February Review

Lots of stuff going on today. I was able to spend a few happy hours joking and chilling with my close friends, who I haven't seen for a few weeks for various reasons. And while I was there, I finished my February Finish for ALYoF. Yes its a day late and too late to link up to the finishes party, but I still got it completed. Here it is: *cue epic music*

Tada! It took me, count them, eighteen days from the time I finished quilting this to get the binding completely stitched on. This would be because I only do hand work while watching TV and lets be honest, I just don't have time to watch a lot of TV.

Earlier this week, we moved the large white cupboard from my sewing room into the basement. It was awkward and hard to store stuff in and hard to find stuff. Everything that was in the cupboard went into my closet in more or less some semblance of order. I really was missing it because its primary purpose was to hold all my quilting rulers, so I picked up some more hangers and turned the sewing room door into something more useful.

Where the cupboard was, I put a card table and set up my serger. I will eventually need to get a sturdier table for this, but in the meantime it seems to work pretty well.

And then I started this project - no that is not a purple fabric, it is actually a nice gunmetal gray. The red is from a red home decor fabric remnant that I picked up for a dollar at JoAnns about four years ago, with vague plans to use it in a corset.

This will be a new purse. I downloaded the original tutorial from Better Homes and Gardens but it was written so poorly that I'm not going to link back to it. The last step is "See this other tutorial here and follow steps 1-4 to finish assembling the tote bag." Like it would seriously be that difficult to copy and paste those last few steps. I'm making some modifications and rewriting it as I go.

My February NewFO was my A4A Quilt. I completed two blocks!

My March NewFO is currently the purse I'm working on, but I'm debating finally starting this quilt I designed months ago.

I have all the fabrics hanging in my closet, I just haven't started it yet. Although, I do have two completed quilt tops waiting for quilting so I guess we'll see how the month plays out. And sooner or later, I really do need to settle down and get some Ragnarok Garb squared away.

My DaGMT participation was mixed. I did get a lot done (see the link at the top of the page) but I didn't get to sew every day. Its just too busy, with work and cooking and stuffs. But that isn't going to stop me from trying out 30/30 Sewing Challenge by Berry Barn Designs. Generally it is the same thing as DaGMT, only its thirty minutes a day for thirty days. More to come later on this, and my new ALYoF goal for March.

Random Acts of Kindness

Another work week past, another weekend to indulge in rampant craftiness!

I started quilting the Rustic HST quilt today. I decided to go with "straight" lines, because I didn't want to complicate the quilt. It is beautiful in its simplicity. By the way, as I'm sure many of you can testify, those "straight" lines never seem to end up quite straight. When I wash the quilt, it should hide most of the waviness. I'm guessing that I have about 20% of the quilting done.

And since one of my readers expressed an interest in the star points on my DaGMT journal, here is my most recent picture of that project.

I also want to express my thanks to those people who engage in Random Acts of Kindness. This morning my car got stuck in the snow, at 6:30 am, on a dark residential street and three people stopped within minutes to help push my car out. Thanks to them I wasn't stranded, waiting for Jack to get there. I hope I get a chance to pay it forward sometime.

January in Review and February Goals

Hmm well in review I think that I did okay this past month. I wanted to get my DP9 quilt top put together, which I finished yesterday. Okay, it was a day late, but I'm still counting it for January.

I started putting on the borders last night, and cut the top and bottom borders too short. By two inches, so no amount of fuzzy math and fabric fudging was going to make it work. So I added a little bit to each end, trimmed, and discovered that they were still too short. That is when I packed everything up and called it a night.

Just a quick note - you can't see the border because it blends so well with my curtains but it will have a one inch dark red border and then a two inch black marble border (its a stonehenge fabric I've been dying to use). I don't know if you have been able to tell, but I really like red. :)

In addition, I finished adding the borders to my HST Quilt yesterday.

Final size: 44" x 53" 

I have come to the relatively untested conclusion that measuring for borders across the center of the quilt works best for me. I suppose I will just have to make more quilts to test this hypothesis thoroughly. This one had a variation of half an inch between the top and the bottom (huh? how did that happen?) but it seems to have squared itself up rather nicely.

My January NewFO was my mini block quilt. I made one block from it, as I wanted to. I started a couple others but they weren't working out and I eventually got too irritated and set it aside.

I think this project isn't being worked on because I don't like the colors. They are all saturated and its not coming out the way I had hoped. But I only have one block done, so starting over wouldn't be a big deal. I'm just not sure where I want to take this.

Making my skirt was an epic fail and I didn't even start quilting the neon scrap quilt. I have ordered a book on sewing techniques and one on pattern design and I will probably be spending a decent amount of February working on projects that hone my garmenting skills.

And now, for February Goals (epic intro music here).

A Lovely Year of Finishes

For February ALYoF, I would like to sandwich and quilt the HST quilt. Bonus: binding! I think I have batting floating around here somewhere.

NewFO at Catpatches

I'm actually not sure that I'm going to participate this month because I have so much else going on but, if I did, I would either work on Aiming for Accuracy Quilt, my Black, Red, and Gray quilt, my Halloween twister, or Jack's medallion quilt. So, not a lot of options there, haha.

Project 144

For Project 144 this month, I'm going to work on improving my sewing skills and pattern alteration and drafting skills. I am uncertain what types of projects I will be working on as I will be trying to work from a book I don't have yet. However, I will attempt to modify them so that they are still Ragnarok Worthy in the end.

In My Spare Time

I would still like to quilt the neon quilt and also quilt and bind the train quilt. So no pressure. You know, as much as I despise the Nyan Cat meme, this quilt does remind me of it a little. I may have to call it the Nyan Quilt. *cringe*

Oh and just to make things even more busy, I just acquired this:

The Kona Solids Slate Rock FQ Pack, which I will be using to make a HST/QST quilt in the spirit of the Celebration of the Hand quilt by Angela Flicker.

Rustic Half Square Triangle Quilt

Check it out! Thanks to a three day weekend (and Jack taking off for a Red Wings game tonight) I actually pieced an entire quilt in one weekend. Okay, granted that it still need borders (which I don't have the fabric for) and it is a very small quilt at 36" x 45" but I still did it in ONE WEEKEND! GO ME!

Rustic Half-Square Triangle Quilt

I'm not sure what I'll do with this one yet. It is a good size for a baby but it is the wrong color scheme. It might make a nice wheel-chair quilt. Guess we'll see. Either way, I like it a lot. It is very different than all the other quilts I've worked on.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times