First Finish of he Year

Get ready for a gazibillion photos of the quilting.





















H'okay! The dots are from two polka dot charm swaps I participated in last year. One was with my guild and one was through Flickr.




It's a good size at 54" x 72". The backing is flannel dots as well but its a hot mess with the grey thread in so many different designs. I meant to donate it but am currently hanging on to it as a quilting design sampler.

I quilted most of it with the frame set up half size but finished the edges in the new location.

This quilt made possible through the generous support of Jim's garage.

2012 Bee Blocks

Just a Quick rundown of the SD Bee blocks that I made in 2012.
For Amanda




For Barb



For Pam

For Jen

For Theresa

For Susan




For Sandi, although for some reason I only have a picture of half at the moment. I'll update when I've recovered from the plague.



For me

Making Plans

Our guild is taking part in the Madrona Road challenge with many other modern quilt guilds in the next few months.

I'm Awake

It's pretty amazing. I think I was a combination of jet lagged and sick that knocked me down for so long after this trip. Possibly the African Sleeping Sickness, if there is such a thing.
I missed sewing though so I did manage to pull out the strips from the guild swap and make a version of the quilt that is on the back (or front I suppose) of my handy quilt size guide from Pink Chalk Fabric.




The top is finished and guarded well. It is an odd size though, wide but not long. I guess I can only use one size of the guide at a time.




I also started trimming the Spawn. These are the corners that are cut off this quilt. Which is now a finished top.
So from this stack...




To this pile...




To this...




You may not see a huge difference but sewing them together is like butter. Or eggplant because I prefer that over butter.

NICU quilt and a little experiment

photo.JPG, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

I'm testing block sizes for a little quilt for the NICU. My inspiration was this one but I've got to decide between the sizes. It should be quick, easy and maybe adorable.

Now for the experimenting. San Diego is really letting us down in the way of flannels lately and I like the back of a quilt to be snuggly. So I used a coupon to get some aqua minkee on Sunday (egged on by SBoIC). I'm going to pit the quilting frame against the minkee and see who wins. If they turn out to be best friends, I'm going to need stock in minkee. Or just stocks of minkee. Of course, that stuff sheds like mad so all my quilt sizes will have to be based on me never cutting it myself.

The New Math

Start of Wonky Star, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

I learned some new math recently.

One (1) panicky dog who needs to alert me to danger five times in the middle of the night. She needed to protect us from immediate danger but not without me going out back with her. I'm pretty sure the danger was a skunk and some wind.

Add eight (8) white squares and nine (9) scraps picked out in the wee hours of the morning.

Multiply by one (1) super full glass of wine and it equals one more wonky star block for the guild donation quilt.

Start of Wonky Star, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

One more and we'll have enough squares for a blanket.

SDMQG Sewing Day

SDMQG Sewing Day, originally uploaded by shanleytulip.

I was able to attend (although was very late) our guild sewing day. The space is great, plenty of room for us to spread out and sew. I managed to finish the backing for the little ragged circles baby quilt and threw a couple of precuts in my bag just in case. Lucky that I did since I didn't manage to bring any of the other projects I've been working on.   It was quite handy to have a whole store to pick from for the neutral to go with this jelly roll of Origins.

According to my handy dandy excel tracking sheet, I have to finish a quilt every 21 days in order to meet my goal of 24 this year. Umm, yeah. I should be at 8 finished and I'm at a whooping 1. One. It's fine, who doesn't want a whole lap full of quilt to bind just as the summer gets ready to show up? Might be a year to perfect the art of attaching both sides of the binding by machine.

Procrastinating

IMG_1916.JPG, originally uploaded by shanleytulip.

But it's for the children. Here's another block for the guild project.

I am doing some of the things I should too. Like looking up travel apps instead of packing. Oh wait, that might not count.

Must print label next.

Guild Star

Guild Star, originally uploaded by shanleytulip.

This is not necessarily one of the 37 things that I should have been doing but it was a fun little bit of sewing for the San Diego Modern Quilt Guild project. I'll miss the sewing day next weekend but wanted to get at least one square done for the project that Amanda put together for us.

The tutorial is from the twobutterflies blog.

Fun, quick and cute!

Saturday Stash #9

Lovely View, originally uploaded by shanleytulip.

And yes, I know I haven't posted a few of the pictures but I did take them all on Saturdays and I'm a big fan of filling in my blogs backward. So glad Blogger let's you change the posting dates/times.

Here are three little stacks of Kona solids with a set of Sunkissed (still not opened since I'm not quite sure of a pattern). The scraps on the corner of my desk are for the SDMQG first charity project, a wonky star quilt.

I sew in the house in the "winter" since my converted garage is just a bit chilly. Plus the yellow walls and happy fabric/photo desk help with how much I miss the sun after work. I'm already on the countdown to Daylight Savings Day!

A New Project

<div align="center"><a href="http://sdmqg.blogspot.com/" title="San Diego Modern Quilt Guild" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/5439991645_5635609f0b_o.gif" alt="San Diego Modern Quilt Guild" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

There's a small group of us trying to start a guild here in San Diego. I started working on a button for the group because everyone knows that a group needs a button. It takes you to the blog but now I have to figure out how to get the code for sharing it. While I do that, you can check out the other guilds across the country, you can find the list here.

Right now the communication is pretty much on Flickr but it's a little difficult to get input so I'm also starting a group page on Facebook. We had our first meeting in January and our second is on Saturday, February 19th.

The hope is that we'll be able to get a nice sized group together and of course, the tricky part, find a nice sized space to meet and sew.


PS. I finally figured out the button using this tool.