Work in Progress Wednesday #4!

Considering I’ve been on vacation and away from my sewing machine since Friday, it’s been a productive week! This will be a short post, but I’ll post more after vacation.

Completed quilt: Maddie’s graduation quilt is DONE! Bound, washed, and presented to the graduate, who said it was the “most beautiful quilt she’s ever seen.” Aww. My first completed quilt!

In-progress quilts:

New Wave rainbow quilt – no progress on this, still needs a backing.

Central Park log cabin quilt – no progress on this, still needs to be quilted.

Colorful log cabin quilt – no progress on this either.

New quilts:

I checked out some local fabric stores in Maine to gather fabric for upcoming projects, namely a quilt for the graduate’s younger sister! She’s gravitated toward the pinks, oranges, and browns. Here’s the fruits of my vacation shopping labor:

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Work in Progress Wednesday #3!

Phew…it’s been a busy week, and I’m about to leave on vacation to Maine on Friday.

Nearly completed quilt: Maddie’s graduation quilt is just about done! It’s all quilted (in concentric diamonds) and I’m in the process of binding it. I’m really excited to finish it up and give it to the graduate! I’m hoping I have room in my suitcase to take it to Maine so that I can show all my relatives what I’ve done. This will end up being my first completed quilt, although I’ve completed several quilt TOPS before this one.

One thing I’ve noticed about this quilt is that it looks really different from a distance than it does up close – a lot of small prints read as solids as soon as you step a few feet away from the quilt, particularly in photos! I prefer the close-up photos which show the softness and details of the different fabrics instead of just looking like big blobs of colors.

I’ll post good pictures of the whole thing, front and back, once it’s bound and washed. Probably from Maine!

No progress: Well, the flip side is that I have barely touched any other projects this week.

New Wave rainbow quilt – I started on the backing over the weekend but I still have a fair amount to do. I’m doing something fairly complex with the backing because I love this fabric so much and wanted to highlight it again in a different way.

Central Park log cabin quilt – no progress on this, still needs to be quilted.

Colorful log cabin quilt – no progress on this either.

New quilts are likely on the horizon, too, because I just bought the Block Party: the Modern Quilting Bee book from Amazon! I shipped it to Maine so I can read it on my vacation. I’m really, really excited for this book. Can’t wait to do something a little more improvisational and funky, and maybe convince my cousins and aunt to start a bee with me.

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To-Do List Revisited, plus thoughts on Week in the Life

Here’s how I did on my weekend to-do list:

1. Baste Maddie’s graduation quilt – finished!

2. Start quilting Maddie’s quilt – yup, I’m about halfway done! It’s exhausting just moving a quilt this big around. Especially when my house is 86 degrees and I’m UNDER the quilt half the time! I’m hoping I can finish tonight or tomorrow, will post pictures soon!

3. Refill allergy med prescriptions – nope. Apparently all my prescriptions are expired. Will have to call the doctor today.

4. Do laundry – done, but not folded yet.

5. Change bike tubes – nope. Need a friend to help me out with that one.

6. Take a yoga class – nope. But I did do cardio at the gym.

7. Hopefully get started on the backing for my rainbow New Wave quilt – started, but not finished. Probably won’t have time to finish this one

8. Take Fenway to the vet for a pre-flight checkup – yup, and he has a bacterial infection in his tummy, poor little guy. He should be fine by our Friday flight, though.

9. Get all my work projects under control – that’s really for this week, not the weekend, so remains to be seen how I’ll do this.

On a mostly unrelated note, I’m really focusing my crafty attention on quilting right now, but I’m thinking about doing this Week in the Life scrapbooking project from Ali Edwards’ blog. I’ve gotten out of scrapbooking lately, I mostly do a little creative journaling/collage and mini scrapbooks of trips and weddings if anything, but I really like the idea of capturing so much ORDINARY life in photos and words. And summer in Boulder is so beautiful and fun, it’d be nice to capture that! Are there any other quilters who also scrapbook out there? Has anyone done a Week in the Life album before?

Pre-Vacation To-Do List

Last weekend before vacation = huge to-do list!

1. Baste Maddie’s graduation quilt – I finished the backing today, I love how it looks! I used up a lot of the leftover strips and yardage of this delicious Michelle D’Amore Habitat Dandelion fabric. I think I want to use those dandelions for the back of EVERY quilt now. I love them! Forgive the iPhone photo…

2. Start quilting Maddie’s quilt…I’m really nervous because I’ve never quilted anything this big before (it’s about 64″ x 64″), but I’m just going to do straight lines so hopefully it won’t be too scary!! I really want to finish this before my trip to Maine so I can give it to her there (although yes, she lives here in Colorado too so I don’t HAVE to take it all the way to Maine, but I want all my quilting relatives to be able to see it too!).

3. Refill allergy med prescriptions…holy cow, my allergies have been terrible the past few weeks.

4. Do laundry…joy of joys.

5. Change bike tubes – I missed Bike to Work Day this week because I couldn’t get my seriously flat tires changed in time! I ended up walking to work (about 2 miles)…it was pretty sad. The weather has been really nice the past few weeks and I’m feeling the urge to start biking around town.

6. Take a yoga class…I have really bad shoulder tendinitis and I know that stretching regularly will help me get over it, but I keep finding “more important” things to do.

7. Hopefully get started on the backing for my rainbow New Wave quilt! I’d really like to get this one ready for quilting before I go to Maine, too, because I have a friend who offered to teach me free motion quilting while I’m there and I’d like to take her up on it!

8. Take Fenway to the vet for a pre-flight checkup (he flies in the cabin with me).

9. Get all my work projects under control so I’m not completely behind the eight ball when I get back from vacation!

Hmm…this list feels pretty ambitious. We’ll see how I’m doing on Monday.

Work in Progress Wednesday #2!

I’ve made a lot of progress this week!

Quilt tops completed, ready to be quilted and bound:

Maddie’s graduation quilt – quilt top FINISHED! I was so excited to finally finish all 36 blocks and lay them out. It’s been a long time coming. I took some black and white photos to help myself see if the dark fabrics were evenly distributed throughout the layout.

I sewed together all the blocks on Sunday and Monday. I really like how it turned out, and I think my niece will like it too. I’m terrified to start quilting, though, because I’ve been working on this for SO LONG and I’m afraid I’ll screw it up! I really need to get moving on it, because my goal is to finish it before my trip to Maine for the 4th of July, which is going to be tough because I have so much going on in the next ten days or so. I only have one weekend left between now and then.

New Wave rainbow quilt – quilt top FINISHED! I absolutely love this and I’m so glad I’m keeping it for myself! I also think it’s kinda neat that there are two fabrics that are in both Maddie’s graduation quilt and my rainbow quilt (the blue Anna Maria Horner woodcut print and the mustard Michael Miller Ta Dot print). It’s like the two quilts are related! I’m working on a fun backing for this one that will showcase the rainbow selection of fabrics in a different way.

Central Park log cabin quilt – no progress on this, still needs to be quilted.  I’m pushing to finish the string quilt and then I will revisit this one.

Quilt tops, not anywhere near completion: 

Colorful log cabin quilt – no progress on this either.

Small projects

I already blogged about the little zipper pouch I made last week, and I also made a makeup roll using this pattern from Rachel’s blog Stitched in Color. It’s a great pattern. Wish I had been a little more careful about lining up the pockets, everything is a bit off center, but oh well. I’m sure I’ll make this pattern again! I used a poppy fabric from Laura Gunn which I love, love, love – I’m a sucker for big bold florals!

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