Stress Sewing

I just spent the last 4 days stress sewing (I've decided that's a thing, according to my landlady "it sounds different" so I think it's real). As a result I pieced my second Korea-inspired top (still calling it Gung Mun) and started yet another project.

I don't know why I put these on the wall since they're all the same

This went together really fast because I made the first 15 blocks with strip piecing. In the end I made 18 because I wanted it to be a little bigger. I pieced the top on Thursday and Friday and then went over to my LQS on Saturday to get backing, batting, and thread. I picked out a binding as well but I'm feeling iffy on it so I might use something else. I know what I'm going to do for quilting, but I need to vacuum my floor before I can baste so on Saturday night I got my scrappy nine patch on instead.

This is what 432 2.5"  squares look like

This morning I started on layout. Pi doesn't like it when I spend too long messing with the design wall because it crowds her spot. She also makes super sad faces when a square falls off the wall and lands on her. Poor doggy!

She's a pretty good sport usually, though. 

This is slightly more than half of the DNPs. The empty spaces between the DNPs are going to have scrappy HSTs in them. I cut the fabric for these as well but I want to make some spray starch before I start sewing up all those HSTs.

Loki didn't feel disturbed by my sewing in the least

If I remember, I'll link this up to WIP Wednesday...

WIP Wednesday: Epic Fail

This weekend, I decided to finally finish my Fly South quilt that has been waiting to be quilted for months. So, Sunday morning I sat down and made some squiggly lines for about 2 hours.

I was quite pleased with how it was going. (ignore that chopped off point, we're talking about quilting here!)

Then I looked at the back.

T_T x 10000000000000000.2

For the first time in a long time (possibly ever) I managed to quilt in a whole slew of wrinkles and folds. I spent the entire afternoon un-quilting. Then I folded this sucker up and stuck it in the closet where I intend to leave for another few months. I think this might fall into the 'better luck next year' category...

And now, since there are only 44.5 days until my qual (eep!), I'm afraid I may have to stop all things quilty until 45.5 days from now. Possibly that whole "No Science on Saturdays" nonsense as well...

Broken Herringbone QAL Complete!

Yay! Tonight I can give this quilt to its new mom for her soon-to-be baby.

I hope she doesn't hate dogs...

Pattern: Broken Herringbone in what I'm calling the diamond layout

Fabric: mostly Puppy Park by Bella Blvd for Riley Blake Designs with white for the blocks and the ever present Kona Coal for sashing. The back is some adorable polka dots from Moda (one of the Bungle Jungle ones) that I am definitely going to get more of. For the binding I did a mix of navy blue solid and stripes because 1) I didn't have enough of the stripes and 2) I thought pure navy would be too dark.

Quilting: relatively large stippling with grey variegated thread on top and steel gray for the bobbin

Finished Size: about 38"x50"

I guess it's more like rambling squiggles than true stippling, meh

I don't have a ton to say about this quilt other than I'm surprisingly pleased with it in a number of ways. Surprised that I finished it in time. Surprised how much I like the final layout. Surprised how cute the two-color binding turned out. Surprised how even though a lot of my blocks don't line up it still looks okay. Let's just hope my coworker will be equally as pleasantly surprised as me!

I completely LOVE these polka dots!

Check out the flickr group to see how everyone else is doing on the QAL and, of course, go on over to Finish it Friday at crazymomquilts while you're at it ^_^

UPDATE: She liked it! Also, she has a dog so puppies were appropriate, lucky!

Spoke Too Soon

On Friday, I posted my 100 Quilts for Kids finish. Also on Friday, I was invited to a baby shower on Sept 20. I had decided to donate a quilt because I didn't have anyone with a baby coming up, or so I thought. It completely slipped my mind that one of my fellow anatomy TAs was not only pregnant, but due this fall (late November it turns out). Since I have already committed to donating the quilt I just finished, I am going to have to make another. Oh no, what a tragedy, I just hate making quilts... Wait.

So anyway, I'm jumping on the Molli Sparkles Broken Herringbone Quilt Along bandwagon! Hurray!

Only 2 more strip sets to go!

I'm doing 12 blocks and not really following the QAL schedule or color scheme... Does it still count if I don't do it rainbow and finish in 2 weeks? I feel as though this violates the spirit of the QAL, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Step 1: add sashing

Step 2: make strip pair

Thanks to 'No Science on Saturdays' I have gotten 2/3 of the way through making the blocks. I'm doing all 12 at the same time so after I decided on strip set orders it went pretty fast. Laying out all the strips took up my entire floor but it was important to me that I get a sufficiently scrappy feel and that every block has 6 different fabrics. Shockingly enough, I have managed to keep everything in order so far (chain piecing really helps!).

100 Quilts for Kids Finish

I am very excited to share my 100 Quilts for Kids quilt! This is my first charity quilt and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I'm strongly considering writing up a pattern for it, but first I want to see if it works well in a larger size.

It looks much better when the rows aren't upside down...

Pattern: I'm calling it 'Window to Seoul' because the inspiration came from my trip to Korea
Fabric: the background is Kona coal and the animals are a Michael Miller I believe (I tossed the selvage so now I don't know for sure...). Anyway, I got the baby animals and the green swirls as remnants from the LQS and everything else was leftovers (hence the two color binding)
Quilting: I tried out the honeycomb thing with a variegated grey thread and I love it! I will probably be doing this again
Finished Size: 38" x 48" (kind of small, but it's for a kid so I figure that's okay)

The back. Sadly, I no longer have any of those cute animals, that was the last piece *sigh*

After a quick run through the wash, I will be sending this quilt to the local children's home. It turns out they give every child that stays there a quilt so they're happy to take my donation!

And now, some links:
     Finish it Friday at crazy mom quilts
     TGIFF at quokka quilts
     100 Quilts for Kids at swim.bike.quilt

WIP Wednesday - A Long List

This semester I am implementing a strict 'No Science on Saturday' policy for my general health and well-being. This means that I now have one day a week when I'm almost guaranteed to be able to sew! This is especially nice since I just took an 11 day vacation in Denmark with my sister and have thus been neglecting my duties both in the lab and quilting. I have a lot of things to do in both arenas, but in the interest of not boring people with science, I'll only be discussing the quilty list...

1. Texas Teardrops QAL:
-top is finished!
-backing and binding are prepped
-completely undecided on quilting and open to suggestions (please!)

binding rolls are awesome ^_^

2. Window to Seoul (100Q4Kids):
-fixed the two upside down rows and then made additional changes
-finished quilting
-in the process of attaching the binding

3. Trinity Celtic Knot (wedding quilt):
-started cutting the strips!! (the whole thing is going to be strip pieced so cutting is a cinch, I could actually see jelly rolls working really nicely for a scrappy version of this quilt)

4. Gung Mun (self-designed, Korea-inspired pattern):
-I have fabric and a plan but haven't started cutting or anything yet

5. Fly South:
-basted and waiting to be quilted (it's been in this state for a few months now...)
-made the binding!

I'm trying out scrappy binding, we'll see how it goes

Hmm, that list wasn't as long as I thought it would be. Doing 5 projects at once is totally manageable, right?