Recap and Regroup

Oh hi there. Long time no blog. My non-quilty life has been busy the last 6 months or so. Here's a quick recap of non-quilty things:

      May - moved into new house, got engaged
      June - got a puppy
      July - went to New Mexico for a week, lab moved to new building, shop hop with my mom
      August - submitted journal article, TAing 2 classes & taking 1, finished and gifted Swoon quilt
      September - sister stayed with us for 3 weeks while she was on rotation
      October - other sister moved to Australia, Halloween, made some placemats
      November - cat died, went to science conference, got 2 kittens to fill hole in heart, Thanksgiving
      December - final exams, writing grant proposal, getting serious about wedding plans, Christmas

Unsurprisingly, I haven't sewn much since moving. I do intend to make a quick post about the finish of the Swoon quilt and also my placemats. Fair warning, I'm a little overly proud of these placemats ^_^

My list of quilty project for the new year is lengthening on a seemingly daily basis. This year I'm going to try my hand at quilt kits, which is something I have never done before. I have such an inability to even follow a pattern exactly (see Swoon quilt) that it will be interesting to see if I can reign myself in and make a quilt from a kit. I did a little Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping so I already have a couple kits in hand. I also have a few patterns that I've collected this year and am planning to make in 2015. I also did my first ever shop hop with my mom this summer and have a couple of treasures from that adventure that I've been plotting and planning with.

So here it is, the Quilty Plan 2015:

Paris Flea Market Find Quilt Kit in Red - I ordered this on Black Friday sale from Connecting Threads and it will be for a friend of mine getting married in June (the week before me!). This is an incredibly simple pattern so I don't anticipate any difficulty whipping it up. I might add a few extra reds from my stash to spice it up a bit...

Hexagon Quilt - I bought a set of those honeycombs (precut hexagons) that Moda makes while on shop hop and I am planning to do a baby blanket with them. Potentially, this quilt will go to my Danish friend who is having her first baby in April.


True Colors Quilt Kit - I bought this on sale at Craftsy and it will be for another friend getting married at the beginning of May. I'm planning on potentially modifying this one to make it a little bigger since the pattern size is only a large twin or maybe full not really a queen. It's a little difficult to modify though because of the way the print on the fabric is used to make the pattern also with the whole "a kit only comes with so much fabric" thing. It just seemed so her when I saw it that I didn't think I could possibly design something better/more fitting. Luckily, if I make this first I should still be able to get more of the fabric so modification would be possible. In any case, this kit will definitely be an adventure.

Wishes QAL - I downloaded all the pattern parts for this but didn't participate in the QAL (obviously). I have a fat quarter bundle of ocean colored solids that I've ear marked for this project. It will be interesting for me as I've never really done a sampler and I don't think I've ever made any of these blocks. It also has a lot of triangles which are sort of not my forte. There's a pretty good chance that I'll donate this one, which was kind of the point of the QAL!

Fair Isle QAL - Again, I bought this pattern but did not participate in the QAL. My plan is to give this one to my in-laws next Christmas. I have no idea what sort of color scheme I'm going to use as I love the original, the QAL version, and the ones in the link up. Maybe I'll have to make 2...

Christmas Accessories - My fiancé and I need stockings. He said he wants either Pac-man or a dinosaur fighting a penguin, so we'll see what I can do. We also don't have a tree skirt so it might be nice to try my hand at that.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Good Luck with your own Quilty Plan 2015!

Puppy!

Not a lot of sewing has been going on as of late. I blame this little guy. Meet Echo, the shepherd/husky/??? mix. According to the vet, he's a be huge (vet thinks 80+ pounds, my guess was at least 60)

At the shelter, 8 weeks old

First day at home, 9.5 weeks old

Got himself stuck on this chair

Just being cute ^_^

Bath time! 12 weeks old

Goals, Gnomes, and Life

Making strip sets (there are 17 different ones)

For my May ALYoF goal I am going to finish piecing the Trinity Celtic Knot quilt that I bought fabric for over a year ago. This quilt is for a wedding in August and I want it professionally quilted so I pretty much need to get it done in the next 1-2 weeks. Yikes.

This brings me to my second point: gnomes. I have somehow gained the favor of an ironing gnome. One day I walked into my room prepared to iron some strip sets for the wedding quilt only to discover that they were freshly pressed (seams open and everything!) and sitting on my desk. I then got to go straight to sewing all my completed strip sets into little nine patches (225 total nine patches in 33 different arrangements). A few days later the ironing gnome returned and ironed nine patches for me while I was busy making more.

Maybe the gnome will return and iron these too...

Finally, my non-quilty life has had some exciting goings-on. Last weekend, my boyfriend and I more or less moved to our new house. We both still have some stuff at our respective places, but all the animals and furniture have made it to the new house.

This room is going to be my sewing room/future guest bedroom

Closet in the new sewing room, basically the reason I claimed that room ^_^

Currently, my sewing machine, ironing board, general sewing supplies, cutting mats, batting, and fabric stash have all made it into this room. However, my table that the sewing machine sits on is still in my old room. This is a problem since we don't have any sort of kitchen or dining room table. I may be awkwardly sewing on the floor this week…

               

Check out these linkies! They're full of interesting thingamabobs!