Bedroom Quilt is Done!

I am beyond excited that the quilt for the bedroom is done! My first completed project from my Quarter 1 goals, and it's an unfinished project from 2013!

 

Excuse the horrible indoor picture, it is freezing today and I was not about to venture outside for a picture! Hopefully once it warms up, if that ever happens, I can take this baby outside for some better pictures!

It matches our yellow and gray colors in the bedroom so perfectly and really helps tie the whole room together. Dennis clearly approves! It's straight line quilted at irregular intervals, about 1/2 inch to 1 inch apart.

The binding is scrappy pieces of fabric used in the quilt, and the back is a bedsheet (gasp!)

Now with this big project crossed off my list, I'd like to tackle basting and quilting my scrappy star quilt and finishing up the scrappy place mats!

You can see my goal list in this post here.

This Weeks Projects!

 I’ve made some good progress on our quilt for the bedroom! It’s about half quilted- I’m just waiting on more black thread that I’ll get this weekend to finish it up. The binding is all pieced together and ironed and ready to go!

I know I’m not the only one who is excited to get this one done. Jake has been bugging me about it for months, so I’m under a tight deadline!

The scrappy placemats were also started this week. Hopefully I can get those done in the next few days too!

Cross Stitching

 

  It looks like I've taken up another hobby by accident! This was my first little cross stitch project that I completed in about 6 hours- almost 6 hours straight! I absolutely love seeing the little x's become a part of a larger pattern.

Soooo...I started another little project too, and that's how I've been spending my time the past two evenings, although I did manage to get our bedroom quilt all basted as well!

Quarter One Goals

So, while I originally had planned my year of quilting around monthly goals, I recently saw that Katy at The Littlest Thistle is doing a FinishAlong that is based on quarterly goals. I’ve rearranged my goals a little and will be linking up with her! Here are my Q1 goals:

1-     Swoon Quilt- All the blocks are done, but now it needs to be pieced, quilted and get binding added. (Please excuse little William, he is a big fan of photobombing!)

2-     Scrappy Star Quilt- This tops needs to be pieced, quilting and binding added.

3-     Book Quilt- This is a work in progress from 2011 and just needs to be basted, quilted and get some binding!

4-     Scrappy Trip along- This top is all done and just needs to be basted, quilting and get some binding!

5-     Bedroom Quilt- This top is all done and needs to be basted, quilting and binding added.

6-     Placemats- I really want to make a set of scrappy placemats!

7-     Star Quilt- I finished the top of this during the summer of 2012, but the back needs to be pieced and then basted, quilted and add binding. 

8-     Scrappy Quilt- Everything is cut, but just needs to be pieced, basted, quilted and get binding added!

I guess I have a lot of quilt tops to finish this quarter! Wish me luck!

Scrap Quilt

It took me probably all of 4 days to get completely distracted in January. Since I’m still waiting on my background fabric for the scrap quilt I wanted to make in January and batting for our bedroom quilt, I needed to start something else in the meantime to keep sane! I found a lovely string layout on Pinterest and thought I’d get started on that instead. 

I used 12 inch scrapbook paper (golly knows I have enough of that laying around) to foundation piece scrappy strips cut between 1 inch and 3 inches wide. On one diagonal half of the triangle I used all the white and cream solid scraps that I had, and then on the other side of the triangle, I used tons of bright, happy scraps!

 I’m really happy with how it’s turning out so far and it’s been so fun to dig through my scraps and be reminded of all the lovely fabrics I’ve used in past projects! I have 20 blocks done and another 16 blocks in various stages. I’m hoping to finish up the blocks this weekend or early next week and then start laying it out.

I also started yet another project that wasn’t on my goals list for January that I’ll put up here in a couple days!

iPad Cover

Last weekend my parents, brother and I planned to make a last minute, almost 24 hour turn-around trip to Nebraska to visit the grandparents. Immediately, I thought on Thursday night (the night before we would be leaving) "Well then, I'd better make an iPad case." Never mind having no experience in bags, pouches, sleeves, or making my own patterns and having less than one full evening to make it. Brilliant idea, Celia. I looked up a couple tutorials, but none of them were exactly what I was looking for, so picking aspects from a couple of them, I dove right in!  

Surprisingly I'm pretty happy with the results.   

Are there tons of things I would have done differently? Of course! To name a few: accounted for the heavy quilting while cutting the fabric so it isn't such a tight fit, paid more attention to centering the flap, made the flap tighter (by moving the velcro down further on the body). But really, for my first "bag" I'm pretty pleased!   Oh, and in the end, we ended up not going to Nebraska because of the nasty winter weather, but my iPad still looks pretty sitting on my coffee table!

January Goals

This will be the year of stepping it up! Over the past year, I've come to realize how sad I am without crafting and quilting time and one of my large goals for 2014 is to carve out time to be creative and create. To help do this, I've started making some monthly goals!

January Goals:

1. Finish our quilt for the bedroom. This quilt was started last summer. The top is all done and just needs to be basted and quilted! 

2. I fell in love with a beautiful scrap quilt from Love Quilting and Patchwork magazine this past December. I compulsively started cutting into fabrics to make it right in the middle of my hectic Christmas sewing (more on this later). I want to piece, baste and quilt this bad boy!

I'll try to get some pictures of the current state of both of these projects up here over the next couple days. Wish me luck!

Happy Friday!