I finished January's basket!
In the nick of time for the challenge, I finished block one of Bunny Hill designs free block of the month for January. The buttons are tacked on for pictures and storage, but will be removed before I quilt and sewn back on later. Isn't he cute??
All of our little Round Robins have been received and posted and you can see them at Quiltgranny's blog. This was a great project and many of us are going to do it again. Now to think of a theme. My quilt is El Dia de los Muertos, the third one down.
Thanks again ladies!
And, just because I really need another UFO/WIP, I've decided to do the 12 Months of Baskets, a free BOM from Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs. It is just too cute, and how often can you get a FREE set of designs from such a great designer?
And all shopped out!
I left on the 14th to meet up with Kathy, Kat and Becky at Road to California and we had a wonderful time, but I forgot to take any pictures of us doing so.
We got home today from three days in Mendocino and our last stop was Sew n' Sew Fabrics in Fort Bragg, CA. If you are ever in Mendocino or
vicinity, I highly recommend a trip into this shop. It looks like an old feed store building, but trust me, you will not be disappointed. She has darn near something for everyone in there and I found a pattern and template set by Terry Atkinson that I'd not seen at the entire show and five quilt shops in the Los Angeles area. This in a town of about 8,000 people! (This picture, from Terry's website does not do the pattern pictures justice.)
I'm definitely ready to sew and hope to post something quilty in a day or so.
Then go visit ForestJane Designs and grab her great little sidebar button to promote Bonnie Hunter's site. She also has one with a white background for pages with colored backgrounds.
Thanks ForestJane!!
In keeping with May Britt's challenge for 2009, I am posting my first finishes of the month. They aren't huge projects, just a couple of panel quilts for baby girls born to my daughter's friends. I bought the panels and flannel backings at M & L fabrics when I visited in July, so they were technically UFO's, and at least they aren't sitting on my cutting table anymore!
Since I'm leaving for Road to California on Wednesday, followed by two days at my MIL's in Carmel, CA (straight from the airport), a brief pitstop at home and then up to Mendocino with my love to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary, I thought I better finish my monthly goal early. I'll be gone for 9 days!
Another of my goals is to get more comfortable with machine quilting. It is one of those things I can do, but I'm not very good at it and I dread it. I'm working on a table runner today and tomorrow, and will hopefully be able to post that tomorrow.
And nobody is luckier than me. Nobody.
As you may recall, we started this project in the fall of 2007, using an idea we got from MayBritt at Abyquilt in Norway. Because it was autumn and I love Halloween and its Latino cousin El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), I chose that as my theme with a starter block you can see here.
I received my finished quilt yesterday and color me happy--I can't imagine it having turned out any more perfect than this.
Thank you Round Robin Bloggers so very much--you absolutely hit it out of the ballpark for me!
PS: I already have an idea for Round Robin II and am ready when you ladies are!
As requested, here is the fabulous back of the RR quilt.
And yes, it is on top of the assembled top of my Verna Mosquera BOM.
I just need to add the borders and applique them and I'm nervous about the scallops and procrastinating.
OK, I took the pledge--New Year's Resolution #1: I'm stashbusting for 2009 with Judy.
I started yesterday by tackling one side of the fabric storage closet. I took all of the fabric pictured at right out of the large plastic container that you can barely see at the bottom of the picture. It now contains a quilt that is in the process of being machine quilted by me. I'm avoiding it because I'm a serious novice at machine quilting.
The other items are:
A. Several flimsies and their backings. The two you can see are a 1930's Christmas quilt from a kit I bought in Maine in 2007. The other is a "Just Can't Cut It" made from the most gorgeous Autumn fabric with rusts and blacks. I'm going to see if my Sistah Becky wants to have them on hand to quilt at her leisure. That way they are outta here.
B. Stack-O-Fabric. Since my husband reads this blog, I can tell you that it represents my entire stash (multiply as desired)....LOL.
C. Is a beautiful line called Scarlet Night that my Sistah Kathy and I both bought after we went to Linda Ballard's retreat in Trinidad in 2007. Linda made our mystery quilt out of this fabric and we had to have it. Perhaps she and I need to challenge each other this year to finish the tops?
While we're making resolutions, I've also joined May Britt and Kris's challenge to finish one project a month in 2009. Sounds do-able and will help clear those UFO's out!
Why don't you visit their blogs and check it out and join the fun--all you have to lose is your stash and UFOs.
Ten days until I fly to Ontario to meet my Sistahs for Road to California, so I need to fondle the fabrics big time to prevent my feeling the need to buy more. Especially since we will be visiting M & L fabrics again.
Yikes!
Leader/Ender......what the heck? My longtime internet pal Bonnie Hunter has been extolling the virtues of leader/ender for years and I had the hardest time understanding this concept, much less putting it into use. Since much of my piecing is one-project-at-a-time ( which is not to say that I don't have many, many UFOs, PIGs, WISPs, etc), I couldn't get why leader/ender sewing was of any use to me.
Enter Pepper Cory and the class I took from her at Quilt Festival in Long Beach last summer. The Swartz Creek Quilt (scroll down to near the bottom), with its endless numbers of half square triangles and four patches seemed like the perfect way to try this technique. So, sitting beside my machine are stacks of 3" squares for the HSTs and 2 1/2 " squares for the 4 patches. As I was putting together the flimsy from the previous post, I used the heck out of my stacks and was amazed at how much easier it is to not have to clip endless pieces of thread!!!!!
Yesterday, to celebrate the New Year, I watched my favorite chick flick of all time, Bridget Jones's Diary and cut a ton of squares from the $1.00 fat quarters I got at PIQF to add to the project. What a great way to start the year!
The image is a shameless plug for Bonnie's article in the new issue of Quiltmaker--check it out!!
