently loose, looking like they don't care.  ;)
- Christmas quilt
- Swap blocks: deciding on making 1 or 2 quilts with these
- Summer Sampler: must decide on quilt design!
-GS quilt: need to just suck it up and seam rip this baby!

Linking it up over at Lee's again this week - here's to more quilting! 

PS:  if you like what you read/see go ahead and become a follower!

WIP :: 7/18/12

Greetings to everyone popping over from Lee's weekly quilt status round up.  I'm glad to keep up with posting - they certainly keep me thinking about my progress and behind the sewing machine each week. Been working to get things re-organized at work post-camp and vacation this week still and enjoying the Tour de France in the evenings.

Here's what's stitching this week!

in progress

-Roman Stripe:  made a handful more blocks for the summer quilt and cut out more color strips. I need to get more grey fabric for the squares and am waiting to see the new greys of the Kona colors.  

-leftovers: my Junior Quilters are working hard on their quilts each month and turning out great pieces.  I took the leftover & rejected blocks home and matched them with the sample blocks I'd made at the start of the year.  it'll get a border to make it a bit bigger (it's 30"x30" now) and then I may finish it for the 100 Quilts for Kids with Swim, Bike, Quilt.


That's all for this week dear readers, here's to the next!  :)

WIP :: 7/11/12

Whew - summer has been just as busy as normal schedule so far! I'm glad to be back to post for the Work In Progress, I seemed to keep missing Wednesdays over at Freshly Pieced the last couple of weeks.  On with the show: lots of pix today!

complete
-Quilt Camp!  Does it count as my finish since I'm in charge of camp?  Yes you say? Oh good.  :)  I had 55 kids in 2 weeks this year for camp, ages 5-16, and 3 different projects for the skill levels.  Just typing that is a lot, but it was so much fun!  I love having the kids come & make their projects start to finish, and seeing them learn about & love quilts as they do it.  Click here for more information and to see how awesome the kids were this year! We go through about 15+yds. of batting, 20+yds. of backing fabrics, and a lot of white as you can see in the picture below!

33 yds. muslin: pre-camp

what's left post-camp!

-mini project: We host a Kidz Day in the Arts each year at the Museum with hands-on activities for kids, free admission to the galleries & other activities.  This year the theme is the Olympics, and I found a great idea on Michael's website for this cute Olympic torch craft.  Saw it, stopped everything to try it out, used my AccuQuilt to cut out some stars and voila!

-Christmas quilt: the top is finished!  I had all the blocks together for several weeks, and wanted to make it a bit wider.  While on vacation, Momm & I went to a quilt shop in WI and I found the coordinating blue plaid print on sale- a nice surprise.  It's certainly Christmas in July with this finished top.

in progress
-Roman Stripe: Momm & I had a quilt day at home towards the end of vacation which was great.  I worked away at making more of these blocks & love how quick they are to come together. I realized I'll need the quilt to be about 9 x 11 blocks for a total of 99 blocks!  This is way more than the 56 blocks I was originally thinking, so I'll have to keep churning these out.

-Swap blocks: right now I'm looking at how big of a quilt I want with these blocks.  Love how it looks as a large quilt, or it could be 2 smaller quilts. Not sure yet - stay tuned.


-Wonky blocks: I also made a wonky square-in-a-square using Quilt Dad's tutorial.  these blocks are so much fun to make, can't wait to put them into a top.




-Swoon: backing fabrics purchased and ready to piece once I get some time.  See previous post for details on this.

As you can see, lots going on here.  What are you working on this week?

100th post!

For all the fabric lovers out there - here's some eye candy for the middle of your week.  It's also my 100th post on the blog!  It's so odd to think I've got 100 posts of quilt & adventure type ramblings.  Thanks for reading along dear readers.   :)


  I went to Hancock's two weekends ago with the intent to purchase backing fabric for my Swoon quilt, and fabric to supplement what i already pulled from my stash for my summertime roman stripe quilt.  I also had the intention to use the gift certificate I'd gotten from J for Christmas!  So awesome.  :)


After walking up & down every aisle (which is no easy task!) and fawning over the solids for some time, here's what came home with me:

the whole lot - aren't they lovely?

The top two prints are Timeless Treasures Keep Calm Multi-color and Vintage Modern Hopscotch in sky.  They aren't for any particular project, I just couldn't resist them.  

These are the pieces I picked out to supplement my summertime Roman Stripe quilt.  It's mostly pulled from stash fabrics in the teal colorway with pops of that cerise color and varying shades of grey for the solid half of the blocks.


fabrics: 
Michael Miller solid, Fog
Vintage Modern, dots in Sky
Robert Kaufman Fusion, teal colored
Timeless Treasures print in fuchsia/cerise

To the right are the large cuts to piece together the backing for my Swoon quilt!  So excited to get working on this again.  The plan is to have 1/2 & 1 yard cuts of the colors make up the backing to re-emphasize the sea glass look of the quilt.


fabrics:
Kona Azure
Bella Solid #9900 75
Wilmington Blue Dot #39065 color 441
Kona Pond
Kona Lagoon

Sunday Snapshot #11

Here's a few shots to fill in the gap.  Enjoy!

From a hike out at Giant City State Park this past weekend!  It was a good park & super awesome to be outside enjoying the sunshine and trees and a good hike.  Will definitely be back to try out some of the other trails this summer.

giant city 'streets'

looking up

               

looking down from the top of the bluff

onwards & upwards!