Design Wall Monday, Dec. 31, 2012

Another Monday, another blank design wall. I'm making good progress in getting all my fabric bits and odds and ends sorted and cut into regular sized pieces, with the leftovers going into either string or crumb containers. I really want to start life in the new apartment with a fresh and organized approach to all my fabrics, both stash and scraps and crumbs. It's a lot of work, and quite tedious, but I think I'll be glad to have it done. The only problem... I'm starting to have sewing machine withdrawal. I have all these gorgeous strips and bits, and now I want to sew something with them. LOL!! But I have promised myself that I will persevere, and get it all done.
However, I do have a picture of a finish that I can share. Nathan's quilt is done.
This is a pattern from Judy Martin's book Patchwork Among Friends. The pattern itself is called "Forever Friends". This one was so much fun to do, with all the bright colours, and the novelty prints at the center of each of the stars. It was doubly fun, because I started this at a Quilt-til-you-wilt day, sponsored by the guild back in November. I had so much fun sewing in a group, rather than by myself as I usually do. And Gail helped with the pairing of the fabric colours for the star points, the backgrounds and the center print.
I especially like this one.For the backing, I used up the last of the fish themed fat quarters that I had that were simply too cute to cut up. All three of Lisa's boys have backings made out of fabrics from this collection.Here's a close up of some of those fishy fabrics.
 
I'm Linking up to Judys' Design wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  I'm working the next 3 evenings at the hospital, but I might be able to get more ironing and sorting and cutting done before going in to work. I am determined to get that chore done, and to never let it get this bad again.
Edit: Here it is, Friday already, and I haven't had a chance to write another post. But, I'm going to kink this one to Crazy Mom Quilts, where every Friday there is a link up to celebrate our finishes. 

Full steam ahead....

My productive streak, started at the quilt til you wilt day on Saturday, has continued. I have 3 of Charlene's baby quilts finished.
Here's a sneak peak on one of them. The quilt itself is a collection of pastel dotted fabrics, in a turning twenty variation. But the quilting inspiration came from the border fabric. I had this owl design originally for a border treatment. I enlarged it, and laid it out as a pantograph. So very cute.
 And I've gotten a lot more done on Nate's quilt, as well.
The blocks are all done, and it is now in the process of being sewn together. Two rows are done, with 3 more to go.
And in other news, the construction, or maybe I should say deconstruction, for our new apartment has begun.
This lovely clean area of the basement has turned into this.












My head knows that it will all be wonderful when it is done, but hokey smokes, it is really hard to picture it at this point. And poor Matt, who works permanent nights, has been having to come over to our place, in order to get any sleep at all. Between large drills going in order to drill holes for new wiring, and jack hammers going on order to put in new plumbing, there was no way he would get any sleep over there at all.
The good news is that, from what we've seen and heard so far, the contractors and the people they use are really good. The supplies we've seen coming in a high quality. The people are friendly, and willing to answer all the questions we have had. It is going to be interesting to look back at all this in a couple of months and marvel at how a lovely living space emerged from so much mess.

Design Wall Monday, Nov. 19, 2012

I have lots to show today. Some of it from the Quilt til you wilt day on Saturday, and more from what I managed to get done yesterday.
The first thing I did on Saturday was finish sewing Jack's quilt together.
This quilt is just so much fun. It is another pattern by Judy Martin, from her book Scraps and the pattern is called "Celebration" It was supposed to have some borders put on of the checkerboard and a single row of the 3 inch novelty squares, but I decided that I like it just as it is. Here's a close up of some of the really fun fabrics.


















After finishing putting Jack's quilt together, I got a start on Nathan's. It too is a Judy Martin pattern, from her book Patchwork Among Friends.  The pattern is called Friends Forever. I've changed it out a fair bit. The pattern showed the center of the stars being the same fabric as the points, and it is lovely that way. But I wanted to be able to make it more kid friendly, so I used some 6 inch charms of novelty fabrics that I had. That also then involved changing up the sizes of all the pieces, but that's OK, too.
There are 7 more blocks to make yet. I have them cut out, and just need to sew them together. The remaining colours will break up all those darks that are currently all together at the bottom. All the empty spaces around the edge will get filled in with more 6 x 3.25 inch rectangles, leftovers from cutting the rest of the quilt. Here's the rest of the colours waiting to be sewn up.

There will definitely be some rearranging of the layout once they are all done and up and the wall.
And finally, I spent most of yesterday putting together a backing for Jack's quilt.
I have all kind of fat quarters of those fish themed fabrics. I've never been quite sure what to do with them as they are way to cute and fun to cut up. So I've decided to use them in backings. And I threw in the pieces that I'd originally made for one of the borders that I decided not to put on. All in all, a very productive weekend.
I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times where there are lots of other fun walls to look at and get inspired by.