DCMQG Retreat

I am super excited. I have a quilting retreat coming up... tomorrow!

One of the members of the DC Modern Quilt Guild is hosting the three day event in the basement of the fraternity house where she lives. The boys are gone for the summer, and it will be just us quilters for three glorious days!

Since I live just a few minutes from the retreat and will have the car, I may end up back at home for the nights. Also, I am planning on bringing the projects that I just do not want to finish to force myself to do them. These include my April Bitty Bee Blocks and the Hurrican Sandy quilt which really needs to get finished and sent to the latest disaster.

The front of the quilt is finished. But the backing is giving me serious headaches. I have the fabrics picked out, I have the center medallion with the signature blocks figured out. I really just need to put it together, and I'm seriously dragging my heels because I think the front is so ugly.

But hopefully if that's all I bring the first day, I'll be able to knock it out of the park and just get it done.

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June Goals

My number one goal is to get all of my bee responsibilities taken care of. These include:
June block for Color Bee Shocked
April blocks for BBC
Hive B and F for 3x6 Bee (stretch goal as I have until July 15)
Hive 2 for Scrappy Trip Bee (stretch goal)

Furthermore I hope to complete the following:
Finish adding red corners to my X pieces for the Japanese X and Plus blocks

Finish adding the first round of brown corners to my Wedding Quilt
Finish cutting fabric for the Plus Quilt (stretch goal)

Ambitious, but I do have a sewing retreat coming up. So I hope to get a few things accomplished.

I am linking to A Lovely Year of Finishes.

May Progress (Cont.)

I finished several bee blocks this weekend. First were the blocks for the Nubees bee. This is a month long bee with only four people to a hive. I chose this block design.

 Block for Brandy, who asked for low volume with a pop of color. I have never made anything with low volume, and that pop of red really makes a statement. Conclusion: I need to work in neutrals more often.

 Block for Lisa, who asked for coral, grey, and teal.

 Block for Sara, who wanted coral, navy, and teal.

 My test block with my own colors of red, gold, and black. I really like how it turned out.

 This was for Jo, as part of side swap. She wanted red, green, and aqua.

I also completed my blocks for the May HOPE do.good Stitches bee. We used this tutorial. The quilter asked for mustard, grey, and aqua. I'm so sick and tired of trying to figure out aqua, and luckily have a ton of mustard and grey, that I stuck with those. These blocks went together ridiculously fast, and I'm thinking that I might need to do a whole quilt of these. They're SOOOO easy and look great!

I put together the May block for Color Bee Shocked, which is blogged here.

Finally, I moved the needle a little bit on my Japanese X and Plus blocks. I added red corners to one set of X's and finished up two other sets that I had sewn the corners to already.

I love that dress print! It really adds a nice splash of color. I also cut a few grey squares.

May Progress

I wish I had more to report. The end of April and most of May have been slow in terms of progress.

I did finish my April blocks for HOPE do.good Stitches.

Tutorial for Converging Corners blocks can be found here. We were asked to make blocks using orange, green, blue, and brown with a grey background and a fussy cut center. I think my favorite part was fussy cutting the centers, unfortunately the rest wasn't as fun.

And I started on my April bitties. Luckily, the Bitty Bee Committee is taking a summer hiatus, which makes me feel a bit less bad about taking so long to make my blocks.

I have been doing a bit of work on my Japanese X and Plus blocks. Cutting red squares, and starting to sew them onto the X portions. Here are just a few pictures of my progress. I have also started cutting my darker text prints for the center Plus and some grey prints for the outer squares. Not sure yet if I'll stick with all grey prints or if I'll mix it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But mainly I've been cutting a lot of fabric. Since I've already ruined the surprise, I'm working on making a Plus quilt for my brother and future SIL for their wedding.

This picture is woefully out of date. I have since cut all of the fabrics shown above, and cut a ton more. I really need to take a new picture, the stack has grown to epic proportions and I'm not even close to done cutting. I'm going to cut all of the grey, yellow, and coral fabrics I have and see where I end up size wise. I'm shooting for a King, but my future SIL said she doesn't care what size it ends up at, so I told her I'd just cut the fabric I have and see where that gets me.

April Finish

I made it. Both of my goals, for that matter. I finished the fracture quilt.

I quilted it in a sunburst pattern. The binding is from the same solid dark purple I used in the front and a purple print I was going to use on the back.

The back is a larger version of one of the front blocks. I even managed to embroider my initials before the end of April.

And I cut all of the light text prints for my Japanese X and Plus Blocks and started adding in the red triangles.

April Bee Blocks - Part 1

So, I have completed a few more bee blocks. And I wanted to share them before the end of April.

Here are the rest of the 3x6 Bee 2013 Q1 Hive D Blocks, which I finished a while back and sent off. The pattern is the Cartwheel Block by Lee Heinrich of http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com. I have to say I'm a huge fan of Nanette's yellow, orange, pink, and red block. But I'm equally enamored of the other ones as well.

Top row: Jennifer, Sara, Caryn

Middle row: Nanette, Linnea, Ursi

Bottom row: mine

 

I signed up for a month of the Sew Pieceful bee. Most of the color combos were a lot more muted and one person requested coral, which I didn't have in my stash at all. Luckily I bought some corals for the Plus quilt I'm working on. The pattern can be found at the Quilter's Cache here.

Top Row: Sara, Sarah, Allison
Bottom Row: Gabrielle, Mine, Renae

 

And finally, here is my block for Color Bee Shocked. Caryn sent these great spring prints and neutrals and asked us to make a Giant Churn Dash block. The tutorials can be found here and here.

I have to open the seams back up because I didn't read through all the pressing instructions before pressing my seams open. She wants them pressed a certain way, which I'm happy to do. I made way too many assumptions when making this block and my primary assumption was that the instructions Caryn sent with the fabric would be virtually identical to what she posted on the Flickr discussion board. Not in fact the case. Oh well.

 



I still have to make 11 Farmers Market bitties for The Bitty Block Committee and my two blocks for the HOPE do.good Stitches Bee. I've printed out the instructions for the latter and have chosen a paper piecing pattern for the former, but still need to shrink it down and re-draw it a bit to make it more manageable for the time frame I have.



WIPs

I started making myself a to do list in Word. It started to feel like I should just copy and paste the same list over and over because I have so many quilts on my list that I am just starting.

So, here is my current list and a few pictures where I feel I can share them.

Two wedding quilts. One of them I can't share, because it's a complete surprise.

The other is a yellow, gray, and coral Plus Quilt for my brother and future SIL. It's sort of a surprise, but not much of one, since I very heavily hinted like that may be happening when I asked my FSIL what colors she likes.

I started cutting the gray fabrics, before I really thought about the process. I have since backtracked to cutting one long stretch for the cross-bar and two squares for the top and bottom of the Plus. I am using two 5.5" squares and one 5.5" x 15.5" strips. I have cut all of the fabrics shown above already, and am waiting on quite a few more to come in. This will be my first king sized quilt, and I'm a little freaked out about it. Maybe I'll change my mind and make it smaller.

There is another quilt I'm making out of batiks, but everything about that quilt is a surprise. No special occasion either, just because the recipient is awesome. I am still trying to figure out which pattern to use, since it has one fabric that I want to showcase. I think I've finally settled on two possibilities.

Then there is my Japanese X and + Quilt that I am making for myself. Finally!

I have cut most of the lighter text prints into 5.5" squares. I need 56 fabrics worth, and I think I have cut 52. I have two more light text print waiting to be cut, and then I need to decide if I want to purchase a couple more or just use some of the other stuff I have. As you can see, I have a variety of things in with the text, including musical notes, keys, and mustaches. I have one butterfly fabric with a cream background that I'm considering including as well. It's basically just the fabrics that make me happy. These will become the X portions of the X and + Blocks.

I am using Kona Rich Red as the points on the X blocks. Here they are pinned onto my mustache print. 

Here the points are sewn on and ironed flat. I will be using four different text prints for each block, but the blocks will line up in such a way that the four text prints will touch. Hard to explain right now, but I'll show you once I have a few blocks done.

As I am cutting fabrics, I am also cutting 2.5" strips for a Scrappy Trip Along quilt. Right now I don't have nearly enough variety to start making any blocks (light text prints, some greys, yellows, and corals mainly), but I'll keep cutting away.

I also have my charity quilt to finish, I need to put together, make the backing, and quilt the Hurricane Sandy quilt, and then get in touch with the organizer and let her know that I just received the last of my blocks and should I still send it to the Sandy charity or pick another charity instead.

As for my UFO's, I have the Star Wars baby quilt, the Split Rail Fence quilt, and the placemats sitting around looking at me longingly.

I also need to update my WIP and Completed Pages. I'm thinking about giving them a make-over at some point, but that will have to wait.

A Lovely Year of Finishes - April Goal

I have decided to join up in the Lovely Year of Finishes challenge for April and see how it goes. I do well with deadlines, and thus far I haven't had much luck doing that.

My goal for April is as follows:

Get my Fracture Quilt basted, quilted, and bound.

This is my completed top. I also have a simple pieced back, but no pictures. The binding is cut, the batting is pre-shrunk, I even have an idea of how I want to quilt it, but no progress has been made in almost a month. This ends now. My goal is to finish this thing and send it off to its intended recipient, who was born at the end of January.

If that gets done, I'd like to try and finish cutting my light text prints for my Japanese X and + Blocks, but that's my personal goal, not for the April challenge.

This is what I have so far. The 2.5" strips to the side are for a Scrappy Trip Along quilt that I want to get started on at some point as well. I am cutting one strip for that, as well as 4 5.5" squares for the X and + blocks. I have not even begun to make a dent in my text prints. :)

March Bee Blocks

I've completed my regular slate of bee blocks for March.

Here are my blocks for Color Bee Shocked:

 

Both blocks were for Mallory, our March Queen Bee. She asked for 8.5" unfinished blocks and sent two white on white fabrics and the blue background fabric. I ended up adding in a few of my own white on white fabrics, and I think they turned out great. The pattern for the block on the left can be found here, and the one for block on the right came from Esther at ipatch.

My blocks for the Bitty Bee Committee (I signed up for both themes this month, and let's just say I won't be doing that again any time soon):

Butterfly blocks. We only had six people sign up for the group, so we ended up making two types and sending two to each person so we still ended up with twelve total. Except for the white fabric, all the fabrics for the blocks on the right came from Anna's scrap bin. Anna blogs at Hoot'n Haller. It was really nice to end up with blocks that didn't use the same fabrics over and over.

Mushroom blocks. I made three of the one on the left and 9 of the spotted ones. I was going to make them all the same, but I ran out of the spotted fabric.

And finally, my blocks for HOPE at do.good Stitches:

The tutorial for the block can be found here. The quilter for this month asked for aqua, blue, green, orange, and yellow on a white background.

I already blogged about my blogs for one Hive of the 3x6 Bee. The other bee is getting these blocks:

This one is for Ursi, who requested aqua/azure, deep dark grayish blue, turquoise/jade, ash, and ivory. And a background of the same colors. The only color I couldn't find in my stash was the grayish blue. The pattern is the Cartwheel Block by Freshly Pieced.