This quilt is going to be a gift. A Christmas gift.
I’m running a bit behind. Very behind.
Hopefully I can get it basted, quilted, and bound this week.
Wish me luck!
a Christmas suprise
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Category Archives: WIPs
WIPs (and a tip)
December 13! Shopping is 90% done around here. I may do a bit of holiday baking next week, but mostly I’m going to be quilting my butt off until the new year. That WIP list is getting shorter but there is a still a lot to do.
1. Love Panes quilt {binding}
2. Plume Charms quilt {quilting + binding}
3. Fussy Cut Bee {piece top}
4. Modern Siggy Swap 2 {piece top}
5. Wonderland in Aqua {make backing + baste}
6. Gridlock: Summer Palette {make backing + baste}
7. Happy Campers {piece top}
8. Red + Aqua Strings {make backing + baste}
9. Far, Far, Away 2 plum {piece top}
10. Evangeline in Paris {complete all cutting}
11. Black, White, and Aqua {piece top}
Yes, I added an eleventh item to the list. The black, white, and aqua quilt is from a bee, and all of the work was essentially done so I pieced the top this past Sunday. Tonight I will finish up with the Plume Charms quilting, mainly due to a gift from my husband.
It’s a headlamp! Quilting light thread on a light fabric gets pretty difficult after a while, especially late at night. My husband came home with one of these for himself last week and I immediately knew that I had to have one, too. It really does make such a difference, and it provides better light than any lamp I’ve used. It lights up what you’re looking at. Plus, it makes such a fashion statement when worn with quilting gloves. 
pebbles
My WIP list is getting shorter. Even though this has been a busy week with lots of holiday shopping and all the usual to-dos around the house, I’ve dedicated a few hours a day to sewing. And it’s been very therapeutic. Tonight I’m catching up on Glee and doing some free motion quilting.
[pebble quilting]
This is my Plume Charms quilt. I started it in May but put it aside because of thread issues (blogged about here). This weekend I went to my LQS and bought a soft pink spool of Aurifil for my Pfaff and she has forgiven me. The quilting is going well this time around. Thread is one of those things that I used to take for granted. For home decor or garment sewing you pretty much only use polyester so using cotton was a foreign concept for me when I first started to quilt. Then it took me a long time to find a thread that I really liked. Looking back, I think many of my early quilting woes can be blamed on inexperience and bad thread equally. What’s your favorite brand?
sew it up {WIP} challenge
December 1st! I can’t believe how quickly November went by. In fact, this entire year seems to have gone by in a flash. Only 31 days are left in 2010, and one of those is nearly over. I keep staring at my list of WIPs, and wishing there was more time left in the year. My in progress list has grown to embarrassingly large proportions, and I’ve decided that I need a challenge to knock some of those things off the list. So I invented the Sew It Up {WIP} Challenge.
Challenge: Complete as many WIPs as possible before New Year’s Day 2011. If there are uncompleted projects on January 1, 2011, one of them will be donated to my guild’s charity quilt committee. If all projects are complete (yeah, right), then a generous amount of fabric will be donated instead.
Anyone want to sew along? If so, add your blog/Flickr/tumblr/twitter in the comments and grab a button! I will be giving a prize to the person who completes the most WIPs. What you do with your uncompleted projects is up to you, but if you donate them, I’d love to know!
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{updated} I’ve had a few questions so here are the rules:
- Post your WIP list on your blog, Flickr, or in the comments section if you are not a blogger (why aren’t you blogging yet?!). You don’t have to include everything – just the things you’d like to finish in the next month.
- Comment on this post if you’re sewing along because I’d love to check out your blog and see what you’re working on.
- You decide what to do with your unfinished WIPs. I have some suggestions if you’re not involved in a guild (if you’re not, why not?!?!) If you can’t bear to part with any of them, do something nice for someone. ‘Tis the season, after all.
- The challenge officially ends on January 1 and the winner(s) will be announced by January 5. (Prizes to be announced to inspire you to sew on when things are looking rough.)
That’s it. Questions?
<a href=””http://vintagemodernquilts.com/archives/1030”” mce_href=””http://vintagemodernquilts.com/archives/1030”” target=”_blank”><img src=””http://vintagemodernquilts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/sewitup_button.pngg”” mce_src=””http://vintagemodernquilts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/sewitup_button.pngg””></a>
testing
Tonight I’m trying to catch up on bee blocks and get some work done on a custom quilt. The to-sew pile is starting to get too big for me to ignore.
Last night I put off my must-sews and tested out two quilt blocks to see which project I want to start next. I’m feeling motivated to cut into my massive stash of my pre-cuts.
First up, a Dream On layer cake…
My friend Melanie was working on some wonky stars at our quilt retreat in the spring, and her choice of Dream On worked like a dream (ha ha! puns are fun). So I copied her! To be slightly original, I’ve used gray as my background instead of white.
I like these blocks, but I’m not sure that I want to make an entire quilt of them. So I put the whole mess in a ziploc and started playing with some American Jane charm squares. I really feel like these fabrics want to become pinwheels. I Googled and Flickred pinwheel patterns for an hour and only found one pattern that I loved. Like head over heels love. But it’s complicated and will require graph paper and charts and lots of planning. I’m more of a wing-it kind of girl. So I took two charms and 2 5-inch squares of scrap fabric to test an alternative.
So boring. It doesn’t have the movement and whimsy of the pattern I fell in love with. My love just may be deep enough that I’ll have to break out the graph paper and do some planning.
[This is the pattern. So American Jane-esque, don't you think?]
[p.s. My blog and bee friend Penny of the awesome Sew Take a Hike blog is having a triple giveaway. I didn't want to leave it to chance so I went ahead and bought one of the kits she's giving away. I CAN"T WAIT FOR IT TO GET HERE!!! *squeeeeeee*. But you should enter because those kits are selling out pretty fast. Or just play it safe, like me, and buy one.]
it’s a hoot + ringo pie
It’s a Hoot by Momo is all over the quilty blog world at the moment. Her Wonderland collection is one of my all-time favorites, and this collection is just as cute. It’s actually a little cuter because it’s full of soft baby pinks, yellows, and greens. But it also has a good balance of colors – gray, teal, coral – to round it out.
I bought my It’s a Hoot from Maricopa Fabrics. She has all of the pre-cuts and some coordinating yardage, too.
This weekend I did a lot of cutting and prep work, but not a whole lot of sewing. The only new thing I have to share is my October block from the Ringo Pie bee.
Kerry’s theme was collectibles. It took me a while to get motivated for this block because I don’t collect anything (except fabric!). It didn’t help that all of the other bee members whipped out some really fantastic blocks – setting the bar really high. But once I settled on my theme (mugs + tea cups), I really enjoyed the piecing.
I’m very tempted to take out the white section on the left and add another small tower of tea cups, but I’m already late. I suppose I better put it in the mail.
working for the weekend
It’s only Tuesday and I’m already feeling a lot like this:
[Will in mid yawn on our bed, the cheeky animal]
Only three more days until the bazaar! I’m excited and ready to go but like every market I do, I wish I still had another week to prep. Tonight I’m getting lots of bindings sewn on…
so that tomorrow I can relax a bit and hand sew the backs while watching some Netflix. I’ll share a few more sneak peeks as the week progresses.
Life is Messy and So is Crafting
My sewing space normally looks something like this:
But with a craft market on the horizon, I’ve been feverishly sewing and it currently looks like this:
OMG messy, right? I can’t stand it anymore. Must. Clean. Up. (Yes, I’ve rearranged the furniture again.) Someone please call Hoarders on me so I can get some help.
While refueling on supplies, I witnessed quite an incident at JoAnn’s today. Isn’t that place the worst? As I was browsing the magazines near the register, I heard this tall man call out in a booming voice that I’m sure the whole store heard. He said something along the lines of “Can you please quit chatting and finish checking her out so you can help the rest of us? You’ve been chatting for 15 minutes.” He went on a little more and then talked to the manager afterward (also in front of everyone in a super loud voice! What kind of manager wouldn’t have taken him aside?!) The whole time I was feeling a strange mixture of horror and glee. I’ve stood at the register at JoAnn’s many a time seething at the horrific customer service but I’ve never done anything about it. So while I was shocked at that man chiding the cashier, I was secretly elated. JoAnn’s has consistently awful service, every store is a mess, they harass you about the coupons and then can never seem to be able to scan them, and don’t even get me started on the ordeals of fabric cutting. You know what that JoAnn is? A frenemy. I need to cut her out of my life for good. And then write a scathing memoir in the thinly veiled guise of a racy teen novel like Nicole Ritchie did to Paris Hilton. 
WIP it good
My WIPs have gotten out of control. I updated the list last night…
in pieces.
the money quilt.
snippets.
scrappy stars.
munki munki.
modern siggy swap.
red, white + aqua.
black + aqua.
completed top.
gridlock: boy palette.
modern siggy swap 2.
gridlock: summer palette.
wonderland + aqua.
fussy cut bee.
linen + love.
love panes.
red + aqua strings.
being quilted.
popsicle posies.
plume charms.
17 WIPs!!!! I think I’m going to meet my goal of 12 quilts in 2010. Sheesh.
Will
Will is one of our dogs, a red stag miniature pinscher that we adopted from a rescue group. He used to be a very timid dog (he still is with strangers). Over the two years he’s lived with us, he’s grown very comfortable in our house…maybe a little bit too comfortable.
He never even lays on our bed. Normally he spends his days on the sofa in the living room so that he can bark at everyone who passes by. But today, because I laid out quilt blocks on the bed, he decided to take a little snooze in our room.
At least he has the decency to look somewhat sheepish.
