This or that? Opinions wanted

Hi all, it's been nice and quiet around here. Spending my time loving this little guy.

And of course his silly sister too.

I have snuck into the sewing room for a few minutes here and there. Managed to do a quick rearrange of the QST quilt. So here are my two options.
Color wash:

Or random:

Now, keep in mind random was done in about 2 minutes. I kind of just slapped everything up there as fast as I could. I would definitely tweak it before sewing.

But I've looked at these too long. I think I'm leaning one way, but I'd love to know which version you like best.

              

Guess who...

decided to make an appearance this morning after all? I'm so proud to introduce my little boy Evan.

 

I set up my wip post yesterday to auto post. Then last night my water broke and we were on our way. Evan joined us at 9:07am. He's 7lbs 4oz and perfectly healthy! 

We are both resting up and I'll respond to comments when things quiet down. Just wanted to let everyone know.

WIP Wednesday 2/8 - still waiting around

Well, another week and still no baby. That means I've still been plugging along in the sewing room. It's a good distraction and a lot easier on the body than cleaning. :)

Here's what is new this week:

I started a Retro Flowers wall hanging for Samantha's room. I have loved this quilt pattern since I first saw it. And we just got the 'big girl' furniture for her room which left some bare walls. I have a bit of fabric left over from her bed quilt so I'm using them to make a small version of this quilt to hang in there. These blocks are fairly time consuming with a lot of cutting and squaring but totally worth it!

Still in progress:


I decided to end the X block creation and pieced all of them together. This is probably the busiest quilt I've ever made. I want to do a solid double border on this to calm it down. I probably won't get out to the LQS until after the baby though so this is temporarily done.

I also started piecing my scrappy hourglass blocks into larger blocks. That way it won't be a nightmare of hundreds of little blocks when I finally finish the individual blocks. And I can also get a sense of how big it is becoming. The trick is making these blocks random. I seemed to be pulling all the same colors!

I finished putting together all the quarter square triangles for my version of this Red Pepper Quilt.  I used all the charms from Kati's Color Wheel Charm Swap.  I'm sure mine is going to be much smaller than the RPQ version. Now I need to decide on the layout. Here's my first pass. What do you think? Should I mix up all the colors? Right now it's just hurting my eyes.

And lastly, I've been attempting machine applique on my Dresdens. It looks okay, but I might still give hand applique a try and see if I like it better. Once I get a few done I'll do a few layouts of sashing options.

Waiting for quilting:
Double Wedding Ring
Kitchen Windows



I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced. Go join in too!

Free Motion Quilt Challenge February

Well, we must be getting closer to baby time because I'm starting to swell like a tick! Doctor says all is normal though so I'm plugging along.

The Free Motion Quilt Challenge has been perfect for me at this point. Small sized projects that don't take a huge amount of time. So I decided to attempt February's Challenge at Sew Cal Gal yesterday.

First off, the changes I made in my machine. I put my tension all the way down instead of up.

And I had heard from several sources (Pink Chalk Fabrics, Bunny Hill Designs, Sue Nickels - thanks Pat for loaning me the DVD!) that Microtex needles were the best to use for quilting. So I hopped over to Joann's and picked up a pack to try.

It seems to have made a difference. I started with some stippling to see what my stitches looked like.

The verdict was good! The stitches are much nicer. I think the microtex might be my go to needle for everything. Once I use up all the quilting needles I've stocked up on during sales - whoops!

So then I decided to try the feather challenge for February. Here's my first attempt.

Kinda wobbly, and some of my petals look more like whale heads than flower petals! I also have to work on my stopping and starting. I had some jumps where I thought the machine was stopped by it hadn't quite stopped yet. But overall, I'm okay with this as a first try. I will definitely give it another shot.

The feather tutorial from Diane Gaudynski was very good. I don't know how often I'll use this motif in my quilting, but I appreciate having the knowledge to make them. Definitely need to practice more. Go check out the tutorial and try it yourself!

WIP Wednesday - February 1st

Wow, February 1st?!  Alright, let's get to it.

Finishes:

I finally got my backing done for the Double Wedding Ring. Though I won't be doing any quilting until post baby (basting is a problem!). I may send this off to the quilter.

I also finished the Kitchen Windows top. You are only getting teaser pictures though. I couldn't get it to hang temporarily for photos and it was too cold, I really didn't want to go outside for pictures!


I could use some quilting ideas on this one. Right now I'm just thinking wavy line quilting across the short side?


In progress:

I managed to get done all 12 of my dresdens for the Scrappy Plate Club. Now I'm just waiting for the next set of directions. :)

Finished some more of the quarter square triangles for my color wheel charm swap quilt.

Lots more hourglasses for my scrappy quilt. I'm having a problem with all these scrappy quilts. The scraps never end, how do you decide when to stop? Right now this is still a pretty small quilt, but I feel like this one could be never ending!

And a whole bunch of blocks for my x-block quilt. This brings my total number of blocks to 72 so I'm going to start piecing them! I think I'm done making the blocks - woot woot!

I also did my 3rd free motion quilting attempt (I followed Leah Day's 2nd Quilt-a-long). My motion was a lot better on this one.

But when you look at it closely, I still have some tension issues. You can see how spikey it is. I have my tension at 10 (as high as it goes). So I guess I need to start playing with my needle and thread combos. I have a couple more resources to watch/read so hopefully that will help.

As usual, I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced. Head over and add yours to the linky party!