Scrappy Trip Around the World Finish

The last month and a half have been so eventful. In addition to Mother's and Father's Day, my mom and two brothers graduated from college, my husband started a new job, my three siblings and my dad had birthdays and one of my brothers moved in with us until his apartment becomes available. There has been a lot of driving back and forth between Houston and Beaumont and I cannot wait to spend more time at home! 

On top of all that, I still haven't chosen a permanent replacement for Google Reader :D, though I am currently leaning pretty heavily towards Digg Reader. My other favorite is The Old Reader. Both of their user interfaces are very similar to Google Reader. 

Today, I have one finish from my Finish-A-Long Q2 list to share with you.

The Scrappy Trip Around the World is a great project for using up fat quarters. I decided to make a 60"x72" lap quilt. Brenda from Pink Castle Fabrics made a great chart to help figure out how many strips you need to cut for baby, lap and queen sized quilts. 

A pile of Kate Spain's Cuzco that was sitting on my sewing table inspired my fabric choices. I am drawn to bright colors, so this quilt is a good representative of my fabric collection.

The love/hate relationship with this quilt was strong!  I wasn't going to make this one at first, but the temptation grew too strong after seeing so many beautiful versions on Instagram. After I made a couple of blocks, I was really unsure if I was going to continue. The blocks were easy enough, so I decided to keep going. At first I was sewing one at a time, but I eventually increased it to six at a time. That is about as much as I could do at a time, without having to bring out the seam ripper more than necessary! 

Once I sewed all the blocks and the design started to come together,  I loved it again! It is now one of my favorites.

I used a yellow variegated thread for the quilting and it blended well with the fabrics I used. I quilted following the tutorial for Orange Peel quilting from Petit Design Co's 31 Days of Walking Foot Quilting. Admittedly, my quilting isn't too fantastic (funky curves, crazy intersections, etc.).  It did get better on the second half of the quilt. What I absolutely love about this quilting pattern is that all those tiny mistakes get lost in the overall pattern. This is a great option for those who want to try something different, but aren't quite ready for FMQ yet. The Scrappy Trip Along is a great quilt design to test it out on.

Another option: In the midst of quilting, I found another method for quilting the orange peel with a walking foot at I'm a Ginger Monkey. The curves you sew are a little more subtle, so that is possibly an easier method.

The backing is Weekends Hopscotch in Lime by Erin McMorris. I chose it because it was on sale (WIN!), the color goes well with the quilt top and I liked how it was a similar design to the quilt top. 

Binding is always the hardest choice for me. It can completely change the look of a quilt. After making my husband and brother sit with me for an hour and help me decide to go scrappy with binding, I ended up going in a completely different direction! 

The binding fabric is Sweet Nothings Sweet Dots in Blue by Riley Blake Designs. I had already used some in the quilt, plus it helps bring some of the blues in the quilt out to the forefront. The blue in the binding goes well with the blue in the backing. When I first sewed the binding on to the front, I thought  "I'VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!", but as usual I was happy in the end.

You can see more Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilts at the Scrappy Trip Along Flickr Page. I love how all the quilts represent each individual quilter's personality! 

Today I am linking up with TGIFF which is at Blossom Heart Quilts this week and Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts. I will also be  linking up with the Plum and June's Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link-Up and the 2013 Finish-Along, hosted by Leanne @ She Can Quilt.

Next up on the schedule: Reunion Twister Quilt. I made this top using a charm pack I won from Marit at Sew, Love, Live! I am procrastinating the finish, because the backing involves applique. I always enjoy applique while I'm doing it, but it takes me a long time to work up the urge to start it (much like exercise)! I finished another baby quilt that I need to post about as well.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer!

2013 Finish-A-Long Q2 List

It's time for my 2013 Finish-A-Long Q2 Update! I only finished one out of five projects from my list last quarter, the Starburst quilt. I made progress on the Scrappy TAL, but the other three projects are still sitting in plastic bins. I didn't start any other major projects though, so I count that as progress! The four unfinished projects, plus one new item are on my list for Q2.

1. Scrappy TAL - I assembled the quilt top, basted and started quilting last quarter.
   Current Status: Need to finish quilting. Target finish date: End of April 2013
2. Swoon: I was supposed to have to done by Christmas 2012.
   Current Status: Blocks are cut & ready to be pieced.  Target finish date: End of June 2013
3. Looking Back: All the applique pieces have been cut since the beginning of December. I was also supposed to have this one done by Christmas 2012!
   Current Status: I just need to get to hand sewing! Target finish date: End of June 2013
4. Flower Girl Quilt: The fabric is washed, ironed, starched & cut.
   Current Status: Need to get to sewing! Target finish date: End of May 2013
5. Mystery Quilt - This quilt is only a mystery, because I am not sure if it is going to turn out as well as my drawing! I am ready to get this one done, because I have been working on it on and off for almost a year now. Not because it's hard, but I'm easily distracted. :)
   Current Status: All my chain-piecing is done. I need to get to the blocks ready and sew the top. Target finish date: End of April 2013

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In other news:

• The winners of the Pay it Forward contest were #5 & #7 which is Jennifer from Knotted Thread and Rachel from Sew Happily Ever After. Congratulations! You'll be getting a little surprise from me sometime in the next year. Thank you to everyone who entered! I wish I could make something for each of you! 
• My Girl Friday Sews tutorial will be up on Wednesday, April 10! Be sure to check Fabric Mutt for the blog hop schedule, so you can see all the great tutorials that have already been featured!

WIP Wednesday

Here is what has been going on in the last week:

In Progress:

1) Starburst QAL:
I'm completely caught up with the Starburst QAL. I am really excited about this quilt! I am making the 76"x76" quilt, so my blocks are going to be 32". I did the smaller blocks in an assembly line, so they came together really fast. The only thing that slowed me down was trimming. Time DOES NOT fly when you are trimming HSTs!

From cut fabric to HSTs, Goose in the Corners and Flying Geese:

I've been wanting to try the No Waste Flying Geese for a while now, so I am really glad Melissa chose that technique for this QAL. She wrote a great tutorial and you can find the link on the QAL page. It is magic!!! 

I am thinking about changing the color combo of the first block. My original thought was to have a center star to represent each of the colors I had chosen (turquoise, pink, green, light blue). Now that I am looking at a picture, I am not sure I like having 1 warm star and 3 cool stars. I'll make a final decision after I layout the blocks. 

2) Fat Quarter Shop Designer Block of the Month 2013

I am caught up with the Fat Quarter Shop 2012 Designer Mystery Block of the Month club. This is the eighth block, "Lime Sherbert." It was designed by Bonnie Olaveson and Camille Roskelley. I messed up on the Flying Geese last week, by not paying attention to the direction of the blue fabric. I fixed that problem...But I realized that in my concern about the Flying Geese, I forgot to pay attention to the direction on the HSTs! It doesn't bother me so much, so it stays!

3) Scrappy TAL

As mentioned yesterday, I am still in the quilting phase of the Scrappy TAL.

Finished:

A small finish, but a finish nonetheless! I finished my Triple Zip pouch for the Triple Zip Along with Debbie at A Quilter's Table. I'll be posting more about that later this week, after I take some pictures of it.





My other Work-In Progresses for the Quarter:
4) Looking Back - All pieces cut. I am picking this project back up in February
5) Swoon - All pieces cut. I am picking this project back up in February
6) Flower Girl Quilt - All pieces cut. I am picking this project back up in March.


Linking up with: 

New to Me January 2013: Orange Peel Quilting

I was going to finally start my Craftsy Knitting Class for New to Me in 2013 @ Celtic Thistle Stitches, but I decided to go with orange peel quilting instead. I have only quilted using straight lines up to this point, so orange peel quilting is definitely new to me! Luckily, it is going far better than expected!

I am using the Orange Peel tutorial from the 31 Days of Walking Foot Quilting at Petit Design Co. to quilt my Scrappy TAL quilt top. Norma did a great job on the tutorial and she has many other fun walking foot quilting options to try on her blog.

Before quilting on my actual top, I drew out the quilting lines on graph paper.  I used a different color marker for each line. Drawing made it easier for me to understand the quilting motions and to better visualize how the different lines intersected to form the orange peel design. I made a small half-circle template to draw out my curves on the quilt top and then I started sewing.

My curves get a little jittery when I start thinking "CURVE!" and some of the intersections are slightly off, but because of the overall design and the business of the quilt nothing really sticks out. It is far more forgiving than straight line quilting! I am sure a washing and drying cycle will help as well. It is going a bit slow (ten minutes a wavy line), so this might be the kick in the pants I need to learn FMQ! I have 5 of 6 rows left to quilt (!).



I am using in Multicolored Polyester Thread No. 15 in Sunray from ThreadArt. I bought it before I knew that there were different types of thread! I figured a scrap quilt was a pretty good place to use it up. Hopefully the "Ideal for quilting too!" description holds true!  I like how well it blends into the fabric. For anyone interested, I have since found the cotton equivalent: Variegated Cotton Thread 600M - Color 1103 in Sunburst.

If you have tried something new in January, there are still a couple more days to submit your link to New to Me in 2013!

WIP Wednesday and Scrappy TAL Quilt Top Finish

It has been so long since I have had WIPs to report on! Here are my WIPs for the week:

1) Scrappy Trip Along

72x60" Lap Quilt, 30 Blocks

I finished sewing the Scrappy Trip Along (using Quiltville Tutorial) quilt top yesterday evening. To be completely honest, there aren't many scraps in this quilt. I did use a ton of fat quarters that have been sitting in my stash forever.

My first four blocks went together very slowly. I was doing them one at a time! Once I understood how the piecing method worked, I started chain piecing. I sewed all the six strip panels together and then four-at-a time I started working on the blocks. Four is about as many as I could work on at a time without mixing everything up! Four was also the perfect number for when I had a spare hour to work on it. Doing 4 to 8 blocks a day, the quilt top came together really quickly.

After spending a long time scrounging around the sales sections of various online websites, I chose Weekend Hopscotch in Lime (Erin McMorris for Free Spirit) for the backing. I liked how it was a tinier, softer version of the quilt top. It was in the $4 section at Fabric.com and luckily there was enough! I've had issues with Fabric.com before(slow shipping, consistently having to cancel parts of my order, etc.), but my last few orders have actually gone through without a hitch. I am quilting it using the 31 Days of Walking Foot Quilting:Orange Peel tutorial at Petit Design Co. 

2) Fat Quarter Shop Block of the Month

I am mostly caught up with my Fat Quarter Shop Block of the Month blocks. I received Block 8 last week, but I messed up so badly that even the very generous cuts the FQS provides couldn't save me :D. Block 6 (Town Square designed by Kate Spain) & Block 7 (Moonlight Serenade designed by Sandy Gervais) are pictured above.  I am tempted to join the 2013 Block of the Month Club. I love the monthly mail. It is better than a magazine! And " a spectacular row quilt filled with basket blocks, star blocks, house blocks and flower blocks"? *SQUEE* It sounds adorable!

My other Work-In Progresses for the Quarter:
3) Looking Back - All pieces cut. I am picking this project back up in February
4) Swoon - All pieces cut. I am picking this project back up in February
5) Starburst QAL - I need to finish cutting this one! I got a head start on this one too!. This is on the schedule for the day.
6) Flower Girl Quilt - All pieces cut. I am picking this project back up in March.


Linking up with:

First Quarter 2013 Finish-A-Long List

Edit: These project sheets are now available for download at this link. Thank you!

I've spent a lot of time this past week getting all my projects organized and figuring out what projects I have going on and what stage they are in. I have way too many projects that are stuck in the cutting phase! Most of my projects for this quarter have been cut for a long time. I just need to sew them together. My five hopeful finishes are listed below:

1) Scrappy Trip Along: The quilt I started this month is closer to being finished than quilts I started months ago! I wasn't going to make this quilt at first, but Instagram pictures have a hypnotic effect on me. My rationalization for starting this quilt is that I want to improve my quilting skills this year and this would be a great quilt to try orange peel quilting on. 

Current Status: Strips are cut and 12 out of 30 blocks complete. Target finish date: End of January 2013

2) Looking Back: Husband request #1. There is a lot of hand sewing on this quilt, so this will be my nighttime project. I was supposed to have this one done by Christmas 2012!
Current Status: All the applique pieces have been cut since the beginning of December. I just need to get to sewing! Target finish date: End of February 2013

3) Swoon: Husband request #2, for Aunt. This is another one I was supposed to have to done by Christmas 2012.
Current Status: Blocks are cut & ready to be pieced.  Target finish date: End of February 2013

4) Starburst QAL: This QAL just started over at Happy Quilting. I ordered 4.5 yards of Quilter's Linen in Midnight for another project, but it wasn't dark enough. I figured this would be a great opportunity to use it!  

Project Stage: This is the newest project on the list. Fabrics are chosen and being cut. Target finish date: March 4, 2013

5) Flower Girl Quilt: Husband Request #3, for one of his friends that is expecting. I'm going to divide this kit up into a few smaller quilts. I haven't decide whether to use four or nine flowers for the quilts. Four would be a more standard, but nine would allow longer usage. I'll decide after I finish sewing the flowers!
Current Status: The fabric is washed, ironed, starched & cut. Well, most of it! This project ended up in limbo because I messed up on the cutting of 2 fat quarters. I need to order some more. Target finish date: End of March 2013

So: one quilt for January, two for February and two for March. Here is to getting my projects out of plastic containers and onto beds :). My plan for tomorrow is to mark the the appropriate Flower Girl pieces and to sew 8 more Scrappy TAL blocks. 

Also Linking Up With: