Still plodding along...

I am happy to be up to date on my Sugar Block Club.  These are my blocks for August, September and October.

I am more than a little sad that the year is coming to an end for this group, and I'm hoping and hoping that there will be an announcement and day for the 2015 Sugar Block Club...

Also trying to keep up with Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along, but falling behind miserably...
These are some of the latest blocks.

Still have to quilt the baskets and piece all the stars. Leah and Josh have announced that there will be a new quilt along in this blog post. It will be called the Dancing Butterfly Quilt. I'm sad that I'm not in love with it as much as I was with the BBQA. Sort of like the 2014 Craftsy BOM. ( I could not wrap my mind around the loud colors, and I like bright!)  I do love the BOM method for quilting and seeing everyone else's work is really inspiring. I will most likely join up with the Dancing Butterfly Quilt, especially if its a quilt along.

But the MOST EXCITING THING is that Bonnie Hunter has announced the colors for her new Mystery Quilt - The Grand Illusion  !!!  WOOHOO!!!!

On the day she announced the colors,  after noticing that my stash was woefully under-pinked, and under-greened, for that matter, I went out to visit three LQS. Since then I've ordered from 3 other on-line sites. (maybe I shouldn't admit that- its probably ok - my husband will never read this.)
Any way that is my official new start for the month!!! YAY!!! I've been waiting all year for this...it's better than Christmas.

I didn't get the Lowes paint cards because I liked the colors of the pictures that she posted on her site so much. The way the bright pinks and greens go together make me feel so happy! The only trouble is that there's not a whole lot of variety within the color choices, so after my mail packages arrive, I will have to reassess.

Posting to Cat Patches October NewFO Linky Party!

Now if only I can get to the mail before my husband does...

Wow, its been a while - Clearly I'm a sucky blogger...

But I have been checking out lots of cool stuff and following along.

I'm doing Leah Day's Building Block Quilt Along. And am nearly caught up...

These are some of my favorite blocks.

I've also realized that I suck at circles. Oof, its bad!  Wiggle, waggle. Blech.

Also caught up on Amy Gibson's Sugar Block Club. I went a little cuckoo, myself,  for paper-piecing.

This last one was not so successful and may end up being re-done. I wanted more contrast between the orange Kaffe Fabric and the blue. It actually reads a little better in the pic, because for some reason reds and oranges are deeper when photographed on my camera.

I also started and finished the top of Kimerly Einmo's Mystery Radiant Jewel Quilt from Craftsy. (which I bought last November :-[ )  I did make it a little bigger by adding one row and column. Which meant that I had to purchase more fabric - it was such a hardship.....heh heh heh.

August? Bring it!

Linking up to Cat Patches NewFO Challenge for July

Off to quilt...

I've been busy, really

The biggest hurdle was piecing the back of the Under the Stars quilt.  Silly me, I just assumed that the yardage "package" sold at the Craftsy site was the correct amount needed for the entire back, but when I went to measure it out realized that, yikes, it was only 4 yards. Then I thought, Oh, that must be a mistake and went to look on the site - nope, they sold it in 4 yard increments. Grrrr!. Well, then I thought that I would just use up my scraps from the front and make a special back, because that's where the love is. Which turned out to be a lot of fun.

Then, after carefully lining up the the verticals I pin basted. So, then, what to quilt? I didn't want to do stitch in the ditch, because, as Weeks Ringle says in her Craftsy course, it is a wasted opportunity to add something more to your quilt. And since I'm doing Leah Day's Building Block free motion quilt along, I felt inspired to try to free motion flowers on the stars and curves along the red squares. I did initially SITD the main blocks to hold everything together, but I used wash away thread, so that it came out when washed.

 Here is the result.

Front

Back

Back without flash to try to see quilting

Front

Front,  can't see quilting on red squares

Back, quilting over piecing

Front, quilting on squares!

 Now, all that's left is to label it and ship it off to my parents. Whew!

I also am finally caught up on Amy Gibson's 2014 Sugar Block Club! Yay!

January

February

March

Holy Smokes! These were fun to make! Especially after "stressing out" about my fabric choices. In the end I went with a darker second background. We'll see how that plays out.

And finally, not quite done with all of Leah's blocks for March.
The white fabric all looks pink in these photos.

Wonky circles, Grrr

This one is still on the machine

This one is still pinned.

Here's the link back to Leah's Friday Link-up.

And I am so slowly piecing together the blocks of Bonnie Celtic Solstice.

I'll also link up to Cat Patches New FO Challenge, when it goes live on Monday.

Off to quilt!

Continuing on my quilty journey...

I'm still working CS. Currently assembling the blocks, but I've decided I had to start some new projects as well.

I joined Amy Gibson's The Sugar Block Club for 2014 and I have yet to make either January of February or any to the treats she has posted. Boo!! This will change this month!!!

I have also joined up and downloaded Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along and I have finished January's quilting and February's piecing!!!  Yay!! Caught up!

My wiggly line is a little too wiggly.

This one was very much fun to do

The backsides..

I struggled a bit trying to make the points line up after pressing my seams open.

February!

Add caption

So, since many of the fabric I'm using are fat quarters I did not prewash in an attempt to avoid the horrible unraveling. I have been testing for colorfastness by placing pieces of the colored fabric in water with a piece of white fabric.  Well, I got burned, or so I thought.

I left my bowl with my snips of background, the green and the white for two days. And on the second day the white fabric had a bluish cast. I panicked. By this time I had pieced and cut all the backs for February's three blocks and I already had January done. So I decided that I better wash everything now to avoid a big problem down the road. (I've done that and now my son has a quilt with some muddy purple blocks, but a really beautiful red flannel backing …can you hear the sarcasm?) I washed al the dark fabrics together with a color catcher as well as the completed quilted blocks. The quilted blocks are still their proper color! Yay!!. They're just a little wrinkly now. I wonder if I can still use them in this quilt? maybe I'll press them out and see what they look like.

I'm also going to link up to Cat Patches 2014 New FO Challenge! Yay I love starting new things!!

Off to quilt…

Celtic Solstice Link Up #6

The reveal of Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice quilt was gorgeous!!!! So gorgeous that I was kicking myself for not making the larger version. Also, I didn't think my fabric choices were playing all that well. So my solution was to make more blocks to mediate the fighters and make my quilt bigger! Yay!

I decided to add two more rows and two more columns. My version should be in-between Bonnie's smaller and larger version. For the neutral blue Tri-recs I will pick darker blues to help define the neutrals. I will pick more red and deep/dark pinks in place of the oranges. Will try to make the greens a bit more friendly to each other.

I'll need to make:
64 Neutral and Blue Tri-recs - done
24Red and Blue Tri-recs - done
64 Chevrons
128 HST - 16 pinwheels and 64 free guys for Clue 5 - next today?
80 Four patches - done
64 more Clue 5

Hard to see that upper left is deep pink

Hopefully not too Christmassy

Reds playing with oranges

And then I noticed the greens...

 And I thought to myself, "You idiot!" All this time I was focusing on the orange and red line moving up diagonally and there was a green line moving in the opposite direction!!

So, rearrange, rearrange, rearrange…

Because I want those greens and the reds to be present.

Ugh, wish I had more wall space to make a bigger design wall.

I did peek at the other link-ups at the link party - everyone is so inspiring!

Off to quilt.