OMG: Quilt Top Finished!

My One Monthly Goal for May was to finish my Fly Away quilt from the Heather Jones workshop in March. 

I pinned the borders onto this quilt (that's all I had left to do for my goal) a week ago, and then this quilt sat on the floor while I dabbled in other things, like sewing pieces for this quilt. 

Amazing how sewing blocks segments is more fun than adding borders. And amazing that it took me 31 days to add the borders! :) That's why I love One Monthly Goal--without it, the pinned quilt would still be sitting on the floor of my studio! 

I'm looking forward to quilting this Jacquie Gering style! But for now, I'm just happy to have the quilt top finished. 

OMG March: Quilted Froggy!

I finished my One Monthly Goal for March--to machine quilt by scrappy Mr. Froggy! 

I did large pebbles in the blue to create a water look (using blue thread). 

And just stitched lines in the frog (in green, of course!). 

For the outer border, I resorted to my favorite quilting motif, which I learned from Angela Walters' Free Motion Quilting book. It's fun to do and I love how it looks! 

It feels so good to get these goals crossed off my list; especially the machine quilting goals, because like all of us, I have way too many quilt tops waiting to be quilted! 

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts and pondering my April goal...

September OMG: Dresses!

My September One Monthly Goal (thanks Heidi @Red Letter Quilts!) was to sew two doll dresses for my niece's baby doll. They are not examples of high-quality workmanship--apparel sewing is still not my thing!--but I think they turned out cute.

It was fun to pick the fabrics to use. I use a tutorial for a doll peasant dress from Ruth Plus Two, and it worked really well. I skipped putting elastic in the sleeves--too difficult! I'll be mailing these to my niece on Monday and I hope she likes them! 

May Goal: Complete!

How appropriate to show this finished May project for One Monthly Goal on Memorial Day!

I quilted this one just like mine--straight lines on the red stripes, squiggles on the white, and starburst lines on the blue. Now to mail it off to my friend and come up with a June goal! 

April OMG

My April One Monthly Goal (Thanks, Heidi at Red Letter Quilts!) is to piece another wall hanging like this one. 

A friend admired mine last summer when it was hanging up, and I tucked that thought away in my head as a great gift idea. Summer is around the corner, and I'd like her to have it for all the appropriate patriotic holidays. Plus she moved into a new house last fall, so it's always fun to have some new door decor! 

One Monthly Goal: Rainbow Quilt(s) Complete!

This might be the earliest I've ever finished a monthly challenge. Boy, does it feel good! 

My goal was to assemble my 25-patch rainbow scrap blocks into a quilt top with black and white squares for sashing. I originally planned to add a few black and white rows to the top and bottom as well, but I didn't like how it looked. So I stuck with simple instead. 

And my unofficial goal was to complete the second quilt as well, with a slightly different sashing treatment. I actually finished this one first, since it was on my design wall and had sashing that required a specific order as opposed to the alternating black and white squares. 

I'm really happy with them both and it was super fun to show them off at our guild meeting with Bonnie Hunter! Now to quilt them...

Thanks to Heidi at Red Letter Quilts for hosting One Monthly Goal. 

March One Monthly Goal

If you saw my last post, you likely won't be surprised to see what my March One Monthly Goal is. 

My goal is to get this quilt assembled--what you see here plus a top and bottom border--ideally before our guild meeting on the 15th, but barring that, at least by the end of the month to meet this goal!

But I actually have a second show and tell related to this project. 

I have been cutting out more black and white squares for the top/bottom borders and have started sewing them together in pairs. But at the same time, I decided I wanted to see what the second version would look like, so I took this first version off the wall and auditioned version #2. (If you missed the last post, I have two 25-patch blocks of each color, so I'm assembling them into two lap-size quilts in all their rainbow glory.) 

For this second version, I wanted to create the idea of blocks as puzzle pieces, interlocking. So I'm adding in the appropriate color squares as sashing between blocks (all cut Friday evening) and then am going to turn the sashing squares (empty holes in the photo) into more white stars, with wonky points extending into the sashing. 

In all honesty, after seeing this on the design wall, it might be too busy and might have been easier to simply go with solid white sashing. But the beauty of a scrap quilt like this is I can try something that I might not be in love with and reserve the "safe" choices for a quilt I have more invested in. 

I'm actually hoping to get both of these quilt tops assembled in March, but since One Monthly Goal is just that--ONE--I only have to commit to one!
:)

p.s. If you're really looking closely, you may have noticed that I have the blocks in the same position in both quilts. I tried to go with a different layout for the second quilt, but came back to this one because I felt it had the best balance of light and dark as well as keeping similar colors separate. Really going out on a limb, aren't I? 

February OMG complete!

My One Monthly Goal over at Red Letter Quilts for February was to sew two floor pillows for my sister and brother-in-law. 

They moved into a new house last fall, and bought a new couch (and throw pillows!) for the family room. When we visited for Thanksgiving, I noticed that they had some old oversized pillows they had brought into the room for extra seating/back rests (10 of us descended on their house for the holiday weekend...we were taking up lots of space!).  I decided to make new matching covers for the pillows as a belated house warming gift.

The leaf pillow you see below was what she already had. Obviously, when I stumbled across this gray, green, and yellow stripe, it was an easy decision to buy it! 

She was happy (and surprised!) to receive the new covers, and we both love how they look in her family room! 

February OMG

It's month #2 of One Monthly Goal over at Red Letter Quilts and I'm going small and easy. February always sneaks up on me, being a short month and all! 

I bought this home dec weight fabric before the holidays to make new floor pillows for someone (being vague in case she reads this, as she might not recognize herself!). February is my month to get those pillows made! 

 

One Monthly Goal: January

I'm so glad to have a monthly goal tracker to hold me accountable for completing something each month. Otherwise, like exercise, it's so easy to push quilting to the side when I'm busy. 

Last year I updated the quilt I made for my first baby's nursery with the intention of turning it into a pattern to sell. Here it is:

See the original post here

At the same time, I used the same pieces to design a second version--a more modern baby quilt. This top has been sitting in my studio since last January. My goal for this January is to quilt it!

Linking up to One Monthly Goal at Red Letter Quilts.