I bought this book last year!  

I'm starting to get annoyed with myself buying books and then never making even one quilt from them.  

I'm annoyed since I'm running out of book shelf space AGAIN! 

So I made this top from two partial charm pack I had, Reunion and Simply Style. I added one extra row of blocks.

Urban Pods was finished at the end of April.

I've been waiting for good weather to take some outside pictures.

I gave up waiting.

The design wall with Up and Away progress; not much. I have the 10 rows sewn together in the upper right corner.

I feel sure that soon I will lose patience with this sitting here and sew the dang thing up, even though it sitting there and being sewn a few rows at a time is the plan...

I sewed a sample spider web block (ala Bonnie Hunter).

I saw a quilt on Pinterest using pieced fabric for the center area and really liked it.

I don't really like my grey centers.  It might look fine on an entire quilt, but I don't have that much.  I'm going to do another one with much lighter pieced centers.

Customer quilts are threatening to overwhelm-the closet and my mind.

This is Carol's 

E's & 3's with a variegated thread.

and the back

I finished the Swoon pillow.

Barb's quilt is finished and delivered.  This was the one I made for my co-worker. She's in rehab now and on the road to recovery. 

 She loved the quilt

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A customer quilt. I quilted it with a large paisley in pink thread.

Great texture.

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Modern baby quilt.  I'm still stitching the binding down on this one, perhaps will get it finished tonight while the Pens game is on.

 the back, I got the fabric at Jo Ann's thought the owls were so cute.

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Today I finished putting Urban Pods together.  I added an extra row to the width and length.  The pattern only called for a top and bottom border (2 1/2 inches) but I put a 3 inch border on each side as well. 

It measures 66 x 75

I can't wait to quilt this one.

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As soon as I got Urban Pods off the design wall, I had room to put the blocks for Urban Birthday up.  I do have to lay them out sideways since my wall is not high enough. But I just take a picture and rotate it to "see" how the fabric placement is. 

This looks pretty good, may move a couple.

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I did sew together and quilt the 2 panels for my Scrap Happy purse but they're still waiting patiently on the other wall. It's made with all the little leftovers from Urban Pods. 

I cannot wait to get this one made. 

Perhaps next week....

Weekend sewing madness (seriously)

On Saturday our guild's group met.  I was asked to lead a demo.
So I showed these adorable fabric boxes.
They are addictive and take less than an hour to make one.




 Check out the tutorial, this is why I'm always bouncing from one thing to the other too many great projects out there!

....I saw this post from Kathy a few weeks ago and thought it would be a great block for our modern group to make a donation quilt for the guild.
You can find the pattern here .
 I made a couple sample blocks but changed the block size from 9 to 12 inches.

block on left I used 'made fabric

....Yesterday, I made two Star Fling blocks and
two 'baby' blocks with the leftovers...

The triangle pieces that get cut off are too big to toss.

 When you add the 2nd square,

 because this is a floating star, you get a 2nd HST that looks like the ones in the 2nd row of the picture below.

 I cut 4 background pieces and 1 center piece same size as my  leftover HST's

the big and the 'extra' laid out for sewing together

And 

Ta-da! 

 an extra wonky cute little star block.

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On the design wall. 

On the right is Urban Birthday, using the Little Black Dress fabric line.

 On the left. is Urban Pods. I found the grey fabric that I thought I was out of.

I love the Kaffe fabric I'm using for these blocks so I'm sewing them into strips for my new spring purse.

Urban Pods

This is what I did on the guild's annual retreat.

 I changed the assembly a bit. The pattern calls for sewing it together in vertical rows but since I was at the retreat and didn't have room to lay the whole thing out I just sewed blocks together. I thought they look like bowling pins but most everyone who walked by my space at the retreat said 'vases'.

I was thinking of making this one bigger but just remembered I only have a little bit of the grey left.  

So this is it. 

 

Yea! 

OK so here was the design wall on Saturday.

About 5 minutes after taking this picture, the Twister Jack was taken down.   Something had to give and he was it!  I think having him up there and knowing it would require a huge chunk of time to do the "twister-ing up" was really bogging my mind down.  I'd come downstairs to work and see him and mentally feel a twinge "OH Man it's almost Halloween--gotta get that done"   :(

 Here's what's on the design walls now:

3 anvil blocks

I got the pattern here.

I "made" another slab of blue yesterday too.

 The two Urban Runner's are together and waiting for quilting.

I mentioned in my last post that I got Amanda's latest pattern.
While I was working on the Urban runner's I kept seeing the pattern sitting there begging me to stop everything and make it.
I didn't go that far but I did sew the panels for the front and back together.  I thought I'd just 'get started' on them but it was fun and once started how can you stop?  It did take me a couple hours and that's when I also pieced the blue slab.
So two things done at once, even though neither was what I started with;
sorta works-right?? 

I was on a sewing roll and spied the leftover curved pieces from this quilt.

And just sewed them together in a crazy rainbow-ish stack-no idea what will become of this- I'll stick it in a backing if nothing else.

But I feel better that it's sewn and not just sitting there.

I finally cut out the pieces for the Urban Pods bag I've been wanting to make for 3 months at least--going to try to get them sewn together today.

And I am still working on learning to use  rulers on my HQ.

It was frustrating and slow going at first.
AND that is an understatement!!

All thumbs I was.

Yes, see that bobble, I think my thumb was in the way...very difficult for me to keep my big fat thumb out of the way at first.
Now if it happens I get mad---I know better!

 I am gradually noticing I'm able to manipulate the ruler with more ease. I'm s-l-o-w-l-y figuring it out and just realized this morning that I can start/stop the machine without having to think about it or hit the wrong button on the handle.
I know that sounds funny, but having to concentrate on holding the ruler correctly--level, straight, just the right amount of pressure, make sure my thumb is out of the way-- AND start the machine and THEN start moving the machine was a lot for my brain to do.

I guess I'm starting to have a 'flow' going.  So progress on that front as well!

I started quilting the X's quilt thinking I would SID along all the pieced seams and do any design -with different rulers- in each of the blue areas.   

That  kind of worked for the first row.

But this is what happened.
I was doing too many new things at once and stinking at them all.
Not a good way to learn and feel like I was ever going to get it.

So I changed the plan to SID along all the seams to stabilize the quilt.
It's now off the machine and I can go back to it when I have some more free time and work on one design or with one ruler at a time.