WIP List

I seem to be starting and making progress on lots of projects lately...so many, in fact, that I feel a bit out of control (perhaps because my sewing room is out of control), so I thought I would try to get a handle on my "to-do" list.

100 Quilts for Kids

If you haven't heard about the fabulous 100 Quilts for Kids charity quilt drive by Katie at Swim, Bike, Quilt!, you should definitely check it out.  It's a pretty simple concept.  Make a quilt or 2 to donate to a child in need through the charity of your choice, locally if possible.  Take a picture and link it up by October 15th, and help spread the word.  

I'm happy to see that the 100 quilt goal has already been reached this year, so I've decided that if I can't finish all of these in time, I'm going to take my time and donate them as I complete them.  I really want to use this as an opportunity to practice/re-learn free motion quilting, and the calendar has just been moving too fast.  I did just enroll in Angela Walters' Craftsy class on quilting negative space (and bought her book...aren't I the groupie?), and Aubrie sold me on Leah Day's website - wow!

Last year I only ended up finishing one quilt, though I had pieced another cute top.  One of the things that was stopping me from finishing that quilt was that I needed to piece another top to see how much fabric I'd have left for the back from this collection (or so I told myself).  Well, in basically one sewing session a year later, I had it done.  I have to say, this one is really going to be hard to give away, which I guess is the sign of a really great charity quilt.  I love purple, and I love the simplicity of the design.  It's ridiculous, but I can't stop looking at it.  I made up the pattern as I went, but I can see making more in this design, so I should probably write down what I did (though, as usual, I learned some things along the way that I would change).  I'd originally intended to turn everything on point (and still might in a follow-up quilt, since I still have lots of a jelly roll left), but I loved that plaid, and I didn't think it would work as well as setting triangles, plus my center square ended up a little bit rectangular, so...happy accidents an opportunity to get creative.  ;-)

Meanwhile, I also started playing with some more jelly rolls that I bought at the same time as the fabric above from Connecting Threads.  (I do have to say, I'm not terribly happy with the quality of the fabric or the precision on the cuts...the charm squares were a mess and some of the fabric I'd ordered had flaws, plus the cuts were so wavy that my 1/2 yard of that purple bordering the plaid was not even close to being a half-yard, so it went from my choice for binding to sashing (and I just realized I need to figure out what I'm going to do for binding now - doh!).  That said, the price was right, the prints were pretty, and I'm making it work, and I have no reason to think it won't be "good enough".)  I'm going to make this batch into a quick Ohio roads quilt - I've already sewn them all into blocks, so I just need to sash and potentially make setting triangles - I'm thinking about putting it on-point for something different.  I think this will be a really sweet little quilt for a little girl.  With the leftovers and the charm pack, I'm going to make a more reversible modern quilt - and I finally will get to use my new rotary circle cutter!  Stay tuned!  :)

And this part of the stack is going to become a cute chevron quilt, using Cindy's tutorial as inspiration. I've already sewn a few of the white strips to some of the strips, since I like having multiple quilts going to use as enders/leaders, but I should have read the tutorial more carefully.  But...I'll make it work, though it may not be quite as perfect as hers is!  I bought charm squares in this line, too, as I originally had a different idea, so I've decided to play with hexies, thanks to several awesome members of the DC Modern Quilt Guild, who have totally inspired me! 

I have this quilt that I need to get quilting for my friend and colleague, Kakuti, who is due in November.  I also have a second set of squares to make a very similar one for me, as I absolutely love it and I want to start making baby quilts for our eventual child.  I've read of too many pregnant women not feeling up to quilting to wait until I'm actually pregnant to make something for our future child!  But...those projects do seem to take a backseat to all the rest, I'm afraid.

I don't have pictures to show yet, but I also need to complete my brother's duvet cover, my nephew's quilt, my husband's t-shirt quilt, and a little pinwheel charity quilt that I made using the 60 half square triangles I put together lickety-split at the DC Modern Quilt Guild sewing day, where I gave a little demo of the grid method for piecing hsts.  I'm a big fan - that's what I used to make the Chasing Chevrons quilt, and if we live long enough, I'll post a tutorial on here...I took all the pictures, but I find incorporating pictures into Blogger to be difficult.  There must be an easier way!

Also, I have the fabric ready to go for the Giant Granny Pants Quilt Along, and I want to make a quilt for my mom, too, using a modified log cabin (though I still feel like I need some other fabric to get what I want out of it.

Oh, and I want to make a quilt like the one Katie made recently for my friend Talia, who is due in March, but I'm waiting to find out the gender of the baby before final fabric selection (and because I can't start one more project right now before I finish up a few!)  I think I'll take a fair amount of time off work now while Congress is slow while they are out campaigning...I feel certain that after the election I'll be a lot busier!  So expect to see a lot more finishes soon!  :)