June - A Lovely Year of FInishes

I am jumping back into A Lovely Year of Finishes hosted by my friend Melissa at Sew Bittersweet Designs and Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts.  I know I missed the last couple of months, though they were for good reasons I am ready to jump back into sewing which makes me so very happy.

So my goal is to complete my Michael Miller Challenge for the Modern Quilt Guild.  I finally finished my top so it needs to be backed, quilted, and bound before the deadline.

I know, not the best picture, but my camera has gone mia, ugh.  The back is already pieced so I need to clean off the dining room table to baste it.  Still on restrictions; no bending, lifting, twisting, reaching... so this will be interesting.  At least I am able to be back a my machine from almost a month off.

A Lovely Year of Finishes - January

I hopped on board A Lovely Year of Finishes again this year.  I loved having that extra push to finish up projects.  This month I chose to finish up a triangle dinosaur quilt that I had been putting off forever.  I had the fabrics sitting in a pile since the summer and just never got around it it.  I chopped them up finally at the end of December.

January Goal

So at the beginning of the month I sat down and finished up this quilt top and even a second top just because... I mean I had the fabrics already and why not make two when it is so easy as this one.  A good back up for anther baby.  (Which has already been claimed)

I quilted this with simple straight lines, just a presser foot width from the seam lines.  It adds such a fun pattern to the quilt.

It is bound with a fun stripe that complements the colors on the front.

I pulled a fun red chevron for the back.

The quilting looks pretty cool on it, too.  it is kinda busy, but that's ok with me.

Tumbling Dinosaurs
31" x  36"
Cotton Fabrics
Pellon 80/20 blend batting

A Lovely Year of Finishes - October FInish

I finished my October A Lovely Year of Finishes project pretty early in the month.  I am pretty thankful I did because this has been such a crazy month.  I chose this wedding gift that I didn't get done before the wedding.

I fully completed the hand stitched project for my friends Kayce and Brad.  I was in their wedding last month, they are such a cute couple.  The orange ribbon hanging it is from my bouquet from their wedding, seemed perfect to use.

Now to just put it in the mail, I am kinda a slacker sometimes (which explains the fact I didn't write this post or link it until 13 minutes before the deadline! oops)

A Little Hand Stitching

Last week I had a little down time from sitting at my machine and being able to move too much so I sat and finished my goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  I completed the stitching part of project that is a wedding present for a friend whose wedding I was in a couple weeks ago.

Now to clean up my edges and finish off the back.  I will be adding a ribbon to hang it by that was on my bouquet from the wedding.  Can't wait to mail it out!

Congrats to my friends, Kayce and Brad and their little one Orion.  Such a happy family.

And the obligatory college friends picture needed from any wedding :)

A Lovely Year of Finishes - September finish

Wooo... September ended so quickly that I wasn't sure that I was going to make it with my A Lovely Year of Finishes goal.  But... I did it!  Last night I was able to finish my project of making a bunch of pillows by cutting up a quilt.

My ALYoF goal photo

I had started this pillow project a couple weeks ago.  First I had to take off the binding so I could save it to re-bind what was left.  I then drew out all my lines so I could cut out all the pieces I needed.

From the king size quilt I made 2 euro shams, 2 standard shams, 4 throw pillows, and re-bound the quilt to make it a throw of 54" x 60".

I up loaded the photo above at the wire to make sure I made it in on time, but took the photo below today for a better view.  I am super happy with how they all came out.

A Lovely Year of FInishes - August

Not even the end of the month and I have already finished my goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  Can you believe it?!?  I am so excited to say that the 4 memory quilts that I have been working on for the past 2 months are completed and to their homes.  Part of the quilts were my July goal (July finish) and then the rest was my August goal (August link).

Fair Warning - this post has a ton of pictures for these 4 quilts.

Quilt 1 alternates between a block with 2 - 4.5"x8.5" bricks and a block 4 - 2.5"x8.5" strips. It is quilted .25" outside the seam of each block.

  

Quilt 2 alternates between a block with 2 - 4.5"x8.5" bricks and a block 4 - 4.5"x4.5" squares.  It is quilted .25" outside the seam of each block.  

Quilt 3 is done in the subway tile pattern.  Each tile is 4.5" x 8.5 ".  I quilted on both sides of the seam of each row.

Quilt 4 is done with 2.5" strips and 2.5" squares.  This idea came from a quilt I saw while searching through quilts on pinterest and through the necessity of using the pieces that I had.   It is stay stitched periodically in the ditch across the quilt and then 7 pairs of vertical lines are quilted into the quilt, too.   In the end, I think this one turned out to be my favorite.

Each quilt is different because the 4 recipients of the quilts had their own special relationship with their mom so I felt they deserved different quilts.  I made sure to put special pieces of the clothing into each quilt, saving as much of the embroidery as possible.

All 4 quilts do have the same backing, a pretty leaf print.

I had a helper when I was trying to take pictures.  Spooky, my neighbor's super friendly cat, came to check out the quilty fun.  

Can't wait to link up at the end of the month and see what everyone else has finished for A Lovely Year of Finishes this month.

August Already!

Wow, hard to believe it is already a week in to August.  This summer is really flying by and I feel like I haven't spent nearly as much time sewing as usual.  But I have been enjoying my time away.  You see, I have two little guys that love to take up my time.  My nephews are so much fun and I eat up every minute spent with them.

On the sewing front, I started quilting the memory quilts.  All four need to be done by the 17th, I think I can get them done, I just need to really get to work.  One is now fully quilted, two are ready to quilt, and the last top is still not fully together, but being worked on.  I am just straight line quilting these, I like the simplicity of the quilting on them.

Chris and I have been doing arts and crafts (or arts and craps if you ask him).  We did cutting, gluing, water painting and played with glitter.  But I think his favorite was making play dough.  I let him mix everything himself and choose the colors while his big brother was fishing with mommy and grandpa.

I also took some time to do some hexi sewing at the beach while the boys played and my sisters ran around with them.

And became the coolest Aunt ever when I was able to make the boys flags for their castles.  (Totally worth using some hexi fabric for!)

 Such fun times with my guys!  (And of course my sisters at the beach!)  Sad to see the end of the summer is near and that Matt will be starting 3rd grade soon.  

So I guess I should go and get some sewing in before the sun comes back out and I feel the need to relax in the pool.

A Lovely Year of Finishes - July FInish

So happy to say that I more than completed my goal for the month of July.  Not only did I complete the pattern test top, which I love and used my special NJ fabrics for (pics soon I promise) but I finished 3 of the 4 memory quilts and they are already backed and basted!  The last one is partially sewn and the top will most likely be done by the end of the week.  

I chose a subway tile pattern for one of the quilts.  Honestly, I love that there are no corners to match with this pattern.   

Then, I used the same pieces from the subway tile quilt to make squares to go with the next two quilts.  I used strips in the one and patchwork squares in the other.

The last quilt that is in pieces is made with the strips, and longer ones, from the second quilt.  I tried to tie all the quilts together as much as possible without making them exactly the same.

Now to finish the last one and quilt them all.  Think I will make the deadline of August 17?