WIP Wednesday: Back to School is Cramping My Style

I am back to work (as a teacher I have July and August off so I have more sewing time) and it has meant a real slow down in progress.

Here is what I am working on:
1. I have my Christmas Tree quilt top finished. I need to piece the backing and then baste and quilt it.

2. My #QBTravellingquilt exchange is set for September 16 which is also the first meeting of the West End Modern Quilt Guild- my first ever guild! It is brand new. I will let you know how it goes! I have a round this time with my friend C's quilt. I will only show you a sneak peek until she sees it in person.

Cutting through an Ex Libris panel is PAINFUL.

Marlowe does a good job keeping an eye on things.

3. I also basted my Snail Along Quilt (named Molasses) and have it ready to quilt when the opportunity next turns up.

4.  In addition I have been working away on both a quilt and a pillow for a new baby arriving in November to a very close friend. (The new baby's big sister is my goddaughter). This pattern from 3rd Story Workshop will be turned into a pillow for baby's nursery. Isn't it precious?

Now if only I didn't have to do things like feed my children or do all my school work!

Irons in the Fire

As someone who rarely has more than 2 or 3 quilts in progress at once, I have been absolutely all over the place in 2017 with many quilts on the go.

I'm doing a little check in of just some of the quilts I'm working on.

I am working on a quilt using the Diamond Tread pattern for my daughter's teacher's end of year gift. I made the centre panel and then attached one of the sides and discovered that I had accidently mixed up my Kona Shadow and Kona Silver. Yikes. It had to be pulled off (the border) and I went to make new borders (they are huge: 12" wide and 26" wide) and discovered I was short 1 yard of Kona Shadow, the colour I actually need. Sigh. I've placed an order and I'm waiting for it to arrive.

On the left: Kona Silver. On the right (in the HSTs): Kona Shadow.

Here is the Silver and Shadow side by side. You can see why I made the mistake under overhead lights!

I've also been working on a Corn Rows quilt for my goddaughter. Her mom picked the fabric. I had 98 HSTs to trim, so I spent a Friday night watching Netflix and carefully trimming.

The pattern called for quite over-sized HSTs so the trimmings were also quite large.

Also had lots of pressing to do...

And chain piecing.

 I also am making three baby quilts at the same time, two with the same fabrics and one with totally different fabric. This is one of the quilts, laid out and ready for sashing. This one is for a woman at work expecting her first baby, a little boy, this August (but I need to have it done soon because she may be leaving to work in another building soon!).

These snails, snakes and bugs in jars are super cute!

And so I jump around from project to project and I still have more that haven't been mentioned here on the go. To be honest, part of this approach is a result of me having to steal time when I can as a mom with two little kids, plus working full time. And I think as long as I can get the WIP situation under control by summer, I'll be satisfied I'm back on track!

WIP Wednesday: Soaking Up Summer

I am starting an exciting new job in September and I anticipate having exactly zero time to sew and quilt. I will try to make a point to make a bit of time but I'm not hopeful. With that in mind, I have been knocking out some quilts that need to get done this year and that I don't think I can do come September.

First up is a very sweet, soft baby girl quilt for a co-worker who is expecting in December. I hope she loves these prints. This simple little patchwork quilt is so sweet!

Scrappy binding from my binding leftovers. They worked perfectly with this quilt!

I also cut up all the prints for a Banners Quilt using Star Wars fabric. This is for one of two quilts I need to make to finish off making a quilt for all the children in my one group of friends.

Star Wars!

I couldn't get any further with Star Wars because I need 3 yards of Kona Titanium as the background fabric. What to do? Start cutting the other quilt for that group! This one is another little boy (Star Wars is for an 11-year-old and this blue/green quilt is for a five-year-old).

I have been hemming and hawing as to which pattern to use and decided to break out my 60 degree equilateral triangle ruler that I bought ages ago.

This ruler makes things a breeze! I opted for 6" triangles.

I am SO SO pleased with the results. I want to keep looking at it. I love all the Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets (regular and mini) mixed with lots of Lizzy House Natural History plus some other prints from my stash that work perfectly with this navy and lime colour scheme.

I think it is totally awesome. I'm thinking of keeping it.

So that makes four quilts on the go right now, but I am making excellent progress with all of them!

On a side note, I am participating on Instagram (@lynnfilliter) with the #ilovemystash challenge from @sewinlove. One of the prompts was a floral print and I pulled out this Art Gallery fabric that I don't even remember ever acquiring. One of my closest friends commented how much she loved it and that I couldn't get out of my head how right it would be for her. And so I went through my stash and curated a bundle to go with it!

Unusual colours? Yes. Perfect for my friend? Also yes!

So the bundle has been put aside to eventually make her a quilt with it (she already has First Snow so I think she can wait a bit!). I'm not going to tell her though...then there is no deadline!

Looking pretty.

And that is my WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday: The Blues

So what am I working on this Wednesday? Well, it is May, and May means the end of the school year is not so far away. The tradition thus far has been to make my daughter's teacher a quilt to thank her for caring for and educating my awesome kid.

My "cool" scrap bin has been getting unruly, so I knew I wanted to dig into my scraps and put together something that would be for her teacher but also cut down on my scrap problem.

I have a rather generous amount of blue scraps, so I pulled out everything I could find that seemed appropriate (not so much the shark fabric though) and cut a big stack of 3.5" squares.

To be clear, I still have lots of blues in my scrap bins but these did make a dent!

Then I pulled out some white scraps, where I found some white-on-white 3.5" squares that were cut but never used for a project from last year. It was meant to be! I used those as the centers and made 9-patch blue blocks. Then I played with them to get balance and came up with this organization:

I like this scrappy look!

I've now cut out the sashing (from Kona White) and I'll get to work making this a lap-sized quilt for her teacher. Nothing like a hard deadline to get the sewing mojo flowing!

WIP Wednesday: Closer to Finishes

Having some extra free time over March Break meant that all of the current WIPs I'm working on are moving toward finishes.

The Quilt of Belonging blocks made by the second graders all got their colourful borders. There will also be thin strips of black between each block to mimic the real Quilt of Belonging. Currently the bottom row is missing two blocks- one with the name of the school, class and date, embroidered by the teaching assistant from the class, and one made by a member of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations, a local person from the First Nations community where the school was built (on their traditional territory). Then a black sashing strip all the way around and between each row, and I get on to piecing a grey and black backing with a stack of rainbow rectangles.

Rainbow.

I also made a pillow out of the paper pieced butterfly I made for my goddaughter. Now I'm avoiding the hand sewing that is required. I really suck at hand sewing.

Did I overdo it with the clips?

I also managed to baste and quilt AeroPlus. It needs the binding made so I can get this one finished and off to the new, one-month-old owner who lives in Ottawa!

Straight line quilting to match the Greek crosses.

I did have this frustrating glitch. Booo. I was almost finished when I noticed. Fortunately it was near a corner, and with some stitch ripping, some pressing and more 505 Spray,  I was able to smooth this right out with no ill effects.

I am hoping that my next finish will be AeroPlus, followed by Little Eyes, my daughter's I-Spy quilt which is basted and waiting for quilting.

If only every week was March Break!

WIP Wednesday: Variety Reduces Boredom

With the little snippets of time I can carve out for sewing with little people underfoot, I have been back and forth between working on a Greek Cross baby quilt (tentatively named AirPlus) and assembling the Quilt of Belonging. 

I was feeling unmotivated to work on the Greek crosses because it involves lots of monotonous chain piecing (to be efficient). So I made one block to motivate me...and it worked!

How cute is this block? Greek crosses look awesome.

Stacks of blocks to press and then get back to chain piecing.

Piles growing as I plodded along.

And I actually got all the blocks pieced in a fairly short amount of time! Here it is laid out on the floor. I now have all the rows pieced and the first three rows assembled. But that was getting boring.

I love how this quilt is bright and cheerful but not too baby.

So because the repetitive piecing was getting boring, I laid out and selected the solids for the Quilt of Belonging blocks. Being in the Sew Sisters Kona solid of the month club sure has been useful for having a wide selection to choose from.

Since the photo was taken I have finished the reds and oranges. I'm hoping to get yellows done today. There will also be Kona Black in between each block to mimic the original quilt.

And for a fun bonus, I'm sharing another example of all the help I get when I'm trying to sew.

He didn't understand why lying on top of the blocks wasn't helping.

I can't link up to WIP Wednesday because Freshly Pieced has stopped doing it, but since WIP Wednesday motivates me I'm posting anyway!

WIP Wednesday: Jumping Between Projects But Not Starting New Ones

This Wednesday I can say that I am making progress on tackling my "must finish" quilts for January/February. I have been very, very tempted to start new projects, mostly I think because picking fabrics is probably my favourite parts of making a quilt.

My Welcome to Canada Quilt is just waiting for me to hand sew the binding down on the back, and for me to add the label sent by the organizer.

I also sewed one of two missing borders on my daughter's modern I-Spy quilt and prepped the other border but still have not sewn it on. I have the fabric for the backing but prepping backing is sort of boring sewing, you know what I mean?

I managed to sew together the quilt top for my husband's cousin's baby, due in late February. This baby gets a gender neutral quilt because mom and dad opted not to find out the sex. They are outdoors sort of people. I think I'm going to name it Canadian Wilderness.

You can see the backing peeking through- a mustard with trees, accented with a white with mustard trees. 

The whites in this baby quilt are very cream, and it is quite busy (which is why I added those delicious solid teal blocks) but I hope the parents like it. I need to get on this so I can mail it to Ottawa on time!

I also prepped a whole bunch of paper piecing templates for a quilt for my new nephew coming in March. It is going to be epic!

I am proud that I have not

a) bought any new fabric (not that I'm on a fast, per say, but more that I'm buying only things I truly LOVE)

b) started any new sewing projects.

Perhaps I can get these done in time!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday: Am I Sticking to It?

The year is underway and I have been sneaking in sanity sewing where I can. Some much needed time was given to me by my wonderful husband last weekend so I was able to get quite a lot accomplished from my 2016 list.

I worked steadily on my Welcome to Canada quilt. This is an action shot...it is twin sized now and the backing is even prepped. I want to try to get this one done fairly soon so I can donate it to a local project for new Syrian refugees to the Toronto area.

This really shows the colourful side of this quilt..I did several tone-on-tone whites and greys in the middle, then back to cascading colour. All will be revealed when it is done!

I pressed, chopped and did the lay out for my husband's cousin's quilt. I now have the rows sewn together, and now I have to sew those together to make the quilt top. It is a simple tumbler pattern using 5x5" squares which is a quick but visually appealing look.

I like the colours in this quilt. They haven't found out the sex of the baby, so I'm hoping this will work either way!

My daughter's birthday is today, and no, her I-Spy quilt is definitely not done. But all the sashing in the middle is done...just two sides to add and the quilt top will be finished. I have the fabric for the backing (from Heather Ross' Tiger Lily line) but it is not pieced yet. Progress is progress though!

The sashing is my second-least favourite part of quilting, but it is fun to see the quilt top coming together. The sashing also, unfortunately, reveals all my piecing and seam errors since they don't line up perfectly. I still love it and I don't think my toddler will notice!

Overall I think I am doing well sticking to my goals. I also haven't bought any fabric in 2016. I can't promise I'll be able to say THAT much longer. :)

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Stars in My Eyes

Stars, stars and more stars. Using the Wonky Star tutorial from Owen's Olivia and a stack of Wee Wander from my stash, I've been plugging away at the baby quilts for twin girls due in the early fall to a co-worker.

I would lay out a star (having pre-made all the points) and then square by square sew them together. 

I totally love the result of the stars and the white background but it wasn't wide enough for my liking so I've since added (white) borders.

Fussy cutting some of the centres of the stars was so worth it.

When I got to work figuring out the layout of the warm version of the quilt I realized that somewhere my math had failed me (again!) and I was a block short.

Oops! How did that happen?

My youngest daughter was "helping." She thinks that blocks or fabric on the floor means she should lie down on it. Adorable? Yes. Helpful? Not so much.

I now have the borders on and I've moved on to piecing the back. I want to do it all from stash and ideally with lots of scraps. I liked the way it looked on Jungle Flame, so I'm going for it. This also allows me to use the tiny fat eighth of the panel for Wee Wander on each quilt.

This is the chaos on my quilting room floor:

All these bits to piece together to make the quilt top. Wild and crazy and I love it!

And can I pause to share this new favourite addition to my quilting room? A gigantic glass jar that now holds all my selvedges!

Happy to look at!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday: Wee Wander

Having my own sewing room has been absolutely divine. I have been sewing every single day, even for 10 minutes here and there because I never need to put anything away so it is always ready to go! Despite the sewing time, blogging time has been trumped by unpacking and general summer busy fun.

Here is what I have been working on. A co-worker is expecting twin girls in early October/late September. Her nursery is white with little pops of colour. I have been dying to try Owen's Olivia's tutorial for a wonky star and this seemed like the perfect project!

I then went through my stash and found my Wee Wander fat eighths and felt inspired. One girl twin will get a cool colourway and the other will get a warm colourway. I'm seriously crushing on the fabric.

Wee Wander fat eighths. I also had to add in some C+S from my stash and some Lizzy House diamonds because some of the prints are too "white" to work against Kona White backgrounds (not enough contrast).

I tested a block from the tutorial and was not happy about the amount of waste. I mentioned this on Instagram and Owen's Olivia responded immediately and changed her tutorial to allow for less waste. Amazing!

Right? This block? SO CUTE! (It is 12" square).

The trimmings have been soooooo cute. I needed to take a picture so I could say goodbye and feel less wistful. I know that's sad. I'm okay with it. :)

Cool trimmings all together. 

I then jumped into warm (pink, orange, coral and fuschia) and spent a few more hours making all the star points for this quilt.

There are some bold colours but overall it will be a soft look, I think.

I was fortunate that in the most recent move I was able to find and consolidate all my rulers, including this 4.5" square ruler that was the perfect size for trimming all these blocks down!

I love when things work out.

It took awhile to trim them all. There are four to trim for each block and there are 12 blocks in each quilt. Eeeek.

Aren't these prints enchanting?

I got all the points done for the cool quilt and just finished the warm points. Now this quilt gets put on pause while I quilt a baby quilt (that is quite large) to make sure it is done in time for the baby's arrival in August!

Won't this be a lovely palette for one of the girls?

And now back to the tedious quilting I decided on for the blue/green animal baby quilt. I need a fan in my sewing room because this quilt is quite heavy and hot and I'm roasting even with the air conditioning on while I'm quilting!

Linking up with Work in Progress Wednesdays by Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday: Getting Close to Having to Shut Down

At the end of the month I am moving to a new house which is very exciting, especially because in my new home I will have my own dedicated sewing room. Hooray for not having to disassemble all my work every time we have people over for dinner!

With that in mind I am in a serious time crunch to get sewing done before all my fabric and my machine are packed away to get moved. 

I am very happy with my progress on my daughter's teacher's thank you quilt. This is a picture of the quilt top and I already have the backing on, it is quilted and I am just working away on hand stitching the binding. It came together very quickly I think, in part, because of my meticulous planning.

A scrappy Moda Love star quilt for my daughter's Grade One teacher.

And it wouldn't be sewing time at my house if there wasn't a baby quilt (or five) on the go!

I also have been working on this teal, turquoise and navy kitty quilt. It has to be gender neutral because the mom and dad weren't able to find out if they're expecting a boy or girl. Both are kitty crazy, though, so I think this will work just fine.

I also had one of those quilter's moments where an idea was in my head and I had to do the fabric pull because it was haunting me. My husband's aunt turns 65 in two years (!) and she begged me to make her a quilt. I know I have lots of time. In fact, maybe even too much time. But she said she wanted browns (not my favourite) and then I found this Lewis & Irene fabric that I really liked and then I couldn't get the darn quilt out of my head!

Here is my pull for that quilt (Lewis&Irene inspiration fabric on top):

Some precious Lotta, some Allison Glass, some Cotton+Steel- really this pull now is quite lovely so I'm looking forward to making it!

After the teacher's quilt and the teal kitty quilt, however, I am back to the grey, white and navy baby quilt for a co-worker.

How many quilts do you think I can sew under my deadline?

Linking Up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Scrappy Rainbow Goodness

My daughter is rapidly coming to the end of her grade one school year and I want to make her teacher a quilt (as I did for her kindergarten teacher when I made Thank You Kate). I have been hemming and hawing about fabrics and patterns and then the end of May was approaching and I had to bite the bullet and pick a quilt already!

I ended up taking inspiration from a photograph of a quilt on Instagram by scrapstudio which I believe is based on a Moda quilt pattern. It is a very straight-forward pattern of HSTs and solid blocks so I just drew one up. Then I decided to make it very rainbow and scrappy and the insanity began.

Here is the layout I decided on in my notebook:

It took a long time but allowed me to audition different fabrics to get the look I wanted. Hopefully it looks good all put together too!

The solid blocks were easy but then I had a LOT of HSTs to make. The stack looked a bit overwhelming, especially since I opted to use the traditional two-at-a-time method so I can use the leftover HSTs for a quilt for the teaching assistant (if I have time).

I made the blocks 8x8" so I could trim them down to the 7x7" size I actually needed.

Trimming all those HSTs probably would have gone faster and had me less worried about a chopped tail if someone hadn't been so helpful.

I used a method to trim the HSTs that I had read about but never tried. It involved trimming the blocks before pressing them open. You line up your ruler (this is a great big 12.5" square ruler) with the size you want on the seam. In this picture, which is hard to see, the 7 is line up on the seam line (and was in the other corner as well) and then I trimmed around the remaining edges, then pressed them open. To learn more check out this tutorial that I used to figure it out.

Taking pictures at night=bad reflections

This gives you an idea of how the ruler fit over the HST (which is a very large HST- I think it would be even easier with a smaller block).

Before long I had a big stack of trimmed HSTs and pretty trimmings from those HSTs. It was SO FAST. And the results are excellent- accurate, neat, and the HST is still a perfect, well, half-square triangle! I'm never trimming them the old way again!

Success for less effort than usual!

I spent some time pressing them all open and they look great. Now I have to do the big layout so I can start putting it together! I think the time I spent planning it is paying off with how quickly the top seems to be coming together. Wish me luck with all those seams!

Linking up with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesdays!