Monday, July 15, 2013

Quarter 3: Finish -A- Long

Well I have been woefully absent on the whole "finish-a-long" thing...  Life's just gotten in the way of sewing lately, but I'm starting to get back in the swing of things.

Here's my list for Quarter Three:

1. Modern Scrappy Bits Swap (mail by 8/1)
I'll be making a set of coasters for my partner!

2. Triple Zip Swap (mail by 8/17)
Make a triple zip - my partner gave me no direction, so I get to be really creative!

3. Simple Sweet Scrappy Swap (mail by 8/26)
I have to make a wristlet pouch for my partner.

4. Sewing Room Swap (mail by 9/1)
This one involves two finishes - a small project and a big project.  Haven't decided yet what to do!

5. Laura's Quilt (wedding on 10/5)
This quilt just needs to be bound.

6. Wendy's Quilt
It's still a stack of fat quarters right now - dreaming big here, but I'd love to have it done by the end of September!

7. Set of placemats
This isn't critical, but I'd love to have a set or two of placemats for our table.

8. Schoolroom Quilt #1
This needs to be basted, quilted and bound.

9. Schoolroom Quilt #2
I need to finish the top, then baste, quilt and bind.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Absent much?

Sorry.  Life's been busy.

I finally got downstairs to do a bit of sewing just for me today, and it felt GREAT.  I didn't do much, but it was something that had been intimidating me for ages, and I finally got it done.  I'm making two quilts for the schoolroom, because a layer cake cut into 4 HSTs makes a LOT of squares...  :)  They're 6 3/4" square, which would result in a 12.5" finished square, which is an odd size.  I wanted to do a square-in-square block with my Cuzco accent fabric to be the same size as a finished square, but I couldn't quite squeak out the center squares out of the two fat quarters that I have.  How I was going to figure this out just took months for me to settle on the final decision.  But it got made!  I'm off the fence!

I decided to trim the HSTs down to 6 1/2" which would put me at a 12" square, and then I was able to get the 9" squares out of the fat quarter that would end up being the center of the square-on-square accent blocks.

Totally confusing to anyone who's not a quilter, but I hope that made sense to someone!

I had just been dreading cutting into my hoarded Cuzco fat quarters until I got this figured out - but I just did it.  Not only did I get the Cuzco cut, I actually got all six square-in-squares sewn and pressed.  The way naptimes have gone lately, this basically constitues a minor miracle!  Isn't that Cuzco just so incredibly vibrant?

I need to post later about all the FABULOUS swaps I've been in, and the ones that are coming up!