Goal Setting

It's time for the February goal for the One Monthly Goal blog. Heck, it's past time. I'm barely getting it posted in time. 

I'm going to have two goals for this month.  

First one up is my Calendar quilt from Country Piecemakers guild in Powhatan, Va. 

All of the calendar challenge quilts will be hung at the Mid Atlantic Quilt show at the end of February.  My deadline is to have it done in 3 days so I can turn it over at the CP meeting on Saturday.  Looking at this picture I've decided the window is too small. And, some of the presents need to be changed.  The tree is hand appliquéd and the other elements are ready to be appliquéd.  Hopefully by the end of today I'll have the quilt batted and backed.  I plan to do a little stitch in the ditch around the elements.  And then it will be on to decorating it. 

My next goal for this month is to quilt and bind my heart table runner from last year. 

Maybe I'll have it done before Valentine's Day.  If not at least it would be done and ready for next year. 

I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts February Goal Setting post and Midweek Makers.  Spend some time looking at what people are working on these days. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 3 - 19 - 2018

This past week I've spent quite a bit of time working on the Tee shirt quilt.  I'm now to the point that I can trim each shirt to the exact measurements and start to sew them together.  I'll check with my customer to see if I can post some pictures soon.  

Here's a finish I haven't shared yet.  I've named it Dog Talk.  Faithful Circle Quilters in Columbia, Maryland gave each participant a brown bag with fabrics.  The challenge was to use the fabrics given and somehow incorporate the alphabet too.  I believe I got my bag last May at the spring quilt retreat.  I spent a lot of time mentally planning and by early January I was ready to start.  You can see my original design idea here along with the bag of fabrics.   Before the end of the month I was done with the top.  The white  is a white on white alphabet fabric. Too cool. 

  
My January One Monthly Goal -- was to get the top all together. You probably saw my progress on the embroidered words I put on it. Today, I realized I never shared the finished quilt. (Nor several other finished quilts. What was I thinking??) 

This is a busy quilt.  Lots of different dog fabrics and lots of different blues.  And here's the back.  A friend told me she liked the back the best. She might have a point as it's not quite so busy.  I tried hard to use up all of the blue fabric from the bag.  I probably still have a few pieces but not much. I notice I make dog quilts frequently.  What can I say, I am a dog person.  Cats? Not so much.  Do you have a favorite dog? 

I've been getting my quilts entered in the FCQ quilt show.  I've got to decide on one more quilt before the deadline tonight.  The one above will be in a special section showing other alphabet quilts.  These quilts will go to the Columbia, MD chapter of Project Linus. 

Tomorrow I'll share my goals.  I've done a great job on them from my point of view!  

That's it for today.  I'm linking up with my regular linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, and Moving It Forward.  I'm looking forward to spending some time seeing what other folks are doing this week.  I've been swamped, or maybe just more dedicated to actually working on quilts rather than looking at quilts.  But today, I'm taking time to just look and comment. I hope you do too. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

One Monthly Goal Success!

Yes! I finished my OMG this month.  I wanted to get my alphabet challenge quilt top made.  Check that off of my to do list√.  It should get on Ruthie today as I finished the backing fabric also. 

And a close up of one of my favorite dog fabrics.  And, look closely at the white square under the doggy print.  Yep, a white on white with letters on it.  I got that up in Lancaster county when I was on retreat last May. It works perfectly in this challenge.  

This will be quilted with dog paws.  I've changed my mind (several times) about how I would get some words on it.  I'll keep you posted. Do you participate in quilt challenges? 

It's time for me to get to work here in the studio.  I'm linking up with Elm Creek Quilts and Mid Week Makers over at Quilt Fabrication.  Join me as I do a bit of quilt blog surfing.  I might find something new I need to make. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

January OMG Choice

I'm squeaking in just before the deadline for the January OMG.  I couldn't decide what to work on and then BOOM, it hit.  I have a brown bag challenge quilt to get done -- in a month or so.  Not that I haven't had the fabric for 6+ months. I believe the challenge is called "The Alphabet Challenge."  I've been considering it in the back of my head for a while.  In fact, I bought the cutest white on white alphabet fabric to use.  

My first thought was to do various sports letters to look somewhat like a crossword puzzle.  Um, too many letters are repeats -- lots of balls involved.  Plus when I went to the stash all the sports themed fabric I thought I had came down to one small piece of fabric that wouldn't fit the size I wanted to make the blocks.  Toss that idea. 

Next up was dog theme.  Checked the stash and yep, I have dog themed fabrics.  (The blues on the left, bottom and right came in the bag.  Not big pieces and not much variety.) I can augment from the stash. 

On to words -- well why not dog talk: yip, arf, bark, woof.  You get the idea.  So I decided to try the design in EQ and see how big it could be and how many blocks I would need. 

Ok.  Decided that would work once I changed the four patches from all blue to blue and white.  I could appliqué the letters on the white parts and get the results I had in my mind. 

Except my brain continued to work overnight.  I woke up this am and thought perhpaps I'll just put the words on the outside border.  I was planning on using the light fabrics on the bag in the picture above for the letters.  I even have an alphabet to use.  Today I'll refigure the quilt so I can put letters on the border. Hum, maybe I could do a big quilting stitch and just stitch the words.  More to consider...after I get the center done. 

So the OMG is to get this top pieced.  If I get it quilted and bound, all the better. It'll be displayed at the FCQ show in the spring and then donated to Project Linus.   

Are you living in the frozen zone?  The last two days the morning temp has been 0º.  Yep, you read that right. Needless to say the studio is a great place to be right now.  I keep the heat up and stay busy so I'm a happy camper.  We did go out the last few mornings for our normal workouts at the community clubhouse. 

Want to go swimming? 

If you click on the close up it will enlarge and you might be able to see that the fountain in the center is still on and throwing water up.  The ground view of this is what we see as we doing our workouts.  This is very unusual weather for Fredericksburg, Va.  I'm looking forward to later next week when it'll be in the 50's -- maybe the 60's.  

Do you live where the weather can change drastically in  a few days?  

I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilt's One Monthly Goal January link up.  

Happy quilting all!  Bonnie 

Finishes to Share!

I've got two finishes to share today.  (Mostly because I forgot to show the table runner -- it's been done since early January!)

First up is this table runner.  If you remember it was an easy mystery that Sharon shared with my local guild.  Super fun and most people got it done pretty quickly.  A few of us had to finish it at home, which I did, eventually.  You can see more about it here.  I was really pleased with the quilting design I put on each of the stars which you can see somewhat on the finished table runner. I used a blue butterfly fabric on the back thinking I might be able to use that side every once and a while.  But, honestly, it just isn't all that exciting.

I also finished the Cuddly Creatures Challenge quilt.  Faithful Circle Quilters had been given a lot of fabric that was divided  up in paper bags.  Participants were able to pick one bagful of fabric (sight unseen) to make a quilt that is going be donated to Project Linus. Hum, my "cuddly creatures" were hummingbirds, in three or four different color ways. And, strawberries in a couple of different color ways, and flowers.  Definitely not my idea of Cuddly Creatures.  Not even my idea of great kid fabric.   You've seen the quilt several times over the last month or two.  I added some extra fabric from my stash and a whole lot of Kona cotton in a neutral color.  I am tickled with the end result.  I pieced the back with the leftover fat quarters.  Voila! The finished quilt. I bought a new edge to edge pattern called Feather Boa. I used a tan So Fine thread.  You should be able to click on any of these pictures to enlarge them.

I've been trying to get more things done on my to-do list this week with some success despite being in Maryland for most of the week. I am hoping to get my February OMG quilt on the frame to quilt over the weekend. 

I'm linking up with Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday hosted by Sunlight in Winter Quilts, Fabric Frenzy at Fort Worth Fabric Studio and Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  Can I just add I LOVE the orange fabrics being shown at Fort Worth Fabric Studio!  But I'm not buying any -- I need to use fabric, rather than buy fabric!

I spent from Sunday to Thursday with Jenny and the grands.  Jenny was suppose to work on President's Day but the University was closed because of snow.  Her hubby's on a long work trip.  She had a lot of important meetings this week and didn't want to have to cancel them for sick children.  Grammy to the rescue!  Here's Sophie being led astray by Grammy.  Did you know Goldfish crackers fit in the mouth of a triceratops perfectly?  

Happy Quilting All!  

Monday Meanderings 2 - 1 - 2016

Zoom -- there went January. On to February!  I finished 2 small quilts -- Saturday I shared the little wall hanging.  Later this week I'll share the table runner I finished last Friday.  Not the biggest finishes this month.  

Here's what is really on my design wall.  I had to shove around some of the little antique 9 patches to make enough room to get good photos of these two projects. 

First, the Seattle Sea Hawk blocks for Irma, a member of the FCQ EQuilters.  She asked us to make these as she plans to make a quilt for a friend who is a big Sea Hawks fan.  I hope to get 10 made and sent by the end of February.  I cut two more blocks last night. 

This is the block for the next charity challenge quilt from fabrics given to me by the Maryland guild.  Remember this quilt? I had saved more masculine fabrics to do another quilt.  This is the pattern.  I'm mixing in quite a few of my own fabrics to get a more masculine feel.  The blue and the cream will be the same in all the blocks. What I'm just thinking -- could I actually cut the blue as a square? Probably not based on the way it is constructed.  Oh well.   Now to just find time (and room) to cut out the fabrics.  Here's why I say this: 

The disaster of the cutting table.  The box has been emptied and some contents thrown away or recycled.  Maybe if I actually cut out the above quilt I would have less scattered across this table.  You can see some lime green for the Sea Hawks blocks too.  

Perhaps I should include cleaning off the cutting table in the goals for the week! 

January 25, 2016

Quilt Two Customer Quilts √ one done, the other started.

Finish quilting patriotic table runner√

Finish 2^nd little antique 9 patch quilt√ need borders still

Finish patriotic table runner (bind)√

Finish quilting and binding OMG top√

And coming up this week... 

February 1, 2016

Finish quilting 2 customer quilts (one from last week and a new one.)

Put borders on two antique 9 patches

Pick the next OMG

Quilt one of my quilts

Clean off cutting table

Cut out next charity challenge quilt

Just as a side note check out this post of Sarah's from Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  She's showing a different 9 patch quilt every Sunday for 6 weeks as part of her Nifty Nines Quilt Along.  I love this one and need to figure out when I can make it.  I have a lot of 2.5" squares already cut -- all I would have to do is cut a background fabric.  It is a great way to use up all those squares I keep cutting.  

That's it from me.  I'm linking up with Monday Makings at Love Laugh Quilt and Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts.  

Happy Quilting All!