January progress, February's beginning

Happy new year!

Sorry that I'm late in wishing you a great new year! I'm hoping to feel better enough that I can get more done and create some more finishes.

This past month of January, my goal was to finish quilting the two mini ModaLove quilts.

I've also been able to spend more time quilting, more days of this past month, than I have in a very long time. I haven't been feeling well for such a long time, and I'm trying to push through it.

The other part of my goal for January was to finish the quilting on the Autism Swoon for my son. I didn't finish, but I feel like I'm making a lot of progress. 

A couple of weeks ago, after I pulled it out, my son came  this up to me and said "Mom, are you going to finish my quilt now? I really need a bigger quilt before I'm a big teenager!"

I laughed and asked "Did you just remember about it, or did you see that I pulled it out to work on it again?"

"I see you're working on it again! When will it be done?"

He just turned 10, and the baby just turned 3, so that means I've been working on this quilt for just over 3 years. Yikes.

This big quilt is really heavy, because my husband insisted that I use double batting. Not only will it be warm, but it will feel a little like a weighted blanket, which has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety in people with autism.

This is great, but it's also made it difficult and slow and energy-zapping to push and pull it through my little Bernina to quilt it. Sometimes it just hasn't been fun, and sometimes I've wanted to cry. I haven't touched it for at least a year or more, because my health problems have zapped my energy and motivation and mental health. I know what's going on now, and trying to get treatment, so I'm determined to finish this quilt!

Little bits

Ok!

Finished some parts of things the past few days.

#PatSloan2015

Mystery quilt along:

Finished month 8: Salt Water Taffy border

So cute! I used the last of my two fat quarters of the cute butterfly/dandelion on pale purple (fabric #2 in the fabric palette) to alternate with the background solid.

Finished Month 9: Ferris Wheel block

Tonight, I finished up the backing on the mini-quilt #ModaLove made with a Kate a Spain Solstice mini-charm pack.

These rectangles are what's left after cutting all the charms for the Kate Spain Christmas charm swap. There's mostly Solstice, and the white/red snowflake print is from Jingle, this year's Christmas collection. Then I filled in with spacers of solid red from Legacy Studios. I really really adore Solstice and Jingle prints.

Now I just need to decide if I'm making a mini-quilt for the wall, or a Christmas pillow. It is roughly 20" square.

How do you vote: quilt or pillow?

More backing

I have my cutting space back! Piles of fabric meant for quilt backing take a lot space.

Remember this one? ModaLove charm pack quilt with Kate Spain's Sunnyside. 

Is it just me, or did the star grow more into a bear paw, when I added the rest of the charms? (The pattern calls for 30 charms to be used, and Moda charm packs have 42 pieces, so I wanted to use the leftover 12 charms.)

The back is made with Kate's Daydream Cadence print, plus two strips of the lilac background solid, and a large strip of Sunnyside Celestial that's leftover from the top's border.

I just love that the colors from Kate's different collections play so well with each other.

#ModaLove

#KateSpain

#ShowMetheModa

Mini Solstice

Finally!

I've finally finished piecing together the mini-charm Moda Love star with Solstice by Kate Spain!

And now, I think it needs a border. But I can't decide what to use.

Solid red?

Either of the green prints from Solstice?

Or frozen grey winter branches ?

Or solid red?

Hmmm.

I know I've been MIA lately....I just get so little done each day, that I don't feel like I have progress to share.

Hubby's been sick, we're both working (he's working two jobs), getting ready for Christmas, dentist appts, and trying to make time for me and my hubby in between.  Hey, we finally got Hunger Games and Catching Fire, so watching those took up two evenings of mini-date, with no sewing for me.

I need to fit in some time to read the Hunger Games series, now that I've seen 2 of the 3 movies. Sometimes movies are so different than their books, that I often prefer to watch movies first. That way, I'm not sitting during the whole movie, waiting for scenes from the book, critiquing dialogue, getting frustrated with stuff that's changed or cut out. I just enjoy the movie.

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.