A Lovely Year of Finishes

I think we can safely say it is now Spring.  The daffodils are starting to sprout along side our house.  It may be just the motivation I need for some spring cleaning or a good purge of some stuff.  A destash is definitely on my list for April.  Get ready.

Speaking of purging, it’s pretty sad that I have a cabinet full of works in progress quilts (WIP).  For January and February I pulled one out each month and finished it.  For April I’m going back to that.  I can’t make it happen every month this year, but worth trying to push forward with this project.  I have already scrapped a couple of projects and put them back into my scrap bin or moved other projects.

I can’t tell you how great it feels to finish off projects that I have had sitting around.  It’s helping me keep focused and narrow down my projects for the month and year.  Have you finished any recent projects that have just been sitting around?

There are lots of blocks already pieced for this quilt.  Now they just need to be laid out and sewn together.  The quilt below was my original inspiration.

I grabbed this stack of fat quarters originally for the design and a creamy colored Kona.  Not really sure which one.

Here are the 42 blocks I currently have started.  The quilt will measure out 6 rows by 7 blocks.  Updated 4/5/15:  I’ve cut more to make this bigger and use the fabric I had set aside for it.  Going to need more of the solid.

 

The backing and binding fabrics are in my stash as well.

With the updates on 4/5/15 my goal is to just get the top finished for April.

My other April goal is to restock my Etsy store.  My ambition with it has been pretty low over the the last few months.  I have examined all the fabrics I have purchased to make my lovely potholders and there isn’t another project coming to mind for me.  They make wonderful Mother’s Day gifts and I’m planning something extra to go along with purchase.  I’m going to start with 20 and see where my motivation is after that.

Linking up with a Lovely Year of Finishes for April.

 

 

 

March goal…done.  I’m adoring this Granny Squares quilt using Ruby charm packs.  Plus it’s all out of my stash.  Woohoo!

The backing is some left over pieces from various projects that coordinates pretty nicely.  More stash busting.

For quilting I kept it simple with straight lines diagonally across the quilt.  The binding is an aqua blender from my stash.

 

I foresee more granny squares in my future.  I may already have a fun spring combination ready to go.  Just need to cut some more.  You may be seeing that in April.

Do you have a favorite pattern for precuts?

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes.

 

 

 

 

“You have a lot of fabric!” You’re right neighbor I do.  We were chatting and he wanted something girly for is his neice that is due to make her appearance soon.

He came over one afternoon and I started pulling fabrics that could work.  Luckily all of my charm squares are in one spot and I knew their were some girly lines in there.  Ruby from Bonnie and Camille ended up the winner.  I like the pink and red that somehow work well together, but the aqua and grays are my favorite.

As we talked about design, he liked the Neptune quilt and the smaller squares.  Since the theme around this quilt is girly I wanted something that would keep the small squares and be feminine.

Granny squares would be perfect for this project.  I cut the charms into 2.5″ squares while at my parents last month.

A few nights ago I started pairing up fabrics for blocks.

 

I was able to sew a few blocks this week.  This layout and color palette is making me so happy.  See my new pretty blue wall too?

My goal for March is to get this quilt top done, quilted and bound as part of A Lovely Year of Finishes.  Linking up below.  This is also party of #sewmystash2015

My February goal was to finish this WIP that has been in my stash for four years.  With the IMQG sewing retreat I knew this would be a great time to finish up this sucker.

As I laid the pieces out I knew I wanted to do something more improv than structured.  This quilt is really out of my general comfort zone for a couple of reasons.  The fabrics aren’t what I would usually be drawn to, hence the massive dragging my feet on it.  Improv piecing is something I haven’t done in a while and the quilting is straight lines but planned in quadrants.

I have to say just playing and letting a design come to me was really refreshing.

Hardest part of the project was getting all of the pieces in one row to be roughly the same size.  I used almost all of the white scrap I had in my stash, it’s not a Kona White, but still blends in well.

For the backing I had found the orange and blue floral print at Jo-Anns in 2011 and knew this would be perfect with these fabrics.  I pieced together some larger scraps from the fabric to make it big enough.

Having my sewing friends around while working on this quilt was great.  As I started marking for the quilting, they had some great input.  The quilting is in light gray and each section of quilting is going a different direction.  LOVE IT!!!

Binding is scraps from the project and machine bound.  Whatever scraps were leftover were given away at the the retreat.  Felt good to finish a project I have been holding onto and get rid of the evidence.

The quilt is currently for sale on Etsy.  Pop over and take a look.

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes.  Mark my February goal as complete.