2019 Finish-A-Long: First Finish for Second Quarter

Completed my first finish for the second quarter of the 2019 Finish-A-Long. You can find my goal list HERE.

Admittedly, I was almost at the end of this, had just the binding to do, but a finish nevertheless.

This came together very quickly. I bought a packet of 6 1/2in strips of the baby blue fabric at our recent quilt show and just cut this into squares. To pretty it up a bit I put a few appliqued hearts on it and I was done. For the quilting I chose a simple allover clamshell design, done with the HQ Versa tool. 

Quilting the clamshell design

And that was it. Done!

The quilt measures 36 1/2 x 36 1/2in.
My next baby quilt will be a bit more involved, with applique and piecing...a fun and colourful design which I designed a while back. But first I will have a few other tasks to finish...

Karin

2019 Finish-A-Long Proposed List Q2

Cannot believe it...I missed the link up for the first quarter! I thought I was so organised...even made a tab at the top so I would find my posts quickly to link up. For some reason, I had the 10th April in my head and when I looked today I realised that that was the date for the proposed list for the second quarter. What a bugger...and I was so productive in the first quarter! I finished 4 projects of my list in the first quarter...if you are interested to see them go to the tab on the top of the page to view them.

Definitely need to make a note on the calendar for the next link up date! 

You can find the information about the Finish-A- Long on  Leanne's blog She Can Quilt. There you will find more detail on how this link up works and also find the list of bloggers who are hosting this great event.

My goal list for the second quarter will be small. I am in a bit of a lull at the moment, contemplating what to do next.

1. Another Baby Quilt

Currently quilting this with an overall clamshell design. This is unexpectedly quick, only got a few more rows left.

2. Wholecloth Quilt

This is leftover from the first quarter. I did do some work on the design, but stopped half way through to finish another Wholecloth UFO which was not on the list. Still in the designing stages

Got everything ready...the fabric, ordered some more binding fabric etc....however not 100% happy with my design, so will have to keep going on re-drawing it until I am happy with it. Over the years I have learned the hard way not to rush Wholecloth quilts...just too much work that goes into it, so you have to be absolutely happy with your design.

3. Scrappy Spiderweb quilt

Also a leftover from the first quarter. Made absolutely no progress on this.

4. Funky Bird Quilt

This is a project I would like to do...did a bit of a test block to see how work intensive this would be. Found that I was a bit rusty with my applique (put the bird the wrong way around), but thought overall that this would be fun.

However, I also got one of Elizabeth Hartmann's patterns recently (The Fox) and am a bit torn as to which one to make. Decisions, decisions!

5. The Camden Bowl

Having way too much fun over here... saw a video the other day which explained how to put this together, so I did a trial piece 

Definitely need to do one of those bowls...maybe I can then graduate towards a jelly roll rug. Would love to do that, but maybe not in this quarter 😃

Linking up to the Proposed Finishes List over at She Can Quilt for the first quarter.

Karin

FAL 2016 Second Quarter - Second finish!

Can't believe it...managed to finish off another project for the FAL 2016

You can find my original goal list for the second quarter HERE


Now this quilt is an old UFO...to be exact this is from 2012 when I participated in Leah Day's weekly FMQ challenge for the entire year.

Quilt Details:
Dimensions: 49in x 58 1/2in
Materials: Cotton fabric; Polyester wadding
Polyester thread used for FMQ designs
28 different FMQ designs which can be found on Leah Day's website

I was new to blogging and thought that this was just what I needed to consolidate my emerging FMQ skills. We were given weekly designs to stitch out and linked up every Wednesday to show off how we went and to ask questions. This was a lot of fun and I did learn so much from this QAL. Looking at the weekly stitching tasks I decided after a few months or so to throw a quilt together to stitch my designs on. I think some quilters at the time did their samples as a Quilt-As-You-Go project, however for me it made more sense to have a quilt ready that I just could pull out from week to week to stitch my designs on.

I had some 20 tone-on-tone fat quarters just perfect for the quilt and just chucked this together with a coordinating sashing and a border and...voila, I was ready to go every week! This was an enormous time saver for me and also a neat and tidy option for all those designs. I literally covered the entire quilt with FMQ designs...when I had run out of space in the squares, I moved my designs into the sashing and finally also covered the whole border with those wiggly lines (forgot now what that design was called). I was impressed when it was finished...however, somehow this ended up rolled up in the cupboard. All it needed was a binding...no idea why I did not complete this. Needless to say, I did not have any coordinating fabric left and had to purchase some binding fabric for this to finish it off.

How pretty is the Matrix design in the bottom left corner

This was the nicest thing to finish off. As I was sewing the binding on, I admired my somewhat wonky handiwork from years ago...I literally could feel the transition that I must have made at that point...from being overly perfectionist and fearful to stuff up a quilt to just allowing myself to go for it and stitch your heart out. I used white thread (Polyester because Leah is a bit of a rebel) for the most part and it often involved backtracking along the ditch...definitely did not hit the ditch consistently and have all these white little mishaps all over the place. I could see the hesitation at times in the design, but I could also see the absolute joy in the stitching to be free from this ridiculous fear of stuffing things up.

I beautified my binding a bit for this quilt (see previous post) with some decorative stitching just for something a bit different and this was the perfect opportunity to give that a try. That turned out fantastic and I am really happy with the end result...the quilt looks great...interesting...a bit crazy...and definitely less than perfect, but there is something really satisfying about having finished this quilt.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social over at Sewfreshquilts

and also

Linking up to the FAL2016 - Second Quarter Linky Party over at She Can Quilt

Karin