Spring to Finish

Jacquie is so wonderful to always keep us finishing our projects. I have been slacking lately -- largely because I have been working in my husband's business a lot more. Still, I have a lot of things to finish.

So here's my list of things I'd like to finish by May 31st. Stop me if I get too ambitious. That seems to be my hallmark.

1. Three bridesmaid dresses
2. Black Raspberry Mod Sampler
3. 49ers Quilt
4. Mod Zoo baby quilt
5. Guitar Supastar quilt
6. Secret baby girl quilt
7. Binding on giraffe quilt
8. Finish paintbox blocks
9. Nadia's block
10. Wendy's block
11. Amanda's block

Yep, I'm that behind on Common Threads. Of course, as you can see from my sidebar, there are many other projects to finish, but I'm going to have to stop there. I hope to get all these done since some of these babies are already born. Okay. So by May 10th, I have to have at least 5 of these babies done. That's the halfway point, even though I'm starting a little late. Feel free to join in and finish up some of your projects too.

If I finish my list, I will be rewarding myself with the Rural Jardins wovens FQ pack. I am IN LOVE with those. Wish me luck!

Friday Night Sew-In Results for April

My husband, the scoutmaster, and my son, the Life Scout, usually have a campout on the third Friday of each month. Not so this month, so I didn't have as much time as I wanted to sew this Friday. Here's what I did do.

Blocks for Rachel Griffiths' Pinwheel Sampler quilt-along. I'm all caught up now. Blocks are made with Aster Manor by Three Sisters for Moda and some Quilter's Only (idk what color).

Two weeks' worth of blocks for Anina's Pinwheel Party. Now I am caught up there as well. If I actually stopped joining quilt-alongs, I'm sure I could finish other stuff up on these Friday nights. Ah, well, quilting is quilting. I enjoy it all.

This is one of the 25 string blocks I have to make for ORB round 4, hosted by a different Heidi -- The Wild Circle Surprise. You may recall the wonky nine-patch blocks I made before for this quilt. I swear I'm never going to finish. One-and-a-half down, 23 1/2 to go. (Sigh.) And there's still curved piecing and appliques circles after this. I seriously hope I love this quilt if it ever gets done. Heidi did an amazing job designing this quilt. So involved.

(Edited to add: I have looked for a post with the wonky 9-patches and have been unable to find them. If you don't recall them, it's possible that the reason is that I never posted them here. Go figure!)

April's Friday Night Sew-in

I am joining the Friday Night Sew-in again this month. I think the last time I sewed anything was that Friday in March. This month's is April 16th -- next weekend. Go check out all the details on Heidi's blog! There's a giveaway for participating. Plus, you get to check stuff off your list.

This is a pictureless post, because I have internet/computer issues right now. So sorry for not putting the button on here again.

Dallas Quilt Show, Part 1

I'm a little slow at posting, but the Dallas Quilt Show was a couple of weeks ago. I went with my little boys. Not too much in the way of modern quilts, but I am a pretty traditional girl too, and this Best of Show . . . man, oh, man! I didn't take down the names of any of the quilters, although some of the papers are in my photos. Next time I'll try to do better at giving credit where credit is due. Some amazing stuff!

Okay. So I'm not a huge fan of purple, but I am a HUGE fan of applique, and never in my life will I be able to pull off something like this! Seriously amazing!

This -- the machine appliqued flowers, stems -- yeah, that I could maybe do. I thought it would be a cute baby quilt. Sometimes the vendors have the best quilts.

I love the scrappiness of this quilt -- the tiny on-point nine-patches, the applique vine around the edge. I can see my scrap bin (and an insane amount of time) producing something like this. I love all things nautical, and again with the applique. This was amazing. I will never make anything like this. I can pretty much guarantee that (maybe 40 years from now if my arthritis will allow it), but I am in complete awe of those who can.

Stained glass technique around the scales? I think so. Love the batiks!

Love the starfish.

I also love Mariner's Compass blocks, and someday I WILL make one of these. Someday.

Modern-looking version of New York Beauty maybe? Love the colors, love the pattern. But of course, I would need to make a bigger one, because bigger is better. = )

See?! And here is a New York Beauty herself. Am I right? Isn't that what this is called. Now I'll have to google it. Googled it. I'm right. And, man, there are some gorgeous ones out there. Gonna have to make one of these too.

This is not remotely all of the ones I took pics of, but I'll stop here. Leave you salivating for more and wishing you had gone with me.

Friday Night Sew-In Results for March

Heidi and Bobbi again hosted a Friday Night Sew-In. It is every third Friday of the month, and it happens to coincide perfectly with Scout campouts around here, so I'm available to participate. I have a tendency to start and not finish, so I have numerous UFOs (see the sidebar for details on that). I worked on a number of items, just chain sewing. Here's part of what got done last night.

Yep, that's half a quilt top. My quilt group wanted to make a zigzag quilt for this round, so I am making a prototype. I need to take it to church tomorrow for advertising, so I kept working on it today and finished it up.

I don't have enough boyish quilts in my personal stack of TV-or-movie-watching snugglers, so I decided on this color scheme. It's mostly Heather Ross' Mendocino line. I left the mermaids out of this one.

This is just leftovers from my stacked coins quilt out of Spring Magic. I had all the blocks made, sewn into strips, and then they just sat there. So I sewed the strips together last night. It still needs some borders -- not big enough for a baby quilt.

One of my Common Threads blocks. I worked on another one for Nadia, but it's not done, and I'm dissatisfied with how it's going. I may have to make it into two blocks. I also worked on some of my quilt-along blocks -- just a whole bunch of chain sewing. Not done. Thanks to Heidi and Bobbi for the motivation to get this stuff done!

DQS8

I love the Doll Quilt Swap, because it gives you the opportunity to try techniques that you might want to use on a larger-scale quilt. This gorgeous quilt from Scootin' Annie (on flickr) has wonderful machine quilting detail. The picture does not really do justice to how dynamic it is in person. Thank you, Katherine!

This is the quilt I sent to my partner. She said she liked 30s prints and traditional quilts, so I used the shoo-fly block in a variety of 30s prints. I also threw in a couple of blocks out of Sweet by Urban Chiks for variety. I know that's more 50s, but they seemed to go pretty well with what I already had going.

My oldest son said he thought I had made a quilt like that already, that it looked familiar. I suppose it's a little like my summertime swap mini-quilt. I'll have to branch out.

Quilt-alongs

Okay. So we already know that I take on too much and don't finish. But in my defense, there are some amazing, beautiful, and totally fun projects out there. Jill suggested that I make a post listing all of my quilt-alongs. I think this will be more for me than anyone else -- just so I can keep track. So here's the list. With links. Don't judge.

• Old Red Barn #4 -- Wild Circle Surprise
• Old Red Barn #5 -- Pinwheel quilt
• Oh, Fransson's Paintbox Quiltalong
• Anina's Pinwheel Party
• Rachel Griffith's Pinwheel Sampler
• Cathy's Charmed Whirligig

There are other quilts I'm working on, of course, but these are the quilt-alongs that I can think of off the top of my head. If there are others, I can't think of them now, and I'll have to post them later. I'm not at home, and I can't go check in the craft room. I'm sensing a pinwheel theme here. Anyone else? Feel free to quilt-along, although some are more done than others. (That's not to say that I personally am done, just that the quilt-alongs are done). Oh, and to be completely honest, I still haven't finished my second nine-patch for AmandaJean's one-a-day quilt-along. So I'm linking that too. I did abstain from this quilt-along, because let's be serious now. I would NEVER finish that one. I just know that. I'm in denial about the rest, though.

Edited to add: I forgot about one other quilt-along that I'm considering -- just to use up scraps, mind you. It's the postage stamp quilt-along that Heidi is sponsoring. I have a ton of strips to use up. I may never get to that string quilt!