Grand Illusion Top Finished!

Every single time I look at these pictures, I fall in love with this quilt all over again.  Last night I finished up the flimsy of my Grand Illusion Mystery designed and hosted by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame.

 

I loved all the steps as they were released.  Then the big reveal at New Year's and my love chilled.  A lot.  This is by far the busiest quilt I've ever put together.  So I set it aside and let it marinate.  A while.  Earlier this month, I felt ready to work on it again.  I'd seen other people's versions and slowly fallen back in love with it.  And now that it is finished, I do truly adore it.  Cassidy came out to look at it when it was finished last night and claimed it.  Which is funny, because when the reveal came out, she was in the same boat I was.

 

I think a lot of our love for this quilt comes from the fabric choices and color choices I made.  I made sure to go with crisp colors, very sharp.  I toned down the yellow just a tad by using the lavender in the border.  I just love every tiny piece of this one!!!  I'm so, so happy to have it done.  

Either tonight or tomorrow, I'll get outside for a photo shoot of both of my flimsy finishes this week so I can blog them and put them to rest.  Now I don't feel guilty at all about the other 12 WIP's in that stack I told yall about.  :)

 Today I'm linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story, Show and Tell Tuesday at I Have to Say, WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, and Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts.

 

Also with Crazy Mom Quilts!

Flying Geese Flimsy Completed

So, let me begin by explaining what spurred my very productive weekend.  :)  Friday evening I had a friend over to visit.  He noticed my pile of blocks on an end table, stacked quite high, and asked me if that was all for one project.  I explained those are blocks from projects that I'm currently working on, 7-8 of them, maybe 9.  He kinda laughed and said that maybe I need to get some of them finished.  After he left, my curiosity got the better of me.  So I pulled them out, sorted them by project and counted.  FOURTEEN!  There were fourteen WIP's in that pile.  Needless to say, I decided that was way too many and decided to try to finish up the ones that were really close.

That, my friends, is why we have a flimsy finish to share today.  I started this quilt at least five years ago.  I pulled it out over a year ago swearing I'd finish it.  Even had a few of the blocks on my design wall.  But I got busy on other things and it continued to linger.  No more!!

 

When I pulled it out and began work on it on Friday night, I couldn't believe how close to being finished it really was.  Yay!  I'll try to get better pictures this week, outside in the sun(!) and do a final post for this one.  Once I got it finished, I pulled out the next one that was almost done:  Grand Illusion designed by Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville.

 

The blocks were done and the sashing was on one side already.  So I finished putting on the sashing, got it all laid out and arranged, and have all the rows pinned and ready to go to the machine tonight.

So, for the weekend, 1 DOWN 13 TO GO!!! (and no, that's not all of my UFO's, just the ones I consider WIP's).

There is still another day to linkup with this month's leader/ender project.  You can grab a button below and see the linkup here...

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And also, there is plenty of time to join in our Not So Last Minute Christmas Quilt Along.  It's paper pieced and is so pretty!  This month we're working on the snowflake block.

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Linking up today with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday, and Monday Makers with aylin-nilya and Scraps Monday at A Quilting Life.

Sunday Stash - 3-22-15

This was a good week for the stash. I had nothing come in, and....I finished a quilt top.  Here's a sneak peek at the quilt...

I'll post better pics of it later this week.  If my calculations are right, that used about 5-1/2 yards of fabric.  I also got all the blocks sashed for the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt that Bonnie Hunter designed and hosted.  I'm hoping to finish it up this week which will add to my used numbers next week, even if most of it is from scraps.

So here's the numbers so far this year...

In This Week - 0 yards

Used This Week - 5-1/2 yards

Total In This Year - 32-5/8 yards

Total Out This Year - 15-1/2 yards

Net Used This Year - -17-1/8 yards

There is still time to show us your leader/ender progress!

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I'm linking up with Patchwork Times and Oh Scrap! with Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

Fabric Report

I completely forgot to do my fabric report yesterday.  Not surprising as I finally had a week with nothing coming in, so no fun photos to share.

 

And as much work as I got done on Grand Illusion yesterday, it isn't finished yet so nothing to report out either.  

In This Week - 0 yards

Used This Week - 0 yards

Total In This Year - 25-1/8 yards

Total Out This Year - 10 yards

Net Used This Year - -15-1/8 yards

There's still time to join in our Not So Last Minute Christmas QAL.

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I'll be linking up with Patchwork Times.

My Weekend Sewing

I had kind of a lazy weekend. I finished up all my "have to be done" projects for January so I took things slow.  I spent my weekend relaxing, watching Harry Potter movies, and putting together the blocks on my Grand Illusion.

 

All of the blocks are assembled, the sashing is assembled and attached to the side of the blocks.  My next step is attaching sashing and cornerstones.  So not much longer and this top will be done.

But, tonight I get to go watch my niece walk the stage for her early graduation and when I get home, I'm tackling elephants.

There is still time to whip up the first block for our Not So Last Minute Christmas Quilt Along and link it up for the drawing on Saturday.  Come join in the fun!!

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Today I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times, Monday Makers, and Show and Tell Tuesday with I Have to Say.

Grand Illusion Progress

Last night after I finished up my quilt shops, I decided it was too late to start on my next project, so I pulled out my Grand Illusion and put together the first block.  I was really unsure when the reveal came out, but after letting it marinate for a while, I think I really like it.

I think I'll get the rest of the blocks together today.  Go see how everyone else's GI is coming together over at the linkup at Quiltville.  

And the linkup is open for your first blocks for the Not So Last Minute QAL.  Come join the fun!

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Design Wall Monday

Hi everyone!!! I hope you all had a great break for New Year's and were able to spend a little bit of quality time with your sewing machines. :)  I did manage to get a bit of sewing in over the last week.  I got these four blocks done for my Austen Family Album Quilt early last week...

 

Thursday, Cassidy, my mom and I went to visit my brother and his family up in Benbrook (right outside of Ft. Worth).  They were very understanding of my need to finish up (lol....who am I kidding?  Start is the correct word) my blocks for the Quilter's Garden swap.  They quite literally gave me fits but I did manage to finish up all 10 of them.  Still may redo the corner pieces, but they are done.  These are the ones I'm keeping...

 

And these are the ones I'm swapping.  They are packaged and ready to mail this morning...

 

When they were finally done, I spent a little bit more time with my Austen Family Album blocks.  I did these two over the weekend.  Only 8 more blocks to go!  I have my setting designed for these so I'll have the top finished pretty soon (God willing)!

 

And even though I didn't have time to work on it, I needed to see what the Quiltville mystery would look like so here is one of the blocks.  Need to cut the cornerstones, but you can get the idea.  It is growing on me.  It is a very busy quilt but the finishes I've seen are really pretty.  

 

And that does it for this week!  Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times and with Bonnie at Quiltville!

Grand Illusion Parts 4 and 5

Busy. Yes, that's what Christmas week was, very, very busy. I really enjoyed the time with my kids(all three were home) and my family.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!

That being said, I was so glad when things finally slowed down enough for me to enjoy some of this over this last weekend:

 

Cutting and sewing in front of the fire.  It was soooo relaxing after all the rush of the last few weeks.  I managed to get quite a bit done.  First up, clue #4 from Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion mystery:

 

 

Then clue #5!  All caught up again...

 

 

For Christmas, I treated myself to the awesome cubby I found at Target.  You can see that I've got my first four clues sorted in it and the bottom row are fabrics from active projects.  I've been looking for a better way to organize everything in my tiny apartment!  All of this had been living on my dresser.  So happy to have found a solution!

 

After that, I decided on some easy sewing.  I settled on my Austen Family Album quilt along.  I'm terribly behind as she has already finished posting the blocks.  But this weekend was a good surge ahead on that project.  

Here's block 16.  The blue is an old feedsack from my grandmother's stash.  

 

 

Here are blocks 17 & 18....

 

And then blocks 19 & 20...

 

I'm back at work this morning and will be working the long houred days for a few more weeks so I'm not sure how much sewing will be done.  But I will share as I go!!!  I hope you all are enjoying the holidays!  Come see what everyone is working on.  I'll be linking up to Patchwork Times and Quiltville today.

Grand Illusion Part 3

Not a lot of time for piecing this last week.  I did put the binding on two baby quilts, so I managed to have finishes!!  I'll show you those later this week.  I did get clue 3 of Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion finished...

 

I didn't get anytime to work on clue #4 but I'm off starting Wednesday for five days so have high hopes on getting it done before Friday.  No change to the design wall at all...

 

Linking up with Bonnie at Quiltville and with Judy at Patchwork Times.

Don't forget that we have one more day to linkup with your leader/ender projects.

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Grand Illusion Part 3

What. A. Weekend.  I came home Friday and immediately started working on Christmas baking.  Did two batches of cookies and some cheesecake brownies.  Saturday was running around.  All.  Day.  Long.  By Sunday, I was starting to go through sewing withdrawals!  So I pulled out my Grand Illusion fabric and started cutting.  By bedtime, I had gotten this far...

 

Strip stets are done and I've started subcutting them for sewing.  For those of you not aware, these are for Bonnie Hunter's winter mystery quilt, Grand Illusion.  We are only on week 3 so there is plenty of time to join in the fun!

I finished clue #2 on Thursday night...

Since the last clue took so long, nothing has changed on my design wall.

Hope to get finished with clue #3 tonight but not going to stress if I don't.  Things are way too busy for that. 

Don't forget to stop back by tomorrow to join our Leader/Ender linky party!!!  It's so much fun to see what projects people are making for their "free" quilt!

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So what have y'all been working on?  I'm linking up with Patchwork Times and Quiltville.

Finished Clue #2

Whew! Finished! Just in the nick of time as the new clue comes out tomorrow!

 

That picture represents many, many hours of work on this rather simple unit in Bonnie Hunter's 2014 Winter Mystery, Grand Illusion.   The longest part was squaring everything up.  They aren't perfect by any means, but they are at a point where I'm comfortable working with them.  

Here's clue #1 and clue #2 side by side:

 

I seriously love this quilt so far.  This week we'll get to play with green and I'll be able to see how the colors play together.  Cassidy hasn't really gotten an idea of how this quilt will play out yet, so she hasn't been fighting me for custody.....yet!

It's not too late to join in the fun!  I hope you will all come to play!

Tonight, I hope to be able to work on more blocks for my Christmas quilt.  But works been long hours this week so I may just take a break and nap!  :)  

Don't forget to stop back next Tuesday for our Leader/Ender Linky Party and see what everyone is working on between their regular projects.

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Linking up with NTT at My Quilt Infatuation.