Design Wall Monday

Okay, one living at home and working full-time, two off at college, and the youngest with a new driver's license and off to high school. Whew, now to gather myself together after a terrific summer and see where I am on the sewing front. I put in some hours working on an old UFO, and think it was a wasted effort. It doesn't lay flat, when I added the first border it waved, so I ripped it off, remeasured, sewed it back on, and now the blocks will not lay flat. I am tired of it, and tired of the fabrics, so I will toss it into a corner and call it a loss. For more successful design walls, visit Judy at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

Slowly working on this quilt from a lovely grouping of fat quarters from Melinda. Not much sewing going on, my nieces and nephew are here for a week, but s'mores, baseball, picnics, and other activities are in full swing! Check out Judy's design wall to see how other quilters are spending their time.

Design wall Monday

I won a give-away of a fabulous stack of fat quarters Of Normandy Court from Melinda at Melinda Quilts. They arrived at my house on Saturday, and today I was able to start playing with them! The fabrics are really beautiful, and I couldn't wait to start using them, so now they are all over my cutting table in various stages of pieces and parts. When I get tired of sewing tonight, I am going to look around on-line and see if this fabric line is still available in these colors, because at some point today it popped into my head that these fabrics (with the addition of some oranges and greens) would look great used in the Halloween 1904 pattern by Blackbird Designs. Thanks so much to Melinda for this generous giveaway - its feels great to be back in my sewing room, and I am excited to be working on a simple, but graphic pattern with this fabric. By next week I'll have made enough progress to have something to show. Check out other design wall at Judy's.

DD #1

Yesterday, DD #1 graduated fron college!

UFO Progress

I am working on another of my UFOs. This one is number 18, and is the result of a Quilters Newletter mystery that my quilting SIL and I started back in 2011. I set mine on point with sashing and cornerstones, and added quarter blocks in between the outside edges of the blocks. I still need to add the corner triangles. The plan is to add a border of the cornerstone fabric, then another border with the solid green. I should be able to finish it before next week. Should, of course, being the key word! Check out other quilters progress on their UFOs at Judy's Patchwork Times.

UFO Wednesday

I actually finished up one of the items on my UFO list! This is #14. Of course, it only needed borders, so it was quick to finish. I had originally thought about mitered corners, but I did not have enough fabric for that, so then I thought about sewing large nine-patches for the corners, but didn't like the way it looked. So I kept it simple with the dark pink plaid in the corners, and I will use this same fabric to do the binding. I copied the idea for this quilt from Julie K.'s blog, her version is really striking. She used a pattern from Evelyn Sloppy's book, Strips and Strings. One down, nineteen more on the list. Check over at Judy L.'s blog to see more UFO progress.

Eagle Scout!

As of last Saturday, my son is an Eagle Scout!

UFOs

Judy Laquidara is asking us to list our UFOs. I keep a spreadsheet on mine, so I am going to share it here, and try to add pictures on Wednesdays-the day to share progress on any of the projects on the list.


Quilt Name/block size/year started/notes/designer or inspiration

1. Millenium TripAroundtheWorld 2000 needs frogging, have backing

2. Kashmere 14" need sashing and border? magazine

3. Churn Dash Christmas 15" 1999 needs sashing Robyn Pandolph

4. Teal Flying Geese 14" May-07

5. Fig Tree/Cinnamon Stars May-07 Bluestone Walkway by Deborah Hearn

6. Double Xreproductions 10" Mar-08 Quilt Sampler/QuiltMania

7. Chocolat Stars 8" Apr-08 sew together, no border, simple binding Primitive Gatherings

8. Kitchen Sink 30's 9" Apr-08 online

9. Star Dance 30's 9" Apr-08 repurposing into pinwheels

10. Little Pretties 30's Apr-08 needs borders Aus P&Q

11. Double Irish Chain acq 09 Mom's, needs frogging

12. String-Pieced Diamonds acq 09 Mom's

13. Purple Bricks Feb-10 frog, redesign

14. Plaid strings 8" Sep-10 needs border like Julie k/EvelynSloppy

15. Between Friends 6" Oct-10 9-patch swap, needs borders Darlene

16. Crosspatch 9" Oct-10 9-patch swap

17. Scrappy trip 2" Jun-11 Steps to the Altar AP and Q magazine 2002

18. QN mystery 12" Aug-11 blocks done, need setting triangles

19. Pocket full of mystery Dec-11 Dorothy Young

20. Easy Street Nov-12 Bonnie Hunter mystery

I'd like to say that this is all, but I am not including projects that are ongoing as scraps are generated. There are also a couple more of my Mom's, I am trying to work on just one or two of those a year. I deleted several items off the list as I was reviewing it, and I will be getting rid of those altogether. There are lots more bits and pieces, but I am not sure they will ever develop into anything!

Judy is an amazing enabler designer, and very generous with sharing her designs. There are at least 4 quilts on her blog that I want to make, and another two from her 60 Pieced Quilt Borders book, so I am sure that this list will just get longer! The good news is that the three quilts that I have made from Judy's designs are all flimsies, so according to me, they are not ufos!

Design Wall Monday

I wandered into my sewing room late last week, and rummaged through a box marked fabric collections. I pulled out a Moda charm pack of Portugal by April Cornell. I also had two pieces of yardage from this line. I added in a Moda cream and had fun with squares and nine-patches. This is what I have to show for it. These fabrics were lovely to work with, they just felt so nice! I am going to add blue borders around this one. You can see that I have the border laid out on one side. Check out all the design walls at Judy Laquidara's.

Blue love

Kathleen Tracy at A Sentimental Quilter is hosting a giveaway of blue fabrics by Jo Morton. The fabrics are now high on my wish list! Kathleen wants to know if we have a favorite blue item, and I thought I would show you mine. This vase came from a secondhand shop, it has rough spot on the bottom like it is blown piece of glass. The ribbing you see is on the inside of the vase until you get to the neck , then the ribs are on the outside. I don't know much about glass, but I think it was made by blowing molten glass into a form.

A finish!!!

Yesterday was a monumentous day here at Flimsy Excuses because I actually completed a quilt, quilted, bound, and washed! I have blogged about this flimsy here and here. I decided to sacrifice this flimsy to my beginning machine quilting, and I am actually not too dismayed by the outcome! My family loves it, bless their hearts, but that may be because I am still cooking for them!

Design Wall Monday

I decided to make a small table topper for St. Valentine's Day. So I pulled out some pinks, some bonus white triangles, and got to work! After a couple of false starts on the center of the blocks and a consult with DD#3, this is the flimsy, it will finish at 15" square. My goal is to do some easy machine quilting on it this week, and then find something to do with the leftover parts. The block is Japanese Xs and Os.

Pour another cup of coffee and visit over at Judy's for design wall Monday, it will be time well spent!

Design Wall Monday

I decided to join Darlene at Quilts by Darlene for a mystery quilt. I really like the start of it, and my DH likes the honeycomb too. It needs two borders added, I'll do that before the next clue comes out on February 1st. Updated: My mistake - the next installment on this mystery will be February 8th.

Go on over to Judy's site to find many inspiring ideas on the design wall. I am planning to participate in Judy's mystery quilt also, but I don't have the fabric picked out for that one yet.