Pixelated Angel ~ Only 1,344 Pieces Left

Up at 3:45 this morning. Seems I'm about a week ahead of Daylight Savings Time. Maybe by
Monday or so I'll start keeping normal, human hours again. But waking up uber-early seems to be working very well for me, as far as this quilt goes.
Managed to finish off three & a half more blocks today. Might have managed more, but the next 5 lines I did I seriously messed up. So I'm done with sewing on it for the night. I may set up the pieces for the next few block sets. I've learned from experience not to work too far ahead. For some reason cats & dogs find well ordered little blocks of fabric completely irresistible.

Pixelated :)

I was going to save this til the top was all done, but....OMG! FACE!!! She has a face! Yes, I'm excited. I was concerned that even at 1" square, the face wouldn't show well. It does, yay!

(& obviously, this is not the the Green X quilt. I added a row to it, & the more I add, the more the pattern disappears. So I put it up for now. I'll finish it someday. )

Bea...Bea...Hey, Bea....

My New Machine & This Week's Plans

Sewing machine shopping yesterday. You'd think that would be fun, but with a cranky 6 year old & an even crankier 18 year old along for the ride, not so much. 150 mile round trip, 6 or 7 stops, & I ended up with the sewing machine I originally wanted in the first place. Yeah, it's a beast :) And $50 off, so bonus. Total pass for The Husband for the next week or so, since it was his birthday. Yuppers, gotta love a man that will take you sewing machine shopping on his birthday




















I'm pretty happy with this machine. It's heavy duty, & I *think* even I won't be able to destroy this one for a while ;) I wish the throat were bigger (it's actually a bit smaller than my old one) but I'm pretty sure I can still muscle most of my quilts through there. The other ones I looked at all looked like children's toys; no thank you.



















Gonna spend most of this week working on the Green X Quilt. 8 squares down, 40 to go. I've actually thought of a better way to do this, & likely will use the massive quantity of blue fabric I have in a similarly constructed quilt.




















I hope to be done with this top by the end of this week. Shouldn't be that hard, if I don't get distracted ;) Hopefully I'll also have time to work on the corner blocks for The Pink Quilt, too. Gonna do a Lady of the Lake Feathered Star block, a Bargello & Round the World blocks, & a Lone Star block, all at about 15".

And I haven't forgotten your quilt, Bea. It's next on the to-do list; I just needed a break from those one inch squares.

Hertford County Cub Quilt Done

I'm a little bit, let's say, particular.



So the quilt I've been trying to finish off this past week has got me feeling a bit stressed.

























At first, I tried to do the right thing. I pulled stitches, I remeasured. My seam ripper got a work-out.

















The I gave up being picky, & decided I could make a few adjustments & make things line up properly.















I developed a case of Quilter's Tourettes,


























but I finished the top.



I wasn't thrilled with it, so I sat it aside for a while :( Trying to finish up UFO's before starting anymore, so I pulled this out last week & started on the quilting & binding. Well, it's finished. It's a disaster, but it IS finished.
This is a simple pattern, using basic techniques. I ought to be able to do this, no worries. However, this is the 3rd (!) time I've tried to make it. The first 2 attempts ended up in the trash halfway through. I began to wonder if the Universe was trying to teach me something. And this is what I came up with :

Sometimes, no matter how precisely we plan or how hard we try, things don't always fit together the way they should. But if we push on through to the end, we may just end up with something functional. It might not be perfect, it might not even be pretty, but it will warm someone's life just the same.



Linking this up to Richard Quilts Link A Finish Friday & Such A Sew & Sew A Stitch In Time: March Finishes Linky Party.

One for the Bin

I love this type of quilt. It's a great way to use up all of those odd-off fabrics that seem to accumulate when you sew & quilt. I have some upholstery samples in this one, some prints that were flawed, even some craft panel instruction pieces ;)
It *may* be that this quilt was started about 14 months ago. It *may* be that it only needed the binding on one side put on to be finished (ahem). It also very well *may* be true that I am easily distracted. Oh, well, it's done now.

Turns out when I did my accounting of projects the other day, I forgot 2. A tooth fairy doll, which will hopefully be done at some point before my daughter gets all of her adult teeth, & The Pink Quilt. Yeah, how in the world did I forget The Pink Quilt?

Linking to Richard Quilts: Link A Finish Friday & Such A Sew & Sew February Finishes, because, hey, 2 finishes in one week for me? Totally brag-worthy :)

Rejuvenated Your Quilts!

Found this Tip on >>> FaveCrafts Quick and Crafty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Get your quilts looking new again with this tip on restoring fabric color.
Mix one gallon of water with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and a quart of buttermilk. Let quilt soak in mixture. After soaking thoroughly, wash quilt in a mild detergent and air dry. Fabrics will come out bright and rejuvenated.

A Few More Blocks Done

A few more blocks done (sort of) on the pink quilt. I did cut all of the sashing & will start sewing that on the blocks soon.












I put the finished blocks on the sashing fabric before I cut it, just to get an idea of what it would *sort of* look like when it was done. I like :)














Looky what came in the mail for me :) Encyclopedia Of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman. A little bit of bookish-quilty awesomeness. I may be able to find a bit of inspiration between the covers of this lovely :)

7 Down, 134 To Go

7 squares done on my pink quilt, & only 134 left to go :)


Drunkard's Path Variation


Beginner's Choice


Card Trick


Rail Fence


Nine Patch


Clay's Choice

And I finally figured out a good design for the center square. Impossible to find a pattern I liked for the Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon that I liked so I had to make one up myself. It's applique & it's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself :)



Off to work on the next square & to decide if I want to redo the Drunkard's Path Variation or not. Truly, it doesn't look quite so horrible in real life, but I'm not so thrilled with it.

Bea ~ Grandma's Flower Garden Quilts

Hey, Bea! 'Member how we were discussing (on our way to an awesome lunch & an even awesomer shopping trip) your hexies & you weren't sure what to do with them? Well, while scrolling through my reader, I came across this post from It's All About the Fabric. There's also an article on eHow with instructions :) Hope you find this helpful.

A Thank You, A Surprise, & An Almost-Finished Valentine's Quilt

First, a big Thank You to Kelli from Small Town Stitcher for sending me all this awesome fabric (& some quilty magazines/books, which are not pictured). As soon as I finish up a few more projects, I'll be making a few more baby quilts out of these :)


Second, remember how I was all whiny about how I didn't have a walking foot for my machine? Well, Tuesday after the meeting, The Husband says, Can I go play with my friends? & I was all like sure , go. I'll be here working on this (you'll see in a minute). Tricky man. He actually went all the way to Jo-Ann's & got me this:



Yup, a brand-new walking foot :) Isn't he awesome?

This is what I've been working on:


Kitten wanted a Valentine quilt. It's almost done but for the binding. It isn't perfect, & you know what? It's not bothering me near as much as you'd think :) It's all poofy, floofy awesomeness & it's not that bad for my first large machine-quilted quilt.


Hopefully I'll have the binding done in time for bedtime tonight.

3,860 Squares

The quilt top has been

sewn...

...and pressed...

...and pinned...

...and Cat-Approved.
All that's left is the hand-quilting & binding :)