Monkey in the Middle

I finished my January One Monthly Goal for the link-up over at Elm Street Quilts. 

I love how fast the quilting on small quilts goes!

I freehand quilted a spiral int the center block and then pebbles in the green monkey strips and various wavy lines in the rest. Circles and a Figure Eight design from Angela Walters' Free Motion Quilting book fill out the borders. I have tried this Figure Eight design before and struggled with keeping the shape. After a failed attempt on this quilt, I decided to sketch the design with a fabric marking pen. I didn't follow the lines exactly, but it really helped to keep me focused! I'll be trying that technique again until I am more comfortable with it. 

Always fun to see the quilting on the back! 

Now to bind this and deliver it to a charity! 

(Binding might be my February goal...)

Purple Stitch and Flip Quilt Top

I've had blocks from one quilt taking up half of my design wall since October. Every couple of weeks, I'd find time to add a few more blocks and play with the layout. 
(Note to self: Don't make quilts with 4" blocks--you have to make so many!)

I've been wanting to make a big push to get this finished and off my design wall (as well as off my UFO list!), and I finally have. Now it moves to the "needs to be quilted" list. :) 

Which quilt is it, you ask? 
My Stitch and Flip Improvisation quilt I started in Jacquie Gering's workshop in September. 

It went from here: 

to here: 

 to a month or so of this:

to sewn vertical rows:

to a finished quilt top! 

Love these close-ups of the improvisational corners. 

And individual "four-patches"

Can't wait to quilt this! 

Find my original post on this quilt here.

OMG: January 2017

I'm starting off 2017 with a clean slate of One Monthly Goal projects! Thanks to Elm Street Quilts for organizing this fun monthly goal keeping endeavor!
(ahem, I didn't finish my December OMG project--ran out of embroidery floss mid project and didn't have time to get more)

I made this cute kids quilt back in 2014 using Benartex's Monkeying Around collection. Last year, I sporadically looked for it, thinking I could quilt it and donate it. I looked through all my UFO piles and nothing...

I found it recently in a pile of finished quilts. Totally makes sense, right? 

Anyway, I figure this one will be fun to quilt, and I'll be thrilled to get it out of my UFO pile! Did I mention that it's fairly small as well...a bonus for getting it done quickly! 

So my OMG January goal is to machine quilt this top. 

OMG: December

It's December and I don't have any holiday gift sewing to do! 

With no December 25th deadlines breathing down my neck, I'm making my One Monthly Goal something fun for myself. Three or so years ago, I stitched this lone star as part of a challenge from Victoria Findlay Wolfe's 15 Minutes Play. Basically, she sent a number of volunteers an ugly fabric and asked that we make something with it and made fabric. This is what I came up with. You can see the "ugly" fabric in the outer points. 

My goal for December is to finish this as a wall hanging (or pillow, but I'm thinking wall hanging--that star is only blanket stitched on and won't last long in my house of boys if it's a throw pillow!). 

Here's to holiday decor! 

OMG goal complete!

I'm happy to say that I finished my One Monthly Goal for November--I quilted the Smudgy Cat quilt! 

I wanted to use a few different designs, all freehand. On the two fussy-cut blocks, I did diagonal lines and then squiggles and zigzags in the frames around the cat.  (Isn't Smudgy cat so cute?!)

For the heart blocks, I tried a wavy crosshatch. Mostly because I didn't want to mark lines! I like how it turned out though. 

I was determined to piece the back from my stash. I succeeded! 

OMG: November goal

I'd like to keep working through my pile of quilt tops...these quilts could have happy owners instead of being folded on a shelf, awaiting a date with batting, backing, and some machine quilting. 

So my November goal for One Monthly Goal, recently moved to Elm Street Quilts, is to machine quilt this cute quilt. I stitched the top back in 2014--it's a free pattern from Benartex's website, using their adorable Smudgy Cat collection. Time to get it finished! 

The trees are so beautiful right now that I couldn't resist throwing the quilt top over a branch of one of our Japanese maples. Love the fall colors! 

Thanks again to Heidi for hosting OMG for most of 2016. It's one of my best motivators! Looking forward to continuing it with Patty at Elm Street Quilts.

October OMG complete!

Happy Halloween! 

See my favorite homemade Halloween project here, which we'll be using tonight during trick or treat!

I finished my October One Monthly Goal! My goal was to bind this handprint quilt from my son's preschool. I chose the leftover solids from the handprints to make a cheery, scrappy binding. I'm happy to have this done--now it's time to get it hung at preschool!