Rules For a Reason

Surprise, surprise!  I tried to quilt the opposite of the recommended way and it did not work in my favor.  I confess I rarely start in the center of the quilt and work my way to the edges when quilting, and for the most part I don't have any issues.  Not so much this time around.

I have no idea why, but the stretching and movement on this quilt top is the worst I've ever encountered, and I was even only doing straight lines.  I got it off the machine and it was even worse than I had originally thought.  The weird thing is that up close it bothers me A LOT, but when I look at the quilt as a whole the puckering forms an X across the entire quilt and it's kind of cool looking in a bizarre sort of way.  Do you think it will look better or worse after I wash it?  The crazy thing is that the quilting looks perfect on the back of the quilt.  Sigh.  What to do?  What to do?

Never Sew While Distracted

I had some responsibilities from church weighing heavily on my mind and I thought I was still paying enough attention to my sewing, but I guess not.  I lost count of the number of times I used my seem ripper for these Sisters BOM blocks.  The harder I tried to pay attention the worse it got.  I was so relieved when I got to the final step that I let my guard down and sewed the final segments together backwards.  Awh man (palm to forehead)!  It may have taken me twice as long as it should have, but at least now they're done.

September's Blocks:  Sister's Choice

Minky Success

In the end, I didn't have any difficulties with the minky and I'm so grateful!  The more I think about it the more I think it's the minky with the dots that gives the most trouble. Luckily this was flat minky.

 I love the triangle sections.  I did a different design around each triangle.  Here's a view from both sides of the quilt:

Malini's advice to make things larger scale most definitely helped.  I made my loops a little larger and they flowed nicely.  Later this week I'll be working on the binding with Heidi. 

Overdue WIP

It's been several months since I've done an official Work In Progress post.  Life has not fallen into any set patterns of late, so I'm always quilting on random days for sporadic amounts of time.  This past week I found some time to get a few things done (mostly because when my husband's home he's studying for his upcoming Boards, so I now have most my evenings free when the baby cooperates).

It's been really long time, and I've made 2 baby boy quilts and a bunch of blocks since my last WIP, but for my sanity's sake, I'll only post stuff from the last week:

1- Syracuse Reminiscent Quilt Top is done:

2- September do. Good Stitches blocks are done and in the mail:

3- Outlining for Heidi's Baby quilt is done:

It looks pretty cool on the minky in the back.  It almost looks like fur, doesn't it?  However, the minky is making me super nervous when thinking about starting the FMQ tomorrow.  Anyone have any great tips for making sure your quilting turns out alright on minky?  It never hurts to ask.  Wish me luck!

Other projects
Skill Builder- I'm behind 2 blocks

Sisters BOM- need to do the September blocks
Christmas quilt - not even on the radar yet (Once it feels like Fall maybe I'll feel some need to get going on it again)

 

Upcoming projects

Baby Girl Quilt

Madrid Temple Wholecloth quilt (can't wait to start!)

Stats for the Week:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 0
WIP- 5

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.  

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's always fun to get things in the mail, but there's just nothing quite like getting packages of fabric or sewing accessories.  Joel's parents got me the extension table to my sewing machine a couple weeks back for my birthday, and there might have been a little, happy dance involved when the UPS man showed up to my door. 

The extension is already coming in handy with all of the quilting I need to do in these next couple of weeks.  I can't believe how much of a difference it makes when quilting.  My current project is a quilt my friend made for her baby.  I started doing all of the outlining last night.  It's taking me slightly longer than usual because the back is minky and I'm nervous I'll mess it up.  So far so good.  The real test will be when I start the Free Motion Quilting.  I'm hoping to have all the outlining done by tomorrow.  Fingers crossed that my baby cooperates with my plans and sleeps this evening when the other kiddos go down to bed.  :) 

Citrus Strings

This month for do.Good Stitches we had to make 2 Half Square Triangle Scrappy String blocks with the string half being in citrus colors and the other in gray.  I'm a fan of string blocks and of using scraps, so these were right by my alley.  They're quick and fun.  It's got me wanting to make a quilt of these...oh, the possibilities!

  Linkin' up to BOMs Away.

Quilt By Sunrise

I'm in love with this quilt top!

The pattern is Positively Perfect Nap Quilt by April Rosenthal.  I saw it on Moda Bakeshop a while back and knew I eventually wanted to make one. 

Here's a nice reflection of this morning's sunrise.  I can tell it's going to be a lovely day.

Lotta Jansdotter Love

Here's a little peak at what I've been working on:  All I have left to do are the borders and I'll have the quilt top done.

I love Lotta Jansdotter fabrics!  I don't typically use a whole lot of orange in my quilts, but for some reason I love these.  Maybe it's bringing me back to my Syracuse Orange and Blue roots.  The gray could be the overcast skies that are a common occurrence in Upstate New York.  Whatever the reason, I'm loving using these fabrics. 

Does Using Khaki Make the Quilt Preppy?

I typically like to use white or black as my background color.  Experimenting with low volume backgrounds for a couple of do.Good Stitches blocks has made me want to branch out a bit more.  I made a couple of baby blankets with a blue background, and was feeling pretty proud of myself, but I don't want to go back to only black and white.  This time around I'm using Kona Khaki, and I really like it.  It makes the white feel a lot brighter.

It took all weekend, but I got all 64 blocks pieced together.  I'm excited to put this quilt top together.