Life happens

And when life happens, things are left behind.  Almost.

Since last I blogged, I've made two blocks for a sewing bee, 6 more blocks of my own for M man and lots more quilting in the disappearing 9 patch for C.  I'm happy to report that I'm well over half done with quilting and it's a good thing too.  C has been begging me to do sewing each night for the last few nights.  She really wants me to finish her quilt.

Quilting in September

With kiddos starting school, our normal routines have been thrown out the window and I've been trying to play catch up for quite some time now.  I let my friend borrow my machine while I was in a lull and she had some projects she needed to complete while her machine was acting up.

I had a deadline for a project due September 20th so I knocked that one out first.  I tried my hand at applique, the freezer paper method.  I'm still not a big of it but it might be something I'd be willing to practice some more with.  I'll be posting my block and hopefully a peek at the finished project later.  

Then I was able to squeak out two more blocks for M's quilt as well.  These are the blocks I sent out to my multiple mom quilt bee group.  I have 14 12 inch blocks completed now.  I need 35, still a ways to go. 

I'm using this block from Fresh Lemon Quilts with three shades of grey and one bright teal as the solids and then a bunch of fabrics from Annela Hoey, A Walk in the Woods  and Little Apples.

I got some more quilting done for C's quilt and I'm having a great time.  I'm mixing a bunch of different quilting designs and I'm having a lot of fun.  If I had to guess, I'd say I'm maybe 1/3 of the way done maybe.

Next up, making two blocks for this month's MoM quilt bee based on this quilt, Converging Corners at Film in the Fridge.

I've got some holidays gifts that I'll be working on as well.  No updates on those until after the holidays. 

Working

No picture today but I've got two nights of quilting under my belt and I think I'm going to like the results.

Quilting in straight lines is pretty hard.  To add to the difficulty, I'm tring to free motion quilt it (not use the feed dogs to continuously feed the quilt through my machine).  My stitches aren't all the same length and the lines aren't straight.  I'm embracing it though.  A wonky quilt calls for wonky quilting, right?

And one more

Another one from the big camera. Here's the back of C's quilt.

Yay, finished pictures

I know I could tweak these photos a little more, the color is a little cooler than it is in real life but I'll still post them anyway.

Back pieced

I was going to work on some more hand quilting last night but C was upset I wasn't working on her quilt.  Alrighty then.

I don't have enough batting for her quilt (good thing there's a sale at Jo-Ann) so I worked on piecing the back.  I could have just used the backing joined together since I had enough but I wanted to use the scraps I had from the top though.  I kept the large pieces leftover from the Amy Butler fabrics she picked out and I added smaller scraps to them to fill in the spaces.  I got the back pieced and pressed while watching the Olympics last night and I'll get the batting tonight.  The plan for tonight, making the sandwich maybe and contemplating the quilting a little more.  A trip to the thread store might have to wait until this weekend after my race, we'll see.

C's top is done

And in record time. It felt great to get back to sewing after being on vacation.