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.

Email Issue

I'm no longer receiving emails when comments are made on my posts. I'm very sorry for not getting back to you wonderful readers and am working to fix the problem. The error seems to be stretching back to Feb 1. In the meantime, thank you for stopping by and leaving me feedback. :)

UPDATE: There seems to be a problem with the email host. To overcome this, I have created a new gmail account at which I will receive all emails from this blog. Thanks again for your patience! I am sorry to all those I was not able to reply to because of this problem.

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.

Drop and Give Me Twenty

Beth Helfter at Quilting Hottie Haven is sponsoring a Drop and Give Me Twenty Challege for the Month of February. Simply put, sew for twenty minutes a day and see how much you can get done. To me, this is sort of like NaNoWriMo for quilters! 

So, here is my official pledge. 

 "I, Kaelyn Angelfoot, owner of too many UFOs and too many brilliant quilting ideas, am joining Quilting Hottie Haven's third annual DaGMT event, and pledge to quilt for least 20 minutes every day of the month of February, 2014. In doing so I hope to eventually make enough quilts to use up my stash and try to take over the world!  And I think Beth Helfter is brilliant for coming up with this concept and inspiring me to join."

I may whip out one of my planned quilts for this and get started on it, just to see how far I can get in twenty minutes a day on a new quilt.

A Lovely Year Of Finishes January Edition

Its time for the January link up for a Lovely Year of Finishes January Edition. This UFO busting epic link up is motivation to get my stuff done. Aside from getting Stuff Done, Melissa and Shanna are offering prizes.

My Lovely Year of Finishes goal this month was to get all the blocks made for my DP9 Train Quilt. Here is the link to my goal setting post.

And guess what? I did it! And yes, it is still hanging out on my living room floor. Jack may or may not be getting a little amused/frustrated at the way I keep taking over the house with my projects. The entire basement was supposed to be his, but I stole a corner for my Evil Genius animatronics work.  We're still happily married, so it can't be too bad.

A bonus, as I mentioned in my previous post, would have been to finish the flimsy. I've got it about 75% of the way done. The sixteen blocks in the top right corner are currently unattached. I was hoping to rush through it tomorrow after work but I'm making a trip to the in-laws to function as a computer tech for the evening (providing the weather holds).

On Saturday I will plan on posting my February goal setting and updates for other January goals. Happy Thursday!