1st Finish of 2015!

Finally... a Finish!

Crossroads #4 was sandwiched, quilted and bound this afternoon just in time to get some quick iPhone pictures before it turned completely dark outside. I'm happy to say that once I got going it didn't feel at all like it had been over a year since I last did these steps.

My favorite walking foot grid quilting on both sides of the block sub units worked out well. I opted for pin basting instead of spray basting indoors and used some leftover pieces of batting on this quilt.

 I love the royal blue polka dot backing with a slice of bright green in contrast to the striped binding which I applied by machine. This quilt will be donated to Project Linus and is the 1st of 4 quilts made from RSC13 blocks. The Crossroads block pattern can be found HERE and these blocks are the 12" size.
                                                               
This is my designated February UFO for A Lovely Year of Finishes and it is also on my Q1 Finish Along list HERE. I will update this post later with better pictures - the background fabric is a crisp white instead of cream - but it is a FINISH. Now to trim my loose threads and call it a day in my Quilting Room!

Flimsy X3

I had forgotten how satisfying it is to turn a stack of blocks into a flimsy - it really is the next best thing to sewing down that last bit of binding to me! Yesterday afternoon was very productive in my Quilting Room. Crossroads 2 came off the design wall first.

Next up was Crossroads 3. I played around with some different layouts and decided on this one with all the colors going in one direction because it allowed me to use the rest of my warm blocks.

Then came the inevitable stumbling block... instead of 20 blocks left I had only had 18. My first thought was to put them away. Then I looked one more time through my bin and tried to remember which white I used for background to make 2 more blocks. Suddenly the best solution dawned on me.

There is nothing wrong with a smaller quilt right? I will use the leftover blocks in one of the backs. Problem solved and now I have 4 more flimsies in the Ready to Quilt section of my UFO Collection.

Our son Micah flies back to New York tomorrow for college so we will drive down to Mpls./St. Paul this afternoon and spent the night with my sister. It's been great having him around for 5 weeks. And, best of all, I'm planning a trip east the last week of March so I won't have to wait too long to see him again.

WIP Wednesday: Crossroad Blocks

If I'm going to have a shot at finishing some UFOs this month I have to get some flimsies made ASAP. Yesterday Elsa helped me organize my stack of Crossroads blocks that I made during RSC13.

She voted for a "girlie" arrangement featuring pink for the first set of blocks and I think she had very good taste. These blocks make such an interesting layout when they are assembled.

Now we have a more masculine set on the design wall ready to sew together. I quite like the chains of color created in these tops and I'm more convinced than ever that these will be my go-to scrap busting block for many years. I just love them!

I will have enough blocks for 4 tops using a 4x5 block layout. These are 12" finished blocks and my Project Linus chapter prefers donations around 48" x 60". My plan is to get all 4 to flimsy stage and get the backings made this week. Then I hope to finish 2 of them next week. The word is FOCUS!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday@Freshly Pieced.

WIP Thursday

This post was intended for yesterday but the day got away from me. After a weekend full of football I'm making baby steps toward real progress in my quilting room.

But first I have to mention how thrilling it was to watch the NDSU Bison win their 4th straight FCS Division 1 Football Championship defeating Illinois State 29-27 on Saturday. WOW! It was a total nail biter as the Bison had to score a touchdown with less than 2 minutes to go for the win after leading for most of the game. Tom, Megan and I are all proud NDSU graduates!

And then, to top it off, we cheered THE Ohio State Buckeyes on to victory in the other National Championship title game against the University of Oregon (fixed!) in Monday night's 42-20 win. Megan's fiance Chris is currently attending Ohio State for a Masters in Health Administration degree. What a fun football weekend... if only our Minnesota Vikings were in the playoffs. Next year!

I spent my some of my football time sorting through various boxes of stuff that found a home in my quilting room during my days of no sewing. Then I looked through some books to get ideas for blocks to work on for RSC15 and settled on this scrappy layout using bowtie blocks. 

And I pulled some charms from my bins to continue my ROYGBIV Chevron Quilt from RSC14. True Confession Time: the only row I finished last year was the Blue!

Continuing in the vein of unfinished RSC business I set up this UFO in my Quilting Notebook... my Crossroads blocks that were made for RSC13. I have enough blocks to make 4 quilts for Project Linus and I would love to finish 2 of them this month. You can find this handy Project Sheet at Pixels To Patchwork by clicking HERE.

2015 is the year I am actually going to USE them! I'll post more about my Quilting Notebook soon.

Scrappy Layout Decisions

I always have a hard time getting back into the quilting room after a break... so today I am trying to shift gears into sew mode. I've been doing a lot of reading, some organizing and reflecting on 2013 the last few days instead - I think it's time to start making some lists of all the things on my mind. The start of a cold is underway too which is making my head a bit fuzzy.

Since I'm not in a quilting mood and my design wall is bare I decided to start there. First up are these 16 patches which I put together in 2009 from 2.5" strips from an online swap of red, orange and yellow strips. Here is a closeup picture of these 8.5" blocks

and here they are on my design wall.

My original plan was to alternate them with hourglass blocks made from these 2 fabrics as in my quick sketch. My other thoughts are to just use the yellow print for the offsetting squares or a white solid. I will probably sew up a few hourglass blocks and see how I like them tonight.

Since I couldn't commit fully to a decision yet on Warm 16 Patches I decided to pull out my Crossroads blocks for RSC13. I am 3 blocks shy of 80 which will be made into 4 Project Linus quilts with a 4x5 block layout. Here is a peek at one top using pink, red, orange, yellow, purple and black & white blocks.

I love it! I have so enjoyed making these blocks all year and it's pretty exciting to start down the road of making them into quilts.

My mind is chock full of ideas for RSC14... too many really. I had the same problem last year and so I'm hopeful that as things wind down into January I'll settle into a plan or at least a short list of ideas.

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy.

Crossroads in Brown

The November color for RSC13 is brown. Brown is a color I was pretty "meh" about as far as quilting goes until I started my Strip Stacks project last winter in blues and browns and grew to appreciate it much more. I like how the browns warm up the cool blues in these blocks.

Making my Crossroads blocks this month made me think that an all brown quilt in this pattern would be quite pretty. I used a wide range of browns from almost black to almost ecru since I'd culled a lot of my browns already for the Strip Stacks quilt.

I have enjoyed making these blocks for RSC13 so much and I'm full of ideas for next year after seeing all the great blocks everyone else has been making all year. Part of me wants to keep making Crossroads blocks too. Love them!

Here is a peek at my quilting progress on my next UFO Scrappy Chevrons. Lots of pivoting on this top but I like how it's working out and I've got a good audiobook on my iPhone to quilt along to. One of my ideas for RSC14 is to make a chevron row each month with the assigned color using my stash of 5" charms.

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy.

Black & White Blocks

The colors for RSC13 in October are black and grey. Since the popularity of grey occurred after my UFO creating time I really don't have any grey scraps so I went with black & white. Here are my 8 Crossroads blocks.

Black & white creates such drama. Isn't that shoe print great?

I also made 8 Birds in the Air blocks using many of the same fabrics.

It's going to be so fun to start putting all of the colors together soon - can't wait!

Last night my daughter and I went down to Minneapolis/St. Paul to visit my sister and we spent a wonderful evening seeing this...

Every time I see Wicked it gets better and better. Last night's Elphaba had the most amazing voice and we all agreed she was the best we'd seen. There is so much to love about this musical... if you have never seen it you MUST!! It's hard to write about much quilting tonight because I've got Wicked songs/scenes running on a loop through my head.

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy.

Sunday Things

Just a quick post today... not a lot of sewing going on but lots of healing! My mom's knee replacement surgery went great - she is already home and my uncle will be released from the hospital tomorrow. Thanks much for your kind get well wishes on my post last week!

I shared my 60th UFO Finish on Friday and that means I get to start something new (10 UFO Finishes = New Project). I spent some time browsing my books last night and decided on Feed Sacks from Kim Brackett's book "Scrap-Basket Surprises". I wanted something simple & scrappy using my odd length 2.5" strips and this will be perfect for that.

And, it will be a great take along project to do the cutting while I'm helping my mom out this week. Just 2 sizes of strips to cut so not much concentration needed... I'm also excited to try out the red Martelli cutter!

I've got my B&W charms pulled to get started on my Birds in the Air blocks for RSC13.

The grand cats are settled in like they own the place... here is J-Meow napping in our family room.

Jax likes to be in the same room as a person so he is keeping an eye on me in the living room. He is the most watchful cat I've ever seen... most cats don't like a lot of eye contact but he is the exception. Note that both go for the fleece!

I also wanted to include a link to Darlene's blog Quilting Daze. Darlene and I have emailed back and forth several times over the last year and she has been a big supporter of my push to work down my UFO Collection. A while back she asked about doing a post on her blog and followed up with some questions for me to answer. So if you are interested you can read her Friday post at the link above and also give Darlene's blog a peek at the same time. Thanks again Darlene for your cheerleading!

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy and Scrap Basket Sunday@Kim's Big Quilting Adventure.

Birds in the Air in Red

The clouds were ever changing while I was taking these pictures today and it made for an interesting experiment with light.  My design wall is still full of UFOs so the floor had to make do.

Complete cloud cover while I was laying my August Birds in the Air blocks (tutorial HERE) out:

 Sun peeking through:

 Complete sun:

I just can't wait to start putting all of these colors together at the end of the year! And, as always, I'm wondering what color we will be sewing with in September for RSC13.

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy.

Scrappy Sewing

My red Birds in the Air blocks for RSC13 are being assembled... here are 8 of them ready for the big white triangles to be added.

I pulled out another scrappy UFO for a leader/ender project this week and started filling up my design wall with blocks.  This pattern is called "Bright Hopes" from the book "Quilts from the Heart" by Karin Renaud.

Yesterday it became a flimsy and is now on a hanger in the ready for quilting section of my UFO Collection.

The blocks are similar to the Crossroads blocks I've been making with a smaller center - another good pattern to use up small 2.5" strips.

Putting the UFO leader/ender blocks on one end of the design wall is really motivating. Now I'm ready to find another UFO I can do this with... I need something pretty on that wall!

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy and Scrap Basket Sunday@Kim's Big Quilting Adventure.

Crossroads in Red

I've been looking forward to red and had all of my red strips and charms ready to go this month for RSC13 block making. Here are 8 Crossroads blocks (tutorial HERE) laid out on the floor.

It is SO energizing to sew with red!

 I tried to use a wide range of reds from red/white to maroon.

Later this month I look forward to playing around with 8 months of color on my design wall and will definitely share some pictures.

Guess who is visiting this weekend? Here are Tucker and Jax enjoying the morning view...

with J-Meow in the adjacent window. Birds and squirrels anyone? We are heading out to a family get together for the rest of the day - Happy Saturday to all!

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy.

Crossroads in Teal

My fling with teal for RSC13 has come to a close... and I have already started stocking up on shades of teal in my stash because I love, love, love teal!!

Yes, I know I've said that other months too about other equally lovely colors, but sewing with teal this month makes me want to surround myself with it and wear it every day! I'm obsessed.

I had enough scraps to make 8 Crossroads blocks (tutorial HERE). After 7 months of making these blocks I am still fascinated by how they look together.

I'm not doing any Birds in the Air blocks in teal until I sit down and count up my blocks and figure out how to use the rest of my background fabric that I posted about last Saturday. I definitely want some red blocks in the mix and will see what other colors are coming our way. I might break down and cut up some teal stash in the end!

Goodbye sweet teal... I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@so scrappy.