2013 Finish Along- Q1 Finishes

 It is time for the Q1 2013 Finish Along report. I had listed eight projects in January that I hoped to finish. I'm really pleased that I finished five of them!

Madrona Road Herringbone was finished in time to enter it in the challenge, and it was selected to be displayed in the Michael Miller booth at QuiltCon!

Olivia's quilt was made for my fourth grand-niece. Technically, it doesn't count for the FAL because I hadn't started it yet in January. That's OK. I'm counting it for myself.

After  ripening in the WIP pile for two years, Sugar Wave is done and I love it!

Highest priority, the Ninigret raffle quilt had its day in the sun last week.

My most recent and quickest finish was quilting up this mini Friendship Star quilt. 

I will be linking up everything but Olivia's quilt. Stay tuned for the Q2 list.

Sugar Wave

 My Sugar Wave quilt is complete! This is my third finish for 2013.

The pattern is New Wave by Elizabeth Hartman.

The fabric is Sugar Snap by Melissa Averinos.

Put those together and you get Sugar Wave!

My son held it up for the photo shoot and it was just breezy enough to move the quilt around.

 Perfection is overrated! My quilting is certainly not perfect, but the overall effect works really well.

 I quilted the lava lamp shapes from the back because I could see better.

I used Kona Lupine for the binding. 

Started: January 2011

Completed: March 9, 2013

Size: 50" X 66"

Q1 Finish Along Finish #2.

WIP Wednesday

 It was a very quilty week, but I have no finishes to report.

New: Emerald & Selvedge Spider Web. This was our retreat workshop on Saturday. It makes me so happy! The Kona Fern is the closest I could find to Pantone Emerald. The selvedges play so nicely off that color. Can you see the tiny orange pinwheels in the center of each web? That is my little nod to Tangerine Tango from 2012.

 Progress Made: I worked on my Sugar Wave quilt on Friday night. I finished the quilting in the gray stripes and figured out what to do in the lava lamp shapes. I tried a feather and it looked horrible. After I tore it out, I did this horizontal loopy thing and it works.

 When I flipped it over so you could see the quilting better, I realized that it would be easier if I quilted it from this side, too. I'll be trying that later. I think I will try marking parallel guide lines to keep the loops evenly spaced. Winging it is fine, but neater will be better.

I also made two more album blocks for Pete's quilt. Retreats are a great place to get stuff done!

No Progress: Everything else is listed on my Works In Progress page.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced!

Wip Wednesday

 It has been a fun, quilty week around here, with an even better week to come. Our annual quilting retreat is this weekend!

Finishes:

OK, so this first finish has very little to do with me. My son came home from a school trip to Nicaragua. His friend took this photo of Pete on top of El Hoyo. They camped overnight on this ridge! Doesn't this look like an ad for an outdoor outfitter?

 I chose the blocks for my month in the Modern Stash Bee and wrote a tutorial about them.

The cutest finish was Olivia's quilt, which was shipped to my newest grand-niece in Denver on Monday.

In Progress:

 While my boys were at The Who concert in Providence last night, I tuned in to Bonnie's QuiltCam and picked up my Sugar Wave quilt. This poor quilt has been sitting idle for too long.

I took a class with Cindy Needham last week and she gave us permission to not be perfect. I kept that in mind as I quilted free-motion circles for the first time. Perfect? Nope. But the overall effect is so cool! I finished half of the gray strips in about 2 hours. I haven't figured out yet what to do with the lava lamp shapes. Any ideas?

This past week, I reached 200 followers (Welcome, new friends!) and blew past my 500th post. I'm getting ready for a giveaway, so please come back soon to enter!

Linking up...

WIP Wednesday

Welcome to another installment of

Work In Progress
Wednesday!

The baby quilt top is complete and has been added to the top of the "to be quilted" pile.

Also to be quilted:
Zig Zag Friends

This will be included in my Modern Quilting Lecture to demonstrate how the different designers play so nicely together! Lots of boys here: Kaffe, Philip Jacobs, Joel Dewberry. Some girls, too.

Sugar Wave
New Wave pattern with Sugar Snap fabrics.
Or maybe New Snap? (not)


Meadowsweet Dresden

I thought I would love this most of all, but I should not be allowed to set blocks on point. Ever again. See the wrinkles in the corners of the blocks? Boo.

The last two Saturdays, I was helping out at Girl Scout sewing workshops. My friend Carolyn and I didn't help plan them, but were called in at the last minute to cover. So we were stuck with patterns we would not have chosen for 10 year old non-sewists.

Here are my samples of the bag (Simplicity 5151)
and doll's sundress (Oliver & S).

Definitely cute, but a lot of work to try to complete in 2 hours with 16-20 girls and only 3 or 4 machines. It took us 3 hours both weeks. Everyone went home happy!

The annual amaryllis!
This year, we have 3 flower stalks!

Visit Freshly Pieced for more WIPs!