Progress on the one a day

I am still working away at my own one block a month challenge.  For the most part I have been making more than the one of each.  As I started this in the middle of the month, I feel like I am behind, though I really am not.

They are coming together.  These two pictures are only what I accomplished in the one day.  

I am doing good.  The blocks are looking good and I am happy.  I have a bunch of work to do over the next couple of weeks, so it will be interesting to see if I can keep up with this self imposed challenge.

June's 3-way block of the month

I have the three June's 3-way block of the month blocks done.  This is where we will learn three different ways to quilt the blocks.

First method is freehand.  Here are my fabric choices for my freehand quilt.

The second method will be modern.  Here are my fabric choices for my modern quilt.

The third method is going to be traditional.  Here are my fabric choices for my traditional quilt.

We're in June which means that we are at the halfway point in the year.  Wow, where did the time go!  Somebody, please slow it down!!!  I feel like we are in fast forward mode.

I am looking forward to this afternoon.  We have the longarm quilt meeting in Oshawa and we are having a buffet lunch as a special treat, because it is our last meeting until school is back in session, after the summer break.  This meeting is going to be about quilting with rulers, after our member speaker.  

I saw on Facebook a sneak peek of Tracey's new rulers.  I am liking the colour.  The rulers will be less likely to get lost on the quilt.  I am not sure if they are available yet, but when they are you can get them through Whirls n Swirls Quilting in Oshawa.

Progress on the mini log cabins

Yesturday I did my one that I needed for both this log cabin and the wild and goosey.  I am able to just about make one block in 15 minutes.  One log short of finishing one, in the 15 minutes.  So yesturday when I worked over time during my breaks and with a half hour break between, I was able to make five blocks altogether.  I am really getting into these cute little blocks.  The log cabin has got to be my favourite of all of the blocks out there. There is just something about them that I can't resist.

Today I didn't do my one block yet, but I did put the small blocks together into a large 12" finished block.  I love how it is turning out.  This is going to be my setting.  When these are put together side by side, they make an alternating dark square with a light square beside it, all across the quilt.

I am also calling this quilt my insanity quilt, because these little squares have 12 logs surrounding a red hearth.  Each log is just over 1/2" finished.  That means that in this one 12" finished block, there are 208 pieces.  Wow!!!  You see.....insanity.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've made a list for both of the blocks.  By doing this I am making it a challenge or my way of playing a game to keep me motivated.  I've always been a list person and crossing things off motivates me.  Helps me see my accomplishments.  

Below are the two lists for making one block each per day.  I've just started this toward the beginning of the week, so we are light on black cross offs,  but over time this will get done.  The pink squares are the days that I don't need to make any.

From time to time I may share with you my charts.  I hope you will enjoy seeing my progress and watching these charts turn black.

Some people do a block a month to make progress on there applique blocks, but for me with these tiny blocks I need to be a little more aggressive with one per day, or more if I can.  If anyone out there is struggling with getting a UFO completed, maybe you may want to break it up into smaller bits and pieces.  Like I am doing.  Remember slow and steady wins the race.

Enjoy your Saturday!!!

My forgotten mini log cabins

I'm sure you recall my last post was about my June's UFO challenge quilt.  Well I took it out......

Until yesturday though I haven't had a chance to work on it.  I would look at it or should I say look at the huge stack of papers (paper piece pattern).  I have five of them done and only 315 more to do......

Wow, that's not much now is it (said with tongue in cheek).  Daunting is the word I think of.  I need a total of 320 small 3" finished blocks.  Just saying it makes me think, WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!

AND if that wasn't bad enough, I don't think I learned from the first go around, cause I have this one here, the mini log cabin quilt too!  These ones are also paper piece and they are also 3" finished blocks.  Off the top of my head I don't remember which was first, but REALLY!!!

So.....yesturday I came up with a brilliant idea.  It may not work, I may not last, or keep up with it, but it is something that I am going to do in hopes of making progress on both of these quilts.

I've decided to make myself a chart.  I've listed all the dates of the year on this chart.  What I am going to do is try and complete at least one block each per day.  That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?  At one block per day, for 365 days of the year, I would certainly make a dent in both of these.  Wild and Goosey would be done and the log cabins block over 2/3 of the way done.

I started off well, yesturday I made the goal, and yesturday I accomplished it.  One each.  Today I did well.  I did one of the wild and goosey blocks and I did three mini log cabin blocks.  I figure I have more of them to make.  These blocks I need 480.  So when the mood strikes I will take advantage and try and get ahead.  I can try, can't I?  I have 10 log cabin blocks done so far.  The three I did today are not shown here in the picture.

It sounds manageable.....I think.  My daughter looked at me skeptically when I told her of my plans.  

Wish me luck that I don't get sidetracked and start missing days.

June's American Patchwork & Quilting UFO challenge quilt

While I continue to quilt my Bear Paw quilt, now going on 3 days, an accumulated 24 full hours, of custom freehand and ruler work, I think about finishing a couple more customer quilts and getting started on this month's quilt.

My quilt for June's American Patchwork & Quilting UFO challenge is a wild and goosey 3" block assembled in paper piece.  This is a scrap user from Bonnie Hunter in her column in Quiltmaker magazine.  It certainly uses up small scraps.

Bonnie did hers completely scrappy, but I have decided to do mine a controlled scrappy.  I chose blue for all the geese, white for the background, yellow for the tail end of the geese row and green for the larger triangle corners.  Below is a single block and four sashed to complete a larger block.

Once I have all the blocks together, I plan to use a green cornerstone where the green triangles come together and likewise a yellow cornerstone where the yellow triangles come together.  The whole effect may be lost, I'm not sure, as so far I only see it in my mind, but when assembled the whole top will have small blue shoo flies, small yellow shoo flies and larger green shoo flies, with the geese flying between them all.

So far I have gathered my blue, green, yellow and white on white scraps.  I have all my papers together and I am ready to start sewing.  I should be able to do this one without using any yardage.

I will continue to work on this all month, but considering how small these blocks are and how many there are to do, I am not anticipating a quilt top finish this month.  Wish me luck though.

Recently quilted a customer's bright and cheerful hourglass quilt

A few weeks ago I quilted a customer's bright and cheerful hourglass quilt.  I held off showing it until I had a chance to delivery it.  Unfortunately,  the colours in the picture do not do this quilt justice.  The colours in real life are more vibrant, though stop short of being blinding.  

She made this quilt for her grandson.  I think he is going to really like it.  The quilt was made primarily with bright solids with some playful fabrics thrown in.  All the playful fabrics match the colour way that she chose to use for her solids and they are all kid oriented themes.  There were some puzzle pieces, race cars, and waves in different colour ways.  It's almost like an I spy quilt.   

All this pretty colour was bordered by a thin border of navy blue, which acts like a frame around the colour.  It turned out beautiful.  I enjoyed working with these more modern colours.

For the quilting, I thought to keep it simple, not to distract from the hourglass units.  Waves are really in these days, but I didn't want to do just regular waves.  I wanted to update them a bit to match the mood of the quilt.  My goal was to also ensure that all those seams were anchored down to withstand a lot of washing.  

So I played on my tablet and came up with these elongated alternating waves.  I test proofed the pattern by passing it through my 15 year old son, to make sure it was kid approved.  I throw in another wave pattern as well, just to see if my thinking was correct.  It was!  As soon as he saw the patterns he disregarded the one as being for a kid under 10 years of age and said the second one was sharp and that he'd agree to have something like it on a quilt for himself.  That was all I needed to know.

I chose to quilt the pattern in a medium blue, heading toward the denim colour but just a bit brighter.  Up close it looks great!  I love the way the quilted waves comes in and out of focus, depending on what colour it is running through.  When it goes through the blues it fades out some and on the yellows or oranges it's more vibrant.  

This is definitely a pattern I will use again!

Made some progress on the Braided Star quilt

Well.......(big sigh).  I think I've had enough for the day.  Finished work at 7:00 pm, took the dog in to get her nails trimmed and picked up some food for her, plus just now finished attaching all the rows for the Braided Star quilt.  During my lunch and breaks I got the colourful borders done too.  I feel completely drained.  If I could just convince someone that they really, really want to make dinner for me, I'd be set.

Not likely, so I guess I should get going and make my dinner.  At this hour, I'm hungry but don't know what to make or have.  Decisions, decisions.......

Enjoy your weekend!