Not happening

So a few weeks a go I was all excited about the whole ALYoF thing and made (what I thought was) a reasonable goal for January: quilt and bind a lap size quilt. The top was already done, the backing was purchased, the quilting was planned, the thread was selected, and the whole thing is only like 45"x60" so I figured with 27 days remaining in January I could not fail.

And then I went on vacation for a week. And then I tried to catch up in lab to make-up for the vacation time I took. And then the semester started and I suddenly had homework and teaching to do. Now there are only 2ish days left in January and my progress is abysmal.

I'm pleased with the result, just not the speed

I will be beyond surprised if this is done by Friday. I hope the other ALYoFers are having better luck than me!

2014 A Lovely Year of Finishes January Goal

This year, I want to do some goal setting for my quilting. I have number of unfinished projects and I have two wedding quilts to make this year so a little push will be good for me. I was thinking about doing the Finish-A-Long which is quarterly goal setting, but I think choosing one thing a month will help me set more realistic goals. We'll see. Plus, I kind of like the ALYoF button better...

So for January, I want to finish my first scrap blanket. I have the top done but haven't pieced together my backing or done any of the quilting/binding. I know what I'm going to do for quilting (three overlapping spirals) but I don't have anything for binding. 

This is the top all laid out on my floor

Done and Done - Fly South v1 and v2

It is the first Friday of 2014 and I have a finish! This is actually a pretty old start but there was a bit of a hoopla with quilting. Anyway, my finishes for today are both from the pattern I got as a Christmas present last year (called Fly South). I ended up making two lap sized quilts instead of the originally intended one. The first is the baby geese version (you can read about the horrible saga of this quilt here, here, and here) and the second is the tricolor version.

I was surprised to find that I didn't lose very many points from the top of the triangles but I did chop off a bunch of the side points, especially in the tricolor. I guess I wasn't paying attention when trimming and cut the sides unevenly.

Baby Geese Fly South

Fly South v2

 

Fabric:

• Geese: Bookish by Jenni Calo for Connecting Threads FQ bundle and some other coordinating pinks, browns, and greens  
• Background: off-white/cream/gray-ish color called sandstone
• Backing: Baby Geese has a book novelty print and v2 has a green leafy print
• Binding: for Baby Geese I made a scrappy binding using strips from the blue geese fabric and for the tricolor I did another magic binding using a brown polka dot and solid light pink

Batting: the tricolor got the leftover piece of Quilter's Dream Request from Little Peeks and Baby Geese got the Quilter's Dream Wool remnants from Lost at Sea.

Quilting: I did parallel diagonal wavy lines using a piece of masking tape as a template for the first diagonal and then just following it free motion style.
Size: these guys are pretty small measuring in at only about 40"x50"(V2 has slightly different proportions making it look much taller and narrower even though they're only 1-2" different)

New Techniques: piecing batting, scrappy binding, and, of course, flying geese!

The quilting for these two was interesting. I really liked the idea of parallel wavy lines but I did not realize how insanely time consuming it would be. It took literally an entire day to do the tricolor geese and it's only lap sized! I almost decided to do something else for Baby Geese but the final result of the wavy lines was pretty fetching. So, despite a few rough starts, I did eventually wavy line quilt both of these. As expected, the wavy lines sort of draw your eye away from the misaligned points, which is nice. The bad thing about this design is that mistakes propagate because of the echoing.

Reading Closet Success!

Both of these quilts are already in their permanent homes. Baby geese now lives in my reading closet (which is why I chose the library fabric for it). The Tricolor Geese went to my sister and is living on the back of her couch.

Linking to TGIFF at Quokka Quilts and Finish It Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts