Archive for February, 2012|Monthly archive page
It’s finished already!!
Leave a CommentOkay, not the whole quilt, but the center, anyway. Of course, that’s the easiest part, so why wouldn’t it already have been finished?!? As a reminder, I had purchased three charm packs, 1 jellyroll, 1 layer cake and 1 yard each of three of the prints (2 yellow and 1 cream) as well as 3 yards of a Kona white (Okay, it’s more like cream, but I don’t know the name.) and a Kona blue-green to match, so I could turn all this into another Swoon quilt. But, the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to work that hard to make the numbers work if I used 5″ centers instead of the called for 6.5″ centers.
Then, I saw this fantastic QAL and the alternate size of 90″ x 90″ was perfect, absolutely perfect for the fabric I already had on hand!
So here we are. The center has been completed:
and the star points are all laid out and ready to be sewn together (I’ve stacked them on top of each other. They fabrics for each are not the same, but colors are all the same as the top one.):
Those points…oy vey. What was I thinking??? I took all the 5″ cream squares and cut them on the diagonal and even cut into the matching yardage to make a few extras and then realized I needed 5-3/8″ squares. I’m an idiot. So, I had to start all over on those, used all my matching yardage plus had to cut into my background fabric to have enough squares to do the points. As I said, I’m an idiot.
Anyway, tomorrow I’ll sew those puppies up and cut up the middle of the stars and then corners and this top will be (amazingly) finished.
I am pretty positive that I cannot convey how exciting it is to complete an entire 90″ x 90″ quilt top in only 2 days. Frankly, it nearly would have been finished today, but I had to piece the back of that baby quilt (which I did manage to complete today as well)…then there was the whole cut-the-wrong-size-triangles thing. (Did I mention I’m an idiot?!?) Anyway, this will inspire me to come work on a grant tomorrow for awhile. I’ve two more due before the end of the month. One is half written, the other I haven’t started.
Run, run, run, run away
I admit it. I’m a wimp. For the last two years, if the temperature started with a 3 (anything 30 degrees F and above), I’d go out and run. Light drizzle? No problem. Snow? No worries. If it was 28F and promising to warm up to 30F or more before the end of my run? Yep, I’d go out. That was the last two years.
This year? No, not so much. Here was the weather from my iphone when I woke up:
See that? It’s above 30F. So what if it’s not sunny…right? Yeah. Right. I looked at the forecast for the rest of the day:
And thought, Ick. I don’t want to go out in that. So, there it is. I’m a wimp and my running program has totally fizzled out this year. Not only that, but it seems that exercising only once per week (so far) has helped me lose the 1-lb per week that I had as a goal, for the most part. How is that even happening?!? I mean, I ran 4-6 days per week last year and managed to lose, for the entire year, only 5 or 6 pounds. What is the deal?
So, here I sit at my desk, in my from-size-14-to-size-6 jeans-wishing-I-was-in-size-4-jeans, whining about being unmotivated. Not only that, but I’m going to go sit in front of the tv in a minute rather than sew or work. I’m pathetic.
To Swoon or not to Swoon
I had planned to make at least two more Swoon quilts, but am now rethinking this. Many other patterns have been thrown out there lately that I love and several of them fit the fabric I have much better than the Swoon, so I think I’m not going to Swoon with the fabrics that I have. That means I’ll have to buy more fabric to Swoon with.
As soon as the baby quilt I’m working on is done (tomorrow?!?), I’ll start cutting my Moda Lovely for the Made in Cherry quilt. Since I’m starting with 3 charm packs and a layer cake (as well as a jelly roll and some yardage), I won’t have to cut very much at all…which makes me ecstatic. Less cutting is always better. Here is the flickr group if you’d like to join in the QAL: Made in Cherry QAL Flickr Group. At least go look at the quilts. There are some beauties on there!
First Finish of 2012!
I did manage to complete this quilt top. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have a finish so very early in the year. It took less than two weeks to finish the whole thing. How exciting is that?!? As soon as I get the back pieced together, I’m sending it off to Christy (Army Brat Quilts on twitter and Army Brat Quilts on flickr.) to quilt on her longarm. She did a fantastic job on my first “big” quilt – it’s the top photo on her flickr page – and I’m excited to see how she ends up quilting this quilt. Did I mention I was excited? 😮 Okay, okay, here’s a not-very-good picture:
Whimsical Swoon