How did I fare in the first Quarter

Time to link up with the 2016 FAL 

I started out 2016 with way more goals that I could have possibly been able to finish. I had 11 started projects and many other things that I thought I might like to start -- see to many goals, but this link up is about finishes and I have a few of those too. 

my first finish for the year was my pixelated cotton and steel heart mini quilt -- turned out to be an angel mini for my best friend but it was totally worth it. 

My next finish was the Honda Scout quilt -- I set this as my January OMG project and finally got it quilted and bound in late February

 

My Skinny Mini Swap was sent out in Late February

I also had the Kaleidoscope quilt ready for quilting in early February -- finished early March

Rush Hour Quilt was completed -- this was the oldest standing UFO in my room and this finish felt really good.

Kitten Mini Swap (due 4/20) -- complete (not blogged yet)

So it looks like first quarter this year ended up with 6 finishes and that's pretty good to me.

I made some progress on a few things, added few new projects and purged out 2 UFO's that I really had lost interest in. Let's see if I can do better next quarter. 

Oldest UFO -- Busted

So back about 2 years ago I made a scrappy improv quilt called rush hour for a blog hop project. 

I even got the quilt top basted with the intentions of quilting each block a different motif and really taking time to practice my FMQ skills. This quilt was going to eventually live in my husband's car for me to use while on trips. I folded it up and put it in my pile of work on it later projects and kinda forgot about it. 

Fast forward 2 years and the quilt still sits on the shelf and I had decided that i would offer this project up for the orphan adoption. Well I unfolded it to take a photo for the listing and it hit me --- I still love this project. 

I knew however that quilting all the little bits was not something that I would be willing to do -- this quilt is for a guy, traveling around in his car why not keep things simple and just put some quilty lines on it. I'm not super big on using my walking foot but the organic straight lines would work for this project for sure, so I set out one evening to at least start the process and see where this took me. 

I'm happy to report that by evenings end I not only had some organic lines with random spacing I also had enough scrap binding to keep moving froward. 

Hurley approves 

The next day I stitched it down and having this finish really feels good, especially since it was so long coming. 

It look lovely hanging out with Duchess too. 

Happy Quilting everyone -- here's to busting those old UFO's. 

Kaleidascope Finish

I've always loved Kaleidoscope quilts but not had the patience to make all the blocks in the small scale that I wanted, so this year when I joined several hives I decided that this is what I wanted everyone to make and of course I would have some filling in to do. I assigned these blocks to my Wee Bee Learning and We Bee With it hives in the first half of the year. Everyone made 8 pieces of the Kaleidoscope puzzle (or a total of 2 blocks each) but I asked them to leave them in the smaller units so that I could mix them up. 

Everyone did a great job, I added about 24 units to the mix to ensure there was color balance -- Moon cat really approves of the blocks.

When I went off to Stash Bash in the Fall I put the top together and really marveled at how all these colors really came together. 

 

Hubs and I took several quilts out to Reynolda Village to get some photos and i decided that, even thought it was just a top I wanted some photos of this one too. 

Because I made so many blocks and ended up changing the layout, I had extra blocks that I used on the back. 

Once I got her all quilted the end results are even better than I could have imagined when I set out in early 2015 to have a group of strangers make me one of the happiest quilts that I will love for a long time. 

I think this would be an excellent quilt to have in my sewing room for dreaming up new projects -- once I get a chair in there but that's what my dream sewing room board is for on Pinterest. 

The boys really love it already. 

Orphans for adoption

Each year there is a quilty orphan adoption hosted by Cynthia of Quilting is more fun than Housework 

I took part in this last year and decided that I would give it a go again this year. It's a great way to re-home projects that you no longer love and send them on to someone else that will breath new life into them. 

Up first is a BOM project that used marble fabrics -- I knew at the time that this was not a quilt I would want to make but mostly took the class to be with friends and maybe kick up a new skill.

next is a quilt top that is 50 x 70

and a padded flat rate filled with all sizes of scraps 

If you are interested in adopting any of my projects please leave a comment below and which item you would like to finish and I'll do selections at the end of the week (items with multiple interest will be selected through a drawing). I am only opening this to US addresses due to shipping costs. 

March City Sampler check in

For the February linky I kinda cheated a little and whipped up 13 blocks in one evening -- after the link up went live but before the end of the week. I had the blocks precut and ready but other things were taking away my focus. My goal heading into the next month was to complete the 9 remaining blocks and start to assemble the rows. I was thinking that a completed quilt top might be aiming a little high with the other goals and things in the works. So, how did it all work out? 

block 62 -- # 84

block 63 -- # 89

block 64 -- # 92

block 65 -- # 8

block 66 -- # 15

block 67 -- # 45

block 68 -- # 51

block 69 -- # 64

block 70 -- # 54

So my goal of all 70 was obtained as a part of #quiltnon16 a super fun online group of people not going to quilt con. That left me with another 3.5 weeks to see what I could manage as far as rows.

I finally pulled all the blocks out of my book and all the sticky tabs so that I could renumber the block layout and discovered that I actually made 71 blocks some how so I guess that's better than being short. 

I decided to try laying them out in book order and think I generally like the color balance and flow but I haven't yet decided if I will be moving any of them around or really what I am going to do about the extra block. 

(sorry for this poor photo I laid them out on the floor of my office one afternoon at lunch time). 

I have my background fabric ready and want to start making rows very soon. 

Can't wait to see what all you other creative ladies have accomplished this month, who knows maybe next month I will have rows or a quilt top but I think that this one may be heading out to the longarmer. 

Honda Scout

At Stash Bash I decided to start a new project rather than working on the numerous projects I had on hand -- typical right. 

I've been wanting to make covers for the seats in my Honda, at least the back one if I couldn't figure out making covers for the fronts -- this back seat is original to the car and it's starting to show some age but still is in really good shape and no one hardly sits back there so I decided this was the place to get creative and make something functional and attractive -- I went with a more free form version of the Scout pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew. 

Well I got stalled out with my ankle being broken and not being able to get up into the sewing room. So the pieces of the top hung out on my design wall like this for a few months -- seeing as how I was unable to put in the sashing on the front so that I could start to add boarders and eventually baste and quilt it. 

Welcome in 2016 and the challenge by Red Letter Quilts -- for a finish / goal a month. I decided this was the perfect time to set this finish as my goal for the month. I really wanted to knock this one off the WIP list and get it in my car. 

The month is plugging along and I finally get a good chance to get to work finishing up the top. 

Motivation continued and I made the backing and got it basted and start the quilting. Binding is my least favorite part but it's necessary for a completion. 

Some fun finished photos before it goes back to it's new home. 

I have to say I might have the prettiest back seat in a '94 civic in the whole triad. 

In my eyes she's the prettiest anyway. 

She also got a new Lip Kit for Christmas. Some time in 2016 she's going to be repainted to even out the differences in color and cover up a few blemishes. 

I have a few more sewing related projects in mind for her coming up but for now it's time to get back to the other pile of UFO's.