My Christmas List

I have five quilts I need to have done by Christmas. One for each sister (3), one for my mom, and one for my sister's boyfriend. Each of the five is in a different stage of the process.

A2's quilt fabric is in line for the wash.A3's quilt fabric I showed you a couple months ago. I am making some finishing touches to the pattern I designed for this quilt before cutting it up.
A4's quilt is in the process of being pieced.My mom's quilt is on pause. It is the black and red string quilt I've shown before. There is something about string blocks that I love and something about them that I hate. The part I didn't like so much started getting to me and I put this project aside for awhile.Finally, A2's boyfriend's quilt I am still purchasing fabric for. His is the guitar themed quilt I've mentioned before. I still need three yards of fabric before I can get started on his. The pattern, Five, Ten, Twenty, is just waiting for its turn.

It is an ambitious goal for me, but one I really hope I can reach. I don't want any of them to see their quilts before Christmas so I am hoping that posting progress on here will help keep me accountable. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Log Cabin Re-visited

Earlier this week I was inspired to pull this back out...I laid it out and decided I needed to add one more row to get it to the dimensions I needed so I made these...
Tonight, I suddenly felt a need to look again. After doing a couple calculations on the size of the quilt top and the size of the bed the quilt is intended for, I realized I need to add one column, not one row.

Now, I'm bothered because the design is going to be off-centered if I add a column and I'm unsure what to do. I'm not sure I have enough strips left over to make another eight blocks (a second column plus the one block I need to finish the first column) to re-center the design. I know I don't want to rip it all apart and create another design. So before I attach any more blocks I need to think this through. It definitely needs to be wider to fit the original bed it was intended for. Any thoughts, ideas, or advice would be appreciated.

Parade of Projects 4

The most important of my upcoming projects is a dorm quilt for my sister who is graduating next May. I'm planning and beginning a year early so it'll be ready in time to give her as a graduation present. I know how I operate and that I may need all that time. Plus I'd rather have it done too early than too late.

(I apologize this picture is sideways. I cannot get it to rotate.)

Fabrics: Michael Miller prints, Kona solids, and a floral print
Pattern: An original design I created. Blocks are 16 1/2"x9 1/2".
Size: Twin extra-long bed sized (I'm aiming for 66"x92")
Backing: Hot pink with a stripe pieced from the other fabrics
Binding: Black

She requested a French theme and hot pink. Everything else is up to me. I've (finally!) finished the design and now just have to get started.

That's all the confirmed projects I have at the moment. There are several others stewing in my brain, but they need to be firmed up a bit before I add them to the list.

Starting Out on a Journey

The first quilt I began is still, nine months later, a WIP. My grandiose dreams of quilting let me believe that starting out with a quilt for my full size bed would be a reasonable project. Piecing the blocks themselves wasn't a problem. I had 36 blocks done in two days time. At this point I was just eager to get the blocks together. The concepts of squaring blocks and lining up seams were still foreign. I did attempt to trim all the blocks to similar sizes since they ranged from about 11 1/2 inches to 12 1/2 inches across. Mostly, I didn't care. I just wanted my hot pink and teal squares sewn together so I could see the finished project! As the blocks became rows and the rows became a quilt top, I began to realize that quilting such a large quilt on my little machine was going to really take some doing. And on top of that, I was running out of time. Summer was upon me which meant hours and hours spent each day inside at work. At the end of the day, I wanted to spend a little time outdoors or I was simply so tired I fell asleep as soon as I shoveled dinner down my throat and didn't wake up until it was time to do it all again the next day. And thus, my quilt was yet again put on a back burner. Then came August and the start of another year of grad school. Again, no time for quilting. Days are eaten up by my internship and nights by readings, research, papers, and meetings. My first substantial down time came during winter break. And what did I do? Pulled back out my quilt top...only to realize it was too small, even with the borders I had waiting to stitch to it. Luckily, I had some leftover strips and was able to make six more blocks and attach them. Unfortunately, that is how it still looks. I decided at that point that I needed to practice the actual quilting process before attempting a go at this monster so I yet again set it aside until I was confident enough to wrestle it through my little Singer machine.