BOM of the Week Update

So far so good on the blocks of the week update.  This is the second time I have participated in one of Pat Sloan's weekly block quilts.  This one is called A Flower Bouquet with a new block coming out every Wednesday.  Two blocks have been released so far and I'm happy to say I'm 2/2.

I could not wait to break into this fat quarter bundle I picked up back in the fall at Miller's Dry Goods in OH.  I knew that it belonged in this quilt.  The instructions called for 19 fat quarters and my bundle only contained 14...no problem I just pulled from my stash.

Here is a close up of last week's block, Seed Catalogs, to show those yummy prints.

And this week's, Bulbs.

Is it too soon to start day dreaming about what the final layout will be after only two blocks?

I do hope not, because if so, I am in deep trouble!

Back to QAL Work We Go

Time for a bit of a project update and what I've been up to.  I have a ton going on at work, leading a system conversion from a very archaic computer system to a much better Window based platform, so when I get home in the evenings and weekends, I'm ready to unwind and not think about work.

Above is a look at my cut pieces for the Magnolia Mystery Quilt going on now over at Meadow Mist Designs.  If you have not participated in one of Cheryl's mystery quilt alongs before, I HIGHLY encourage you to hop over there and check it out.

It's been a week or two since I have caught up on the QAL's I'm participating in, so this past week was spent mainly catching up on those.

Oh, deer, just look at that moose under the mistletoe!  The moose and deer blocks caught me up on Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilt's Have A Jolly Little Christmas Quilt.  I just realized as I'm typing this, the last block will be given to us this weekend.  Could we have a quilt finish before Christmas 2017???  I think we just might.

Next up, was the The Double Star Block in Cindy at Stitchin At Home's Medallion Quilt BOM.  I am really loving me some purple and green with this quilt.

Goodnight Moon is the next block in Pat Sloan's The Children's Library BOM.  Only two more to go and this extremely fun QAL will be coming to an end as well.  I had hoped to finish up the Aurifil BOM and show you as well, but we are not currently on speaking terms at the moment.  It is packed full of applique and at the moment, my head just isn't in that game.

Taking a break from the piecing scene, David and I borrowed my mom's garage for a basting quilt session.

We were able to baste four smaller quilts, all currently waiting for me to pick them up and quilt them.

Here is a picture of David and his Poodle Quilt.  While scrolling through Instagram, he ran across Sue at Seven Oak Street Quilt's Poodle block she made for hive queen Karen at Tu-Na Quilts.  Loving all things of the 50's; 57 Chevys, girls in poodle skirts, you get my drift.  He decided to super size the block, change the piecing up a bit and create his own throw back to the 50's with some recent fabric purchases.  I'm thinking that negative space is screaming for some fun flow quilting.  What do you think?

Even after all that was finished last weekend, I snuck in some cutting time, to cut out a quilt for my daughter's 17th birthday.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog, but just incase she does, I won't let the cat out of the bag quite yet on what it is, but it is another one of Lorna's wonderful creations.  Do I have a Sew Fresh Quilts pattern obsession?  Hmmm?

I think I have confessed before, I'm a cluttered mess.  I'm an OCD person's nightmare...ask David.  However, there comes a point about every 3-6 months I can't take it anymore; the stash starts stacking up (from growth or laziness), the sewing space becomes cluttered...I have to clean it up.

So in keeping it real here on the blog (because I keep telling myself I'm not the only one who is like this), I pulled out my fabric totes to "file" the fabrics in there correct bins.

It became clear pretty quick like, that the fabric wasn't going to fit in their respective bins.  AHHHHH.

But Caroline tried to convince me everything was okay, because she fit in this newly almost empty bin...sigh.

So after several go rounds in my head I opted to purchase three more fabric bins and do the fabric shuffle.  My whites, blues and reds are in the biggest of the totes (how patriotic of me) and everything else fell in line.  So the stash is back under control and arranged in the back room.  The cats, bless their hearts, love fabric shuffle time, because the living room is transformed into a kitten playground.

I am feeling more grounded now and believe I can create once again.  I've come to the realization that with two serious quilters in the house, something must be done.  Quilting has taken over the house.  If that sounds like a daydream, trust me it's not.  There is talk about converting our porch into a sunroom/quilting room.  I do love my porch, however, we don't use it.  Why?  Because I'm inside quilting!  This would allow us to have a dedicated room for quilting and let the dinning room be a dinning room (since I'm now cooking again, thank you Instant Pot), the spare bedroom be a bedroom and the breakfast nook be...well something other than home to my Sweet Sixteen.  But, we shall see.  A girl can always dream

Crazy Quilt Along Lady

Mark you calendars!  Even with all the craziness of the quilt show and Strawberry Festival, I managed to stay completely caught up on all the QAL's and BOM's.  Above are all the Aurifil Designer Blocks of the Month to date.  This month's block was called Faux Weave and was by super talented and fun guy Matthew Boudreaux, better known to most of us as Mister Domestic (read Pat Sloan's interview with Matthew here).

The color of the month was red--hot, hot, hot!  This block was much fun to put together and contained some very thin strip sets.  My "weave" had some wobbles and bobbles, but if I tried weaving in real life, I feel pretty sure I'd have the same result, so score!

After all the hotness of Faux Weave, I decided to chill a bit and work on Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilt's Have A Jolly Little Christmas Quilt.  The block was called All Wrapped Up.

All wrapped up in adorable cuteness!  The next block, Holly & Berries, is due to be released this weekend.  Hopefully, the long weekend will allow me time to stitch it up.

Then I moved on to the Medallion Quilt BOM by Cindy at Stitchin At Home.  Broken Dishes is the third of the twelve 12" blocks.  

Squares in squares always make me nervous, but with Cindy's instructions, I breezed right on through and ended up with blocks the size they where suppose to be.

And last but not least, the beast in my living room, Pat Sloan's 182 Solstice Challenge Quilt.  As of the second I'm typing this, I am caught up completely on this monster huge quilt (for a quilt along quilt anyway).  This is not the best picture, but I had to get another picture of the quilt "all together."

After making the big block in the lower right hand corner, Weather Vane, I pieced the entire bottom row together.  I also pieced the last checker board section and attached it to the Day into Night block.  The only thing left to do is wait for the last three 12" blocks to be released over the next three weeks, then this top will be finished.  How in the world did I manage to stay on top of this one?

Well this concludes today's installment of the Crazy Quilt Along Lady.  Join us next week to find out will she stay ahead of the Solstice Monster or will it wrangle her completely to the ground?  Will the Jolly Christmas Quilt snowball and roll right over top of her leaving her flat and cold?  Will she piece together all of her Freefall Blocks or pile them together and run through them?

Or will she just start 20 more projects and laugh madly?? 

Today I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss.

QAL's-Haulk Mode

I'm still plugging away over here, working on QAL's and getting that pattern ready to release.  After my crazy productive week the week before, last week I kind of hit a brick wall.  I didn't really do anything-at-all.  It happens.

David has been gone since last Friday for work again, and I knew I needed to buckle down and be productive over my quiet weekend (well as quiet as it gets with a teenage daughter in the house).  On Friday it was like my batteries recharged.  I hit the coin box and found that flashy star on Super Mario Brothers that warped me into moving at super quick speeds.  I turned on quilting Haulk Mode (no I didn't turn green).

Saturday, I popped into a local quilt store, Helen's Hen House, to pick up a few FQ's to add to my Solstice challenge quilt.  That's where I picked up those yummy pieces above...I think I'm going to need more.  What was suppose to be a quick trip ended up being a 1 1/2 hour event.  The place was hopping and I ran into quilting friends and made a new quilting friend.  But the quilt store magic had to end...I had things to do!  So back home I went.

I was able to quickly finish the straight line quilting on my pattern quilt, which leaves me with one more to quilt.

I was able to get that quilt basted and cut binding strips for four quilts.

Next up, was the Freefall 1/2 blocks.  Sandra at mmm!quilts had emailed me the instructions for the next set of blocks so that I could test them before she released them on Monday.  Making that a major priority, I knocked those out pretty quickly.

Here are all the blocks playing on my design wall.

I needed a carrot chocolate bar on a stick, dangling in front of me as a reward.  I decided to do a fabric pull for the three blocks I need to make to finish section A of Pat Sloan's 182 Solstice Challenge.  I will only allow myself to work on this project once everything is completed.

Now on to the blocks I completed.  I had three blocks to catch up on;  Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts had released the Santa block for the Jolly Christmas Quilt and he had yet to visit my design wall, April's Aurifil block needed to be completed, and Pat Sloan released The Children's Library May block two days early.  I cut the pieces for all three blocks and slowly (and carefully) worked on them all together.

Santa finished up first.  Isn't he just the jolliest? 

I even pieced one of the five rows together.

The Children's Library Block for May was Green Eggs and Ham.  I dug into my stash of green and went to work.  This block goes together log cabin style and for some reason, I always end up with a wonky block.  My 1.5" piece blocks got a little bit off, but I didn't sweat it and improvised.  As long as I ended up with a 12.5" block that looked dag gone close, I was happy.  I think Dr. Seuss would agree, whimsical is better than perfect?

And here they are all together.

Last but definitely not least, was the Aurifil BOM by Sue Marsh New Direction.  I put this block off for half of a month because the templates and triangles scared the crap out of me.  Something I've never really worked with.  I cut very carefully and took my time sewing.

I have to say the block turned out much better than I expected.  Once put together, I did lose a few points on the arrow, but hey some times in life, the arrows that point us aren't quite as sharp as they should be.  This is just one of those times. (It's not done losing points either...shhhh)

And here are the start of my rainbow blocks, ranging from blue to red purple.

So this is what my list looked like at the end of Sunday.

Not bad if I do say so myself.  I also finished making a pressing board to use for bigger pieces of fabric, but I think I'll save that for another post.  This one is about eye candy.  

So for now, my Haulk muscles have retracted and I've returned to little ol' Tish N Wonderland.  I still need to keep the forward momentum going, but for now I think I deserve a nap.

Today I'm linking up with Freefall Linky, Wednesday Wait Loss, Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social, Main Crush Monday and Linky Tuesday.

QAL's--Where Do I Stand

This past weekend was mostly a stay at home sew weekend for both me and Dave the Quilt Engineer.  I promise he is still alive and well and most importantly sewing.  He's just been (to quote Dave) "busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest."  Work has kept him quite busy and sometimes not even home.  So, hopefully, he will be back to writing about his adventures soon, until then you are all just stuck with me.

I think we have established I have a QAL problem.  I'm okay with that and I'm not looking to recover any time soon.  So how about an update on my progress and a reminder of two up coming QAL's this month.  I apologize in advance for repeating some of the information.  Just in case someone is new to my attempt to overdose with QAL's and might want to join in as well.

1) Pat Sloan's The Children's Library

     The patterns for this BOM are based on the titles of our beloved children's stories and are released on the first of the month.  I've decided I will create my color palette for each block based on each book's cover.  This month's block was The Pokey Little Puppy, one of my favorites as a child.  Maybe that's why I have three puppies who would definitely steal my deserts from me in a heart beat.

2) Pat Sloan's Aurifil Designer BOM

     So far I'm up to date on this one.  The new block will be released around the 15th of the month and will be a 12 block sampler quilt when it is finished.

3)  Sew Fresh Quilt's Jolly Christmas Quilt

     Lorna's festive Christmas QAL  is going on for the next couple months.  Every two weeks on a Saturday she releases a new holiday block for us to make.  So far there have been stockings, mittens and bows.  Last week she released the Poinsettia Block, it may be my favorite so far.

4)  Living Water Quilter's Star Cross QAL

     This QAL is actually a bit different because it is a real quilt along.  We are actually quilting together, not piecing.  Each Monday, Geraldine posts both written instructions and a video to show us how to quilt our Star Cross mini quilt.  This is my quilt with the first two weeks completed.  Hopefully, I will complete this week's instructions tonight.

5) Jen and Jan's Quilter's Laundry Day Mini Quilt

     Jen from A Dream and A Stitch and Jan from Color, Creating and Quilting are hosting this QAL/blog hop for this super cute block designed by Jen.  The block reveal hop will be March 10th and 11th.  I am almost completely finished with my version of this mini.  I'd love to show you the whole thing, but how about a teaser shot from the back instead?  You can see the block and find the instructions to make one of your very own here.

6) Stitchin At Home's Medallion Quilt  

     Cindy's releases the instructions for this QAL on the third Saturday of every month.  So far we have been working on the center block.  I need to add one more border strip to the bottom of mine, but other wise I'm all caught up.

7)  Pat Sloan's 182 Solstice Challenge

     I tried as hard as I could to resist these blocks.  I am human.  I am weak.  I finally Instagramed and blog read too much and caved.  Last week I showed you the first three blocks.  Today, I will show you the rest to date...Warning: Picture Overload Ahead.

Cobble Stone Block

The Crosswalk Block

Tidy Rows Block

Never Ending Love Block

Amoung The Stars Block

The Coffee Shop Block

Quilt Math Block

I actually have one more block to make.  I can alter the Grandma Anna's Basket block (I'm not in love with it's applique) or substitute in my single Aurifil block from last year.  Decisions...decisions.

8)  mmm!quilts Windfall

     Mark your calendars for this one.  It is hosted by my QBFF, Sandra, and starts on the Spring Equinox, March 20th.  It is for a smaller version of her Windfall Quilt.

I am all ready to go!  I'm not quite ready to step back into a fall color palette so I'm going with more of a spring look.  I'll be pulling from my stash as well.

9)  Sewcial Bee Sampler

This little gem is going on right now (they are 5 blocks in) and is being hosted by Maureen Cracknell and Sharon Holland.  I just found out about it last night (thanks Sandra).  If you go to the link above and check it out...you'll know I'm gonna do it.  I can't say no, it's a sampler block quilt and I have a FQ Bundle of  Paradiso and I can hear it calling to me.  Like right now, I can hear it...I'm not crazy!  I'm going to wait till the weekend and see if I'm still feeling the same, but you know I'll do it, right?

10) Cora's Quilt's Gathering Mystery QAL

     This one will start toward the end of March.  I love Shelly's designs and I really want to participate, but with so much going on already, we shall see if I start this one.  I made her Gypsy Queen Mystery Quilt two years ago and started last years.  She is a wonderful mystery quilt writer, I hope you will consider checking it out.  I might have to live this quilty dream through one of you.  

So have I completely went off the deep end?  Maybe a little.  But, not all the blocks come out at the same time and their finishes will be spaced out as well.  If I fall behind, that's okay, catching up shouldn't be that tricky.  As long as I'm having fun, that's all that matters.  Plus, I'm slowly seeing a dent in my stash and that feels good.  So are you joining me in any of the QAL madness?

Today I'm liking up with Fished or Not Friday.