Twenty-Five Quilts, Day 1

Since I've been such a lazy blogger lately, I thought it was time to issue myself another blogging challenge. How about "25 Days of Quilts"? Each day in December (through Christmas!) I'll try to post about a recent quilt finish!

Earlier this year, I made a pink and white stars custom quilt, and ended up with a pile of small scraps. They were the perfect size for a scrappy coins quilt!

I actually pieced the strips of coins this summer, but put them aside to work on other projects. Because a lot of the assembly was done, this top was a fun project a few weeks ago when I was looking for a fast and fun finish.

The backing is from Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market collection, which is now out of print. I had a small piece of it left in my stash, and it seemed to be the perfect choice! The pink binding was also leftover from a previous project.

I love a project that uses up leftovers, and clears the way for new fabric acquisitions!

 

 

New Pattern in the Shop!

Finally -- a new pattern for the shop is ready!

I really like to gear my patterns toward making the most of precuts. This pattern uses one layer cake, and some background fabric, to make three different 40" square baby quilt designs.

The patterns are based on enlarged quilt blocks (hence the name "Baby Blocks!") so they go together really fast -- perfect for when you need a baby gift in a hurry!

I made my three sample quilts from Kate Spain's "Terrain" collection.

As a bonus, I have included instructions on making three pillows in the same designs, using one charm pack and less than a yard of background fabric.

These were made from Amy Butler's Love fabrics, and one of my favorite background choices -- Kona Ash.

The pattern is now available for purchase in my Etsy shop, as well as my Craftsy shop!

I've got some other patterns in the works, so I hope to have more to share soon!

 

October Goal

Remember this stack of quilts I blogged about in June?

At the beginning of June, I issued myself a challenge to quilt a stack of 20 flimsies (finished tops) before the end of the month. I met that goal, but it left me with a stack of bindings to do!

Earlier this month, I unofficially pledged to finish the remaining bindings by the end of October. I really didn't think I would meet that goal, but I'm happy to report that the final binding stitches were put into the last quilt tonight!

This quilt was the oldest of my flimsies -- I made it over four years ago when I was testing out blocks for our guild's block of the month program.

Here are a couple of other bindings I finished this week:

A Modern Meadow quilt (top was completed Summer 2012)

A coins quilt featuring Groovy Guitar fabrics

And a Central Park flying geese quilt (top was completed in Summer 2012)

It feels great to have somewhat of a "clean slate", and now I'm ready for some new projects!

 

Momentum

It's amazing what you can get done with a little momentum! I was inspired to continue working on my Salt Air Stars quilt after reaching the halfway point on Sunday. On Monday, I made two more blocks...

 

Today, I finished the last four...

...which inspired me to assemble the top!

Obviously, I wasn't inspired to iron it -- please pardon the wrinkles!

I have a piece of minky I'm thinking of using for the backing -- maybe I'll get to the quilting later this week!

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation, and Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Chipping Away

I love to be able to devote an entire evening and immerse myself in a project, but sometimes I forget that little steps add up to big goals!

Back in July, I blogged about this work-in-progress -- a 12 block lap quilt in Salt Air fabrics. The project sat in a bin next to sewing machine all summer while I worked on other projects. I've had a steady stream of custom orders on Etsy for several months, which is wonderful, but I often feel guilty working on another project when I know I have quilts with deadlines in the works.

Tonight, I decided to pull out the project for a little while, and in a relatively short amount of time, two more blocks were finished.

I'm now at the halfway point, and happy to see this coming together again. Hopefully, I can bring this one to completion sooner rather than later by remembering that a lot can be accomplished in little bits of time!

 

 

Finishes

After a long unintended silence, it's time to do some sharing on my blog again! Here are some of the projects I've been working on:

Custom orders have been pretty steady lately -- pictured above are some of my recent finishes.

I'm still plugging away at bindings on the stack of quilts I finished in June. I just finished this vibrant Soul Blossoms Granny Squares quilt this morning. I love the way the Kona medium grey sets off all the beautiful colors!

I gave myself a little break from custom orders earlier this month and put together this patchwork quilt using 4 charm packs of Basic Grey's PB and J collection. I was surprised by how much I was drawn to this collection -- I really love the mixture of colors and prints. I used the alphabet print for the backing, and the red chevron print for the binding.

I love it so much that I'm currently working on a Scrappy Trip quilt using jelly rolls of the collection (I'll share some progress pics of that soon!)

Now that my custom orders are winding down, I look forward to putting my energy into finishing four new patterns -- hopefully, I will be ready to share those soon!

 

Wrap Up: 10 Things This Summer

Earlier this summer, Sherri at A Quilting Life hosted a Linky party to share your list of summer goals. Since fall has officially arrived, it's time to report how I did!

#1 Replace the floor in my sewing room and reorganize my quilts and supplies --DONE!

#2 Bind the stack of quilts that I finished in June (read more about this goal here). I didn't quite make it through the stack, but I did make a nice dent in it -- perhaps my October goal could be to finish binding the rest?

#3 Use up some scraps and make some pillows for the shop -- I'm happy with the ones I finished, although I could have made even more!

 

#4 Make a bunch of Christmas stockings for the shop (tutorial can be found here). -- DONE!

#5 Finish writing the four patterns I've been working on -- okay, this was the goal that I slacked off on the most. However, I did make some good progress on the sample quilts for the patterns, and hope to have at least one completed pattern within the next week or so!

#6 Complete some of the partially finished projects that are taking up space on my sewing room floor: Although I had a steady stream of custom orders this summer that prevented me from making a huge dent in my project pile, I definitely made some headway, as you can see below!

#7 Buy less, and start working my way through those beautiful fabrics I have stashed in my storage drawers -- I think I did pretty well with this goal. Although there were definitely some collections I couldn't pass up this summer, the fact that I was able to condense my fabric shelf pile from what you see on the left, to the photo on the right, illustrates that I did use up some fabric this summer!

#8 Finish my son's sports t-shirt quilt -- DONE!

#9 Quilt tops as I finish them instead of letting them pile up -- DONE! (As a matter of fact, the quilt pictured below was my last unquilted top, which I just finished today!)

#10 Get a good start on my final year as Block of the Month chairperson for my local quilt guild by making this year's sample blocks, and precutting all the fabrics for the kits -- DONE

These ten summer goals really kept me focused on what I wanted to accomplish -- I look forward to repeating the exercise next summer!