Sewing, Cleaning and Rethinking

This post is linked to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Its so nice to have an unused bed available for spreading out quilt squares. It helps me to see my progress and how much progress is left to do!

I made a few more Disappearing Nine Patch blocks after this picture was taken so I think have 20 made.

 

The Cheddar Bow Ties have been adding up too, but apparently not nearly enough to be that exciting. I have them pinned together in stacks of 10. So far I have 220. That may sound good, but when you consider that a bed size quilt will require over 700... aargh!

I would have made more progress on the quilts during the 3 day weekend, but I got involved in this...

Cleaning out and organizing my sewing room. I spent the whole day yesterday working in there and am very happy with the way it looks now, even though I'm not really through with it. Today I will pick up a couple more plastic storage boxes. I will post some pictures of the sewing room organization later this week. Everything will be labeled with labels made using a label maker. At last I will know what every box contains!

When organizing the bins and boxes I have come to the realization that just saving and organizing all this stuff isn't any good if I don't actually use it. For instance, this box contains selvedges that I have been saving for a couple of years. I either need to use them, stop saving them, or just get rid of them. When I first started collecting them I was excited about all the things I could make with them and now the excitement has worn off and I'm just not into it.

I am rethinking what projects I want to make and what is worth my time and storage space. There are endless numbers of projects that I would love to make. January is a good time to pick, choose and plan what the "best" ones would be.

A New Baby and My D9P Process

First of all, Baby Walt is here!  He arrived yesterday morning and is very healthy and sweet!  8 lbs and 7 ounces.  More baby quilts, and projects are on the horizon!  HERE and HERE are baby quilts already made for Walt.

My D9P Quilt process is almost "anything goes"! I spent some time cutting and gathering 5 inch squares. I was shooting for lots of florals and pastels. The only colors not included are black, brown, rust, fall like colors, very little red. I'm thinking Spring on this one.

I have 3 stacks of squares. One light, one medium and one dark.

When I make the 9 patches, I just pull 1 light for the middle square, 4 mediums for the corner squares and 4 darks for the middle/outer squares. I try not to worry about whether or not they look cute together! They will just be cut apart and put back together in a different place anyway.

Then I cut through the middle in both directions with the rotary cutter.

The pattern I chose requires me to turn the cut pieces like this.

If you turn them like this you end up with cute sashings and corner stones. That would be really nice if you used light squares for the outer/middle squares and the same dark center square for each block. This is the pattern being used by Impera Magna. It looks so nice!

This is one of those blocks that you can spin the center seam, which makes the block lay a little flatter.

See the cute little 4 patch created on the back when you spin that seam?

Here's the finished block!

I'm still working on the 3 inch cheddar bow ties as a "leader/ender" project. So on the right hand side of my sewing machine there are pieces for these. I've been doing these off and on for over a year and it may just take me a couple more to ever finish a quilt. I may make it a smaller, throw size quilt. In that case I would finish a lot sooner!

When I was cutting the 5 inch squares for the D9P, I was able to cut the 2 inch and 1 1/4 inch squares needed for the cheddar bow ties from the left over pieces.  

Have a great weekend!

WIP Wednesday - 3 D9Ps

For WIP Wednesday I am showing the three Disappearing 9 patch blocks that I have made so far. The D9P quilt along is HERE.

This will definitely be one of the scrappiest looking quilts I have ever made.

And that's ok with me...

This post is linked to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced HERE.

D9P Quilt Along

If you are like I was, you might know what D9P means. It stands for Disappearing Nine Patch.

Impera Magna at the Adventures of the Empress of the Universe Blog is having a D9P quilt along which you can join.  It sounds like a lot of fun and a nice way to encourage and be encouraged in our quilting efforts. CLICK HERE to see and join!

Here's my very first ever D9P!

 

The D9P can be arranged in lots of ways to create different end results. I am choosing a scrappy pattern, since I am the queen of scraps!  On Impera's blog you can see some great other patterns using the same D9P.

I spent some time yesterday cutting out my 5 inch squares and gathering some 5 inch charms that I already have.  I don't intend to buy any new fabric for this quilt

Its so much fun cutting fabric apart and then putting it back together again!

WIP Wednesday - Too Many Ideas

I don't have too many projects in progress, but way too many ideas!

In 2013, gotta stop using my grandma hand quilting project as a storage table!

Just beginning to cut some strips for a Curious George Baby Quilt.

 

 

This post is linked to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Walt's Scrap Quilt

I didn't technically finish this quilt until the label was done this morning, so I am going to call it my first finish of 2013.

I received an embroidery machine for Christmas from my hubbby and am just beginning to learn how to use it.  The fact that the baby's name is a short one was very helpful!  I will enjoy making quilt labels and embroidering other items with the new machine.

Walt's Scrap Quilt

I love how it turned out.  There are lots of shades of blue in the quilt, but no cutesy characters at all.  Only solids, checks, dots, plaids, stripes, etc. 



The only theme that the quilt has is stars and sky, so the tiny airplane seemed to fit.

I am enjoying quilting in 2013 so far........