June Goal Setting

June?! Is it really June?  wow.  My goal for this month's ALYOF is to finish my mini quilt for #schnitzelandboominiquiltswap.

I did a test run of my Mini quilt. The inspiration was a pattern submitted to the accuquilt block design contest. Unfortunately, I don't have the woman's name and at the time I had searched for her online and couldn't find anything. If you know who designed this, please let me know, I'd love to give her credit!

I was glad I did this tester. I had some issues with trimming the quarter circles correctly and got it all figured out. So now I need to get my partners quilt done in her colors!

May Goal Completed

My May ALYOF Goal has been met! My goal was to get this top pieced. It was a tedious job but I got it done. Up top it's all basted and being quilted. Below the top is laid out so you can see it better.

I have lots to say about this quilt, the pattern and the process. I'll post about all that when I post the finish. Personal life has taken over quilting time so I just wanted to stop in and share this top!

May Goal setting

Just a quick post to set my goal for this month in A Lovely Year of Finishes. I'm working on a quilt for my mother and I got it all laid out on my design wall. My goal this month is to get the whole thing pieced! here it is up on the wall:

 

I forget the name of the pattern right now, but this is from the book Quilting Happiness.

Pink and Navy Nautical

My A Lovely Year of Finishes Goal this month was simply to quilt this Nautical quilt. I managed to do better than that and get the whole thing finished! I had been contacted by a lovely woman who wanted me to make a hot pink and navy quilt for her daughter. The baby's father is in the merchant marines! This is what I came up with:

Philly MQG had a sewing day last Sunday at Sew Smart Fabrics and I spent the afternoon getting the binding sewn down. (I might have done a little shopping too! I'll show that later.)

This quilt was inspired by the "What does the fox say" Quilt from Fresh Quilts Magazine. However, she did hers quilt as you go. That method still scares me. I pieced my top, put it all together and then
squared it up. I did wavy line quilting to go with the whole nautical theme.

My anchor is pretty large at about 16" tall. I wanted that to pop. And I machine stitched it together with a tight satin stitch. After all, this will be used by a little girl! I want it to be durable.

Overall, I'm happy with how this came out! I hope the new mom to be is happy too. Just call me the nautical quilt lady! :)  Here's the back where I pieced together some large pieces of the leftover fabric. My friend Denise was kind enough to be my quilt holder.

And my label....

I'm linking this finish to A Lovely Year of Finishes.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Girly Anchor

Pattern: Inspired by What does the Fox Say

Fabrics: Mostly In The Navy Fabric Collection By Camelot Designer Jackie Mcfee

Finished size: Forgot to measure! approx 45"x 60"??

Finished: 3/21/14

March Goal - Lovely Year of Finishes

Just a quicky post. My goal for March A Lovely Year of Finishes. I got another commission for a nautical quilt, this one navy with hot pink. I've pulled my pattern and fabrics. My goal for this month is to get the top finished!

February Goal Met!

I'm totally squeaking this one in and I can't even believe I did it! But this quilt is fully quilted!

That was the goal I set for this months LYOF. I did get to take the longarm certification class and I'm all ready to go. Unfortunately, the main hours for rental are weekday.  She can do Saturday hours but has to approve the overtime by the boss. I forgot, this stores main business is the retired set. Most of their classes are weekdays, they are even closed on Sunday! So essentially, I just wasted $50. I work weekdays. If I take time off to use the longarm that ups the cost by that lost earnings as well!

So I sucked it up, pin basted this one and machine quilted like a mad woman over the weekend!! It actually went really fast. If you can see in these terrible photos, I just did straight line quilting along the ditch but not meeting in the center. I promise I'll take better photos when it's basted. Now to remove all the pins!

So I'm linking up to the Lovely Year of Finishes at Sew Bitter Sweet Designs. :)

A goal for February

This is a very special quilt top. The goal is to give it to my grandmother who turns 93 this month. I wanted to have it quilted last month and it didn't happen. I'm setting it for my goal for a Lovely Year Of Finishes in February.

I may regret setting this as my goal since it hinges on other things. I'm signed up for the long arm certification class at my LQS and I want to do this on the longarm once I'm certified. I was signed up last month and the class was canceled. My grandmother's birthday is the 19th. I'm hoping I can get it done before then, but I have no idea what the rental schedule even looks like! So the goal is by the end of the month. It will probably be late for her b-day anyway since I'll have to bind it too. wish me luck!!

January Goal Completed - ALYOF

As my almost 2 yr old says all the time, "I DID IT". haha! It's my favorite when he does that.

My January goal  for A Lovely Year of Finishes was a small one, to finish my We Bee With It Bee Blocks.

Carol asked us to make improv blocks that contained white. I struggle with improv, but this is exactly why I love doing bees. It forces me to do things I wouldn't do for myself. And it's on such a small scale that it's manageable!

So these are my two finished blocks! I will be setting a more difficult challenge for myself next month. :) You can join in the "finishes" any month!

2014 - getting back in gear!

2013 was a year of big transitions for me personally. It took a lot of my focus away from the quilting in my life. Thankfully I seem to be settling in to my new roles and schedule and getting back to quilting like I used to.

As part of that, I am going to join the Lovely Year of Finishes for 2014 to keep me going and focused! Want to join me? Here's the link with information.

I also couldn't resist starting another bee. I love getting and sending quilty packages. And Bee quilts have so much possibility. So I'm joining in with We Bee With It on Flickr. My first goal for the year of finishes is to get my two blocks done for this month!

Carol has asked for 2 improv blocks. Improv has always been a challenge for me so this will be a good start for me. But she's also letting us basically use the colors we want. So for this I'm pulling out my scrap bin and going from there!

Here's to a more quilty 2014!!