ALYOF: November Finish

Well, I didn't finish my main goal (piecing the remainder of baby's stars).

But I did have other finishes and progresses.

Finished the 20" Lone Star.
 

Finished the Hope Star, made with bonus HST from the Pieces of a Hope Autism "Hugs n Kisses" quilt.

Yes, baby boy wanted to see the new quilt and colors and what mommy was doing. He's trying to stand up on his own already!

 

I can definitely see the things I would do differently next time:

--Put a narrow white border around the quilt before putting on the last green puzzle-pieces border.

--On the sides, break up the squares of the green word prints into rectangles, so that one rectangle will go underneath the last block (green, block, green, block, green...white lattice sash)

--Probably do that same thing a bit more on the top and bottom too (a green spacer between the blocks and white lattice

Finished the top for the ModaLove Mini-Charm quilt, made with a "Paradiso" by Kate Spain mini-charm pack. It is finishing at about 18" square, after a 1 1/2" border. Pink seems to be the prominent color in Paradiso, so I went with a pink border, and I pulled the FQ of the pink Arcadia print from Daydreams to be the backing.

The original ModaLove star pattern (peeking out from behind the quilt top) is a free pattern by Moda....with which they had a fun blog hop a few months ago. Each designer by the Moda brand chose a collection of theirs to spotlight the pattern. Kate Spain used her "Horizon," Minick and Simpson used "Lexington", etc. The pattern includes instructions for versions in a mini-charm, charm, and layer cake sizes. How cool is that--three patterns in one, and all free!

If you want to make your own Moda Love  quilt, click for the free pattern PDF :

Moda Love

The pattern is a one-block quilt, made of squares and HST units. So once you piece, press and trim the HST units and trim the squares, it goes together rather quickly!

This month, I've been working on Paradiso, another one in Sunnyside charms, and another in Solstice mini-charms.

One thing that I thought that I'd play with, is that the pattern only uses 30 of the 42 charms. I've been designing ways to use the last 12 charms in the quilt. The easiest thing, so far, was to make more HST, cut a few more background squares, and add another ring. That's what I've done with Paradiso: look at the aqua-colored addition in the mini-charm pattern. I have used my Quilt Pro and coloring in a grid on the pattern, to design with. I think I have one more design that I'd like to sketch, too, and trying to decide which ones I like best.

 

I also got another Plumeria cut and basted (for a pillow this time).

I followed the Quiltmaker 100 Blocks Volume 10 blog tour.

Baby boy and I got bad colds and mine turned into a sinus infection (no big surprise, but yay for antibiotics).

Baby boy grew 3 new teeth in November (one popped up today!)

Whew!

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes with  www.SewBittersweetDesigns.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dinner made, eaten, cleaned up (pots and pans are left, because hubby promised to wash some), kids in bed. I've got my feet up and I'm catching up on the news of the day.

I'm just going through my mountain of email newsletters about Black Friday sales, to see if there's anything I need and can get for my Christmas. Tee-hee!

Blog hopping with Quiltmaker

Hi!

This week, I'm hopping along on the blog tour with Quiltmaker, for their 10 Volume of 100 Blocks! I've collected all the volumes so far...they are great inspiration and everyone is so talented!

I don't have much energy right now, so sitting in a comfy chair and blog hopping on my phone is easy. Baby and I are both sick with yucky colds.

Today I am grateful for ice cream shakes, soup, hot apple cider and peppermint cocoa, DayQuil and soft quilts to cuddle with.

2-Day Mystery Sale for Supplies at Craftsy

Craftsy is having a Mystery Sale on supplies ! I really enjoy shopping for supplies with Craftsy. They have great prices, fast shipping, and carry lots of products.

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I'm thinking of a layer cake for me, or some yardage of Kona solids.......

HST trimming

Hi!

The temperature is hanging just above freezing, the baby is napping, J. and S. are in school. I'm catching up in episodes of Castle and trimming piles of HST from Solstice, Paradiso, and Sunnyside by Kate Spain.

I found a cream-on-cream calico that reminds me of pine needles, to go as background with Solstice.

I'm using bleach white Kona for background with Paradiso.

I'm using a fun medium lavender solid for background with Sunnyside. I think it's perfect purple for Sunnyside, the dark purple in storm clouds right before the rain or snow hits. Or the color of the sky, right at sunset, with the last rays of the sun bouncing off the last of those clouds after the storm.

November goal

Hello November! Wow. 

Main goal:

Piece the rest of the blocks for my baby's star sampler.

Have some fun along the way!

I totally seem to be making lengthy "masterpieces" all the time....I want some fun, easy, quick projects. 

I'm planning on making some mini ModaLove stars from mini-charm packs.

I want to cut into my Solstice layer cake to make a MBS (Moda Bake Shop) Christmas tree.

I'm linking up with Sew Bittersweet Designs.

http://blog.sewbittersweetdesigns.com/?p=5179

Finishing Funk

I seem to be in this funk for the past two weeks, since finishing Plumeria and Daisies.

Have you ever finished a project in such a frantic state, looking forward to its finish for a very long time? And then having a lonely feeling of being let down afterwards when you do finally finish it? It almost seems a bit of a grieving process. And maybe it has been, since Plumeria and Daisies is a hospice quilt. I meant it to be a comfort object to help my family remember Vai and grieve. There are no negative feelings, for me, associated with it...only hope and love and good wishes. I just wish that I'd finished it sooner, so that Vai could have enjoyed it longer before she passed.

Plumeria and Daisies occupied most of my thoughts and quite a bit of my life for the past five months. I guess I've felt kind of physically and emotionally exhausted.

Vai's funeral was last Thursday, a week ago today. I wasn't able to go, because hubby was on shift and I had to juggle the kiddies' schedules myself. I was told that the family displayed the quilt right next to Vai's casket during the viewing and service. Also, that many people commented about the quilt and that is was the perfect setting for her memorial. I'm so overjoyed and humbled, that my work, love, and creativity all worked together so well that other people could see Vai and her beautiful spirit represented so well in the quilt.

Maybe the finishing funk is partially due to not being able to attend the funeral, and have a bit more closure that way.

I have tried to push on, because I have other projects in a stack to finish.

Here's the little Lone Star...just need to whip-stitch the rest of the hanging sleeve onto the back, and whip-stitch my little name label to it. 

I read the "basic quilt making" info in one of  Quiltmaker Magazines, and learned something new: you can attach a hanging sleeve along with the binding. Line up raw edges together, center the sleeve on the back of the quilt, and baste into place. Then apply the binding. After the binding is all applied, whip-stitch the other three sides to the back of the quilt. Cool !  Now my hanging sleeves will be straight and have less puckers.

And here is me prepping the binding for the turn and securing, on the HST star quilt. Finally! I like to sew the binding to the front of the quilt, then press the binding out away from the quilt. It looks a bit more crisp, and the binding more easily turns to the back of the quilt, and the binding seems to be more snug to the quilt when it's pressed out--towards the binding. More pictures later!

I've bought and cut background fabrics for ModaLove projects.

And I've started another Plumeria appliqué.