2011 WIP Report

Good-bye 2011!

Hello 2012!

I don’t care much about work except for the money it brings and the colleagues with whom I enjoy spending time. What matters to me is my sewing and quiltmaking. I have enjoyed 2011 and made some wonderful projects. Below is the 2011 inventory of the quilts, etc that I sewed or created in 2011. I am also took a look at where I am in the process of various projects as well as where I want and need to go. I feel like I have made progress since the previous roundup post of December 31, 2010, but let me know what you think. First, I want to tout my accomplishments. 😉

2011 started off a bit slowly. The piecing of FOTY 2010 took me longer than planned and that got me off schedule a bit. It came out really well, though, so I am glad I took the time.

I read 55 books this year. Of the 55 I read, 20 of them were quilt, bag or creativity related.

I had quilts in 3 shows this year, which was surprising and pleased me greatly:

  • Change of Seasons was at the San Francisco Public Library from March 2011-September 2011 as part of the CQFA’s Primal Green Show
  • Fabric of the Year 2010 was at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles from August 14-October 16, 2011. What a thrill to have a quilt in a museum show!
  • Zig Zaggy Quilt was part of the New Quilts of Northern California at PIQF, October 12-16, 2011

Completed Pieces in 2011

One of the great things about completing projects is that they roll off the ‘not done’ or WIP or “To Do” list and on to the completed list. Two birds with one stone and all of that. 😉

Completed means to me that they are now usable and can in no way be considered to have anything left to stitch.

2011 completed projects are:

Mostly Done, Needs Finishing

This category contains the projects that are past the UFO stage and nearly finished

  • Food Quilt: top and back finished, binding made, needs quilting and binding
  • Jelly Roll Race Quilt: top finished, needs borders, quilting and binding
  • Original Bullseye: decided, with help of my fabulous readers just to put a simple black border on and bind in black. Needs border, back and binding.
  • Stepping Stones – piecing the back
  • The Tarts Come to Tea: quilting in process. Needs quilting completed, embroidery and embellishment, binding and sleeve.

True UFOs

Here is my list of UFOs. You can see many of them over at Artquiltmaker.com or look at the links I have provided.As mentioned last year, this list in no way implies that I will discontinue starting new projects or finish any of these.

  • Flowering Snowballs/Cross Block quilt: I not worked on this quilt at all year and have finished the center blocks. The side and corner blocks are drawn out on EQ6. I worried on and off about how to keep the blocks from fraying after I square them up. Got some good ideas from fabulous readers after my December 20, 2008 post! No progress in 2010 or 2011.
  • Garden from Pamela Allen class: needs hand embroidery and embellishment. Worked on it in the 2009 Pamela Allen class and it is much improved. Needs quilting, embellishment and binding.
  • Laura Wasilowski Flower Garden: started in the Laura Wasilowski class CQFA held in July 2007: needs machine quilting, hand embroidery and embellishment. No progress in 2008.
  • He Tried to Make it Up to Her: needs back and to be quilted. This is probably a quilt I will want to quilt myself. TFQ has dug out a number of quilts, but I don’t know if this was one of them. No progress in 2008.
  • Her Eyes were Bigger than Her Stomach: needs a back and to be quilted. Very active quilt; probably not the best design, but a mile marker in the quiltmaking journey and an excellent learning experience. No progress in 2008
  • Moon & Stars: in the quilting process…by hand
  • Pointillist Palette 4: Night: This is the fourth (of six) in a series of Pointillist Palette fabric by Debra Lunn and Michael Mrowka that was popular a number of years ago. No progress in 2008
  • Quilt Sorbet: on hold.
  • See: started in a David Walker class. Needs fusing, satin stitching around fused pieces and quilting. No progress in 2009, but I did think about it a lot.
  • Self Portrait from Pamela Allen class: needs more piecing, hand embroidery and embellishment. No progress in 2009
  • Solid Star Friendship Quilt: I really need more friends so they can make stars for me in solids with black. Do you want to exchange a star block with me? No progress in 2009-2010
  • Spiderweb: foundation pieced project, still piecing. Pattern for the border blocks created, need to print on paper piecing paper and piece. I also think I may have made too many blocks and may make this into two quilts. Aside from collecting more strips, no progress 2008-2010.
  • Under the Sea:  brown piece from April 2009 Pamela Allen class with CQFA. Needs machine quilting, hand embellishment and finishing.
  • Women’s Work 2: In 2009,  I said that this quilt “needs focus.” Was inspired and have the design. No progress 2009-2010, except for finding my drawing and making a file.

On My Mind

Here are the quilts and projects I am thinking about. Some are on the list from last year. In some cases I have purchased fabric, but no sewing has been done, so they are not yet considered UFOs.

  • Bathroom ‘quilt’ out of heavy clear plastic. I want to make pockets that I can put interesting things in that won’t get waterlogged. I also think the stitching would be an interesting addition to the piece. I also saw a tallish tote bag with many pockets that is similar to what I have been thinking for this quilt, so perhaps I will do another tote instead.
  • Blue Rectangle Project-Blue monochromatic quilt with the 2.5″x4.5″ blue rectangles I have been cutting.
  • Colorblocks 4 with silks: I want to use this pattern (or something like it) from Sandy Bonsib; silk fab will use silk fabric with a luscious sheen instead of the regular cottons. Background will be black cotton sateen again. What’s been holding me up? Backing all the silk. I have the backing and just can’t bring myself to do it. Barsha told me to skip the backing and just make the quilt without it. Can’t decide if the project has new life or not. Definitely not on the top of the list.
  • Dot quilt with inset circles a la Ruth McDowell: more uses for dots and a good exercise in piecing. The Twinkle quilt shown in the January 2009 issue of Quilting Arts magazine is similar and renewed my interest in this design. Took a Dale Fleming class in April of 2010 and learned another way to make circles.
  • Feathered Star dot quilt from Summer 2007 issue of Quilts & More: more use for dots. I thought I would get to this after making the Pineapple, but the Pineapple is still not complete, so this this dot quilt has not been started.
  • Interlocking triangles #4: love the technique and have at least one, if not two, idea[s] for more quilts using this technique.
  • Garden Quilt: I have been collecting photos and patterns of interesting flowers for years and have always wanted to make some kind of garden or flower quilt. It will probably be something like The Tarts Come to Tea. Need to finish the Tarts first before starting the same kind of project. Now I can use the Soft Fuse for this quilt.
  • Jack’s Chain: I saw a quilt of this pattern years and years ago and have always wanted to make one. Probably at least a partial hand piecing project after the Flowering Snowball (Cross Blocks quilt). I am more confident seeing how Liz Porter and Marianne Fons handled equilateral triangles. I also have that new ruler to use. I could, additionally, decide on a size and start piecing nine patches. I saw a quilt at PIQF 2011 that used other pieced blocks instead of 9 patches, which was quite intriguing.
  • Liesl tote/backpack: have fabric and pattern and after hearing her interview with Jennifer at CraftSanity, I also have the confidence.
  • P&B Pop Parade quilt a la Serendipity Puzzle
  • Paper pieced Nativity scene: I downloaded this pattern when it was free years ago and have never gotten up the energy to be as organized as I need to be to make this, but I still want to make it. You can find the pattern, for purchase, at Paper Panache.com
  • Piece O’Cake Daisies & Dots project
  • Pink Rectangle project
  • Ruby & Bliss Stepping Stones project – still a bit unsure on the pattern
  • Queen Street fabric project
  • Quilted Fish Sugar & Spice Project
  • San Mateo County Fair Dot quilt
  • Some kind of pink quilt with all the pink fabric I have still been buying. I have begun cutting 2.5″x4.5″ rectangles of pink fabrics that cross my cutting table, so it will probably be some kind of rectangle quilt.

Abandoned Projects

This is also a new category. I decided to be upfront about the projects I got rid of.

  • Dot Pineapple quilt abandoned in 2011: I just can’t deal with the different sized blocks. I feel terrible about this one, but think that I will start it over and be better about tracking the size of each block.
  • QA Challenge Quilt: I needed to fuse the parts and rubber stamp the words, but I just wasn’t feeling the love. I have other things to do, so off it goes.

Happy New Year and Happy 2012 Sewing!

Stepping Stones Progress on BDSI

Monday was the Boxing Day Sew-in, which was organized by Sandy and contributed to by various other podcasters and quiltmakers. I have to say that I jollied myself along to get involved and am glad I did, because I had a great time watching the tweets scroll past AND making major progress on the Stepping Stones.

Somehow the Stepping Stones project was well on it’s way to becoming a chronic UFO. I don’t know why. Somehow it just became a chore. I think that starting it around Thanksgiving and then not having my usual sewing time to devote to it contributed to the feeling.

Spending time on it on Monday and getting cheers from others participating in BDSI was the shove I needed. The support felt great and the project is well on its way to completion.

Starting Point
Starting Point

This is where I started. Looking at it now I find that I had made good progress. My whole problem was my attitude. Perhaps I am a fickle creature and if I cannot work on a project intensely, I become angry at it and want to move on?

During the day, we were all tweeting our progress and I was using my cell phone to take pictures. I hope the pictures are acceptable quality.

Center Done
Center Done

By 10:30 or 11am, I had finished the center part of the quilt. I was able to start in on the border. As you may have seen in the previous post, I decided to modify the border so it looked more finished. As such, I needed 4 corner blocks that were slightly different from the side blocks and then 20 side blocks.

Corner labeled
Corner labeled

Again, I was able to finish the corner (4) blocks and 2 of the side blocks. This allowed me to take a look at the way the corner would look and if my design had the desired effect. The quilt top always looks different once sewn together, but I think it will suit me.

Yesterday, I sewed several big chunks together. this is another monster quilt, so it is taking me some time to get it sewn together. I would like to have the top and back done by the time I go back to work on the 2nd. I had really big sewing plans and the holidays got in the way.

Now back to listening to my audio book and getting this baby finished!

Creative Prompt #137: Baby

Baby, it’s cold outside

baby names

Rock a bye baby

Hush Little Baby

baby bunting

cry baby

baby pictures

Baby Einstein

Million Dollar Baby (movie)

Angel baby

cherub

baby doll

baby talk

new baby

baby shower

infant

baby clothes

you and me, baby

baby steps

American Baby Magazine

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog, and how your work relates to the other responses.

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created that spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted.

Finished! Kissy Fish

Kissy Fish framed
Kissy Fish framed

I got this back from the framer last Tuesday and am thrilled with the way it turned out.DH and I decided where to hang it and hung it up on Christmas Eve so it would be nice looking on Christmas when my parental units were over.

Now I can add another finished project to my list! My quilting best for a year used to be 9 quilts. With this quilt, I have completed 10 this year. YAY! A new JayeWorld Record!

Various & Sundry #24

Well, 24 Various & Sundries (sp??) for the year. WOW! Who knew I had that much miscellaneous nonsense to share? Here is the last one.

Projects

I didn’t do a ‘Hey! Make these Projects for Christmas post’ because my theory is that if you haven’t already started by December, it isn’t going to happen. That is the way it works for me. And I actually was invited to parties this year, so I didn’t have much time to sew on the weekends, which is when I get the majority of my sewing done.

As a result, you can start on your gifts for next year. Sue Astroth has a cool chess board posted on her blog. The spray painting makes it a bit too much work for me, but I like the idea.

Quiltin’ Jenny took up the gift bag banner this year. I was a slacker and didn’t harangue about that pet project. Did you make gift bags? Let’s see them!

Quilt World News

The Pantone Color Institute has come out with their signature color for 2012: Tangerine Tango. Read the story on the Always Quilting (Australia) blog.

FunQuilts is becoming Modern Quilt Studio. They have a post about their upcoming schedule on a recent Craft Nectar post. Their new studio will again be in the basement of their home and Weeks has been keeping a diary of the renovations.

Do you know Pinterest? It is a great way to wile away the hours. There is also a great trick to find out who has pinned what pictures from your site. Adrianne over at Little Bluebell posted the tip last week. Check out who has pinned pictures from Artquiltmaker.com/blog!

My Boxing Day Sew-in post was featured on Creating the Hive. I don’t know why, but it is a thrill when they feature one of my posts. I guess I feel like my writing is validated in some way. Not that I need it to be validated, of course.

Quiltin’ Jenny has joined the SeamedUp team. Check out the announcement.

Fabric and Supplies

The week before Christmas felt like hell at work. All the vendors wanted everything done by the end of the year. Management wanted everything done by the end of the year and I wanted to bury my head in the sand. I tried very hard to buy fabric and somehow just couldn’t achieve it. Camille Roskelley kindly posted a picture of her new fabric line. I asked her to send me some…

Wouldn’t these 1920s designs make great fabric for bags and pillowcases?

Do you stock up on thread per pound when you find it? Do you use mystery fiber thread with your 100% cotton LQS quality fabric? I really liked this thread snob essay. Now, don’t get shirty about the word ‘snob.’ It is a perfectly good word in certain cases. Read the essay, tell me what you think.

There is also a review of Aurifil thread on the KikiSews blog. I liked the way she talked about what needle she used and other such details.

I heard about Quilting by Celia from the Katie’s Quilting Corner podcast. I was tempted to go and take a look because of the promise that she had investigated several methods of making half square triangles. Nice blog. She does lots of blocks, which you know I love. I am also amazed at the people doing the Orca Bay mystery challenge. The steps seem daunting – ‘make 350 HSTs’. Yikes! I would read that and run away screaming.

Design

Weeks Ringle posted about negative space on her blog recently. This post probably relates to their new Transparency book (which nobody has seen fit to send me yet. 🙁  ) While negative space isn’t, as of yet, officially part of the design series I am doing with Sandy, it is an important concept and I will at least mention this post in the Design Resources section.

Not Quilt Related

I liked this list of things to stop doing. They were all reasonable and doable to me.

Block-a-Long #36: Stacks & Line

Stacks & Line #36
Stacks & Line #36

I find it fascinating how many blocks can be designed using squares and rectangles. This is another block that uses squares and rectangles and five great fabrics.

The Stacks & Line #36 rotary cutting directions are straightforward.

If you have made blocks or a quilt from these patterns, please post a link in the comments section of the relevant block or on the AQ Block-a-Long Flickr group. I would love to see what you have made.

Boxing Day Sew In (BDSI)

BDSI Button
BDSI Button

Welcome BDSIers!

Just so you know: I am not writing this at 3am. I am sleeping, but I scheduled this to post at 3am for you crazy people 😉 who live in different timezones and are already up and sewing.

Other organizers and participants:

Sandy of Quilting…for the Rest of Us. Sandy has a post or two up about #BDSI already. She is the main gal, so head over to her site for all of the instructions and excitement!

Pam of Hip to Be a Square Podcast. If you don’t listen to her podcast, you should. If nobody can make you sew, Pam can.

Tanesha of Crafty Garden Mom. Love her podcast, especially the book reviews.

Sandy of Quilt Cabana Corner. Sandy has a book out. Have you seen it?

Katie of Katie’s Quilting Corner. Katie has made the most amazing progress in her short career as a quiltmaker. If you look “all in” up in the dictionary, you will see Katie’s picture next to the definition.

There will be prizes.

Giveaway #1
Giveaway #1

Sandy and Pam are organizing all that and I am just contributing. I want people to have fun, but I don’t want to do too much work. Mostly I am lazy. After racing around for 3 weeks with holiday preparations, houseguests, having a cold and not sleeping, with a sprinkle of major baking on top, I am tired.

Here is some info about when #BDSI starts at which locations. This chart/information is completely cribbed from Sandy’s post. She did such a good job, I only had to edit it a bit. 😉 Thanks, Sandy.

BDSI Giveaway #2
BDSI Giveaway #2

To help you with the time zone math–starting at midnight at Sandy’s house means that BDSI starts at:

7:00 p.m. Dec. 25 in Honolulu (PST)
9:00 p.m. Dec. 25 in San Francisco (PST)
5:00 a.m. Dec 26 in London
6:00 a.m. Dec 26 in Berlin
2:00 p.m. Dec 26 in Tokyo
4:00 p.m. Dec 26 in Sydney
And, Sandy says, “24 hours is 24 hours no matter where on the globe you’re standing. So, for some of you, BDSI will be ending on December 27th. And that’s OK with me.” We on the West Coast will get an extra 3 or 5 hours, though fat lot of good it will do those of us visiting the rellies or sleeping.

Boxing Day Sew-In will officially end again at midnight EST–as soon as December 26 ends at Sandy’s house (frigid North) –24 hours of fun! Giveaway winners will be announced on December 27th.

Sandy writes “(Thanks to The World Clock time zone converter at www.timeanddate.com, ’cause I sure can’t do that math myself!)” I added San Francisco and Honolulu, because SF is a very important city and who doesn’t love Hawaii?

Follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #BDSI. Even if you do not have a Twitter account, you can go to Tweetchat, enter the #BDSI hashtag and follow the tweets. People have already been tweeting.

____________________________________________

Now to the fun stuff:

I think I am going to continue to work on the Stepping Stones. I have boatloads of Half Square Triangles (HSTs) to make. I have been using the Triangle Technique, but would like to try Katie’s fish technique again. I have done it before, but it has been awhile. The site where she found the Fish ‘template’ does not have a template for the size of HSTs I need and I don’t want to take the time to make one. Perhaps for another project.

I also received some pizza fabric with which I want to make some pillow cases for the Young Man. My mom made him a Food Quilt (yes, he will end up with two eventually) with a pizza border, so I thought some pizza fabric pillowcases would be a nice addition. We’ll see if I get to that. Perhaps in between HSTs.

I also have the G block for the A-B-C Challenge to make

I could do anything on the 26 Projects list and make progress, so the ‘future is wide open’ as that song says.

I have pillowcases planned for the nieces as well.

Never a dull quiltmaking moment around here!

Hope you enjoy BDSI! Look for the Block-a-Long block tomorrow.

Inspiration Saturday

Church St Flowers
Church St Flowers

I was walking the wrong way down Church Street trying to find a shop I had never visited. I happened upon this little flower shop and was charmed. The display is wonderful!

Church Street Cabbages
Church Street Cabbages

I am pretty sure (not being a plant person and all) that these are cabbages. They look like roses and I love them.

Creative Prompt #136: Holly

Heigh Ho, The Holly
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the green holly;
most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the green holly:
most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
~William Shakespeare

Holly Golightly

holly tree

European holly

Holly Springs (place in Jan Karon’s Mitford series)

holly berries

Holly Hobbie

Buddy Holly

Mt. Holly

Definition: Ilex is a genus belonging to the family of the Aquifoliaceae, native of Afro-Eurasia, Australia and the Americas, established by Carl Linnaeus. It has over 300 species in the subtropical regions of both hemispheres. The genus includes species of trees, shrubs, and climbers, with evergreen or deciduous foliage and inconspicuous flowers. The genus was more extended in the tertiary and many species have adapted to laurel forest habitat. Ilex is adapted from sea level to more than 2000 meters with high mountain species. Ilex are dioecious and have smooth, glabrous, or pubescent branchlets. The plants are generally slow-growing but over time can reach more than 10 m. The genus name is derived from the Latin (Acer = acute & folium = leaf). Many are evergreen tree with some species growing to 25 m tall. Type species is mediterranean Ilex aquifolium described by Linnaeus

Originally the name of “ilex” was that of the european species (Ilex aquifolium ), many representatives of the genus Ilex were also called by the common name Holly because of the obvious resemblance. In Roman times, the Roman people in Latin language originally designated as Ilex the evergreen oak, named today scientifically (Quercus ilex). The leaves of the Holly actually recall those of the oak.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog, and how your work relates to the other responses.

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created that spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted.

Stepping Stones Revised

Stepping Stones Revised
Stepping Stones Revised

The only quiltmaking I have gotten done in the past few days is in my head and on EQ. I decided I would rather have a self border on Stepping Stones. I thought the border they had looked nice, but a bit unfinished. This is the current border I am planning on making.

TFQ pointed out that the green in the border looks good in the border, because I have more green in the center blocks in the EQ drawing. I have to make sure that I have enough green in the actual quilt.

I am at the difficult point in this quilt where I am over it, so I need to make some progress so i don’t have to add it to the 26 Projects list. I hope to make some progress, even a miniscule amount today or tomorrow so I feel like I am actually sewing. There is a possibility since all of my houseguests are gone until Christmas Eve and it is some kind of rule that I can’t sew on Christmas, so it is ok that they will be here. They may not even sleep in my guest/workroom since they hate walking up the 3 flights of stairs. Perhaps I’ll pretend I am doing last minute wrapping and go sew. 😉

Spiderweb Revisited

Spiderweb
Spiderweb

One thing I have learned (or hope I have learned)is that projects get stale for me. This means that I need to focus on them, get them done and move on. Have I said this before? I think so. I am reiterating it here.

I have a stack of various sized strips I have been saving for this project. The longer they sit around, the easier it is for me to forget why I am saving them and the other day I thought I would just send them off to Katie. Then, I remembered why I am saving them and the big problem with finishing this quilt.

1. I have too many blocks. What do I do? Make a giant quilt that comfortably seats 12?
or
make a normal sized quilt and put the extra blocks in the Children’s Quilt Project bin at EBHQ?

2. The border. I want to use the self bordering technique, but I need to sit down and figure out how that will work with this pattern and paper piecing. I just have to do it. I never seem to do it.

I really want this quilt off my mind, so…

Soon, I promise.

Block-a-Long #35: Floorplan

Floorplan #35
Floorplan #35

I couldn’t think of a good name for this, but Floorplan came to mind and it kind of fits. This has more pieces, but is still pretty straightforward and I am providing the Floorplan rotary cutting directions.

This block would look good with five fabrics, but you could also use four.

If you have made blocks or a quilt from these patterns, please post a link in the comments section of the relevant block or on the AQ Block-a-Long Flickr group. I would love to see what you have made.