March finish

My NYD Mystery quilt is a finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes. (Goal post #44 and finish post #113) Thank you Shanna and Melissa for hosting :0)

Quilting, binding and a label are finished. After reading a thread on labels on Pinterest and theinboxjaunt, I made this label by folding it in half, machine sewing it on to the edges of a corner, the binding is stitched over the edges and then the one fold is hand sewn down. Worked great!

Hummm, I'm thinking there needs to be a moon added to the corner :0) Janie, who joined me on New Year's Day and started her top, finished her top this week. It's here on my table waiting to be quilted. Along with my label I also made one for Janie with a butterfly :0)

Besides finishing our mystery quilts, we cut out the center block of Amaretto Cottage. Here is my finished test blocks up on the design wall.

Post update: Amaretto Cottage is a BOM from 2012 by Marianne Elizabeth, Classically Home collections for RJR fabrics. Janie asked me to help her put this quilt together. She is working with the RJR kit fabrics. There are errors in the directions including cutting sizes. number of cuts and finished block sizes. We have done allot of unsewing and we are not sure if Janie will have enough fabric to finish if we remake blocks.  I am now "testing" the pattern for Janie so the blocks above are pulled from my CW stash and are different from the original kit.

The fabrics in the kit are gorgeous and the designer deserves kudos for that. Hopefully she has a better pattern tester now for her new kits.

LynCC in Colorado made Amaretto Cottage, HERE is a link to her post to see her finished quilt in the RJR fabrics. Also a link to one of her posts as she was struggling with this project, the same two blocks Janie and I just finished. We contacted the designer and heard back from her assistant Amanda who has been wonderful! She is sending Janie some templates.

Mother nature is not playing nice this year. Now that Spring is on the calendar, Winter has decided to show up! Good that we are getting rain (lots of it) and snow because we were headed for a drought. Along with the rain have been days of thunderstorms and tornadoes, yep in California. Forecast is more for tomorrow.

After a busy month, happy to choose an easy goal as it took until this evening to get it finished for A Lovely Year of Finishes. I do appreciate setting a goal each month to stay focused and make it happen! Yea  Click this link to see all the finishes for this month, over 100! 

Now to think about what I would like to finish for April

Enjoy your April, hope we have Spring soon!

Baby Bear panto and a new Design Wall

Design wall is up! 8 x 8 feet square. Michael cut out a hole for an outlet. Made with flannel covered sound board. We used dry wall screws with finish washers. Love it! 

Thank you to my sweetie :0)

Studio is almost finished. Yesterday my first 2 visitors, Esther came by for a visit in the morning and Janie in the afternoon to lay out her NYD Mystery quilt blocks. These are quilts Janie and I started together on New Year's Day.

This is Janie's...

 

Below is my top and a March goal to finish 

 Another of my goals, a baby quilt...

A practice piece on my Innova with a Baby Bear panto quilted on a flannel Penguin pre print

with black flannel backing. It's a keeper! Next to add binding.

A little bit of Spring like weather and then we have a new rain storm coming in on Sunday. Very happy with the last storm and the amount of rain, Northern California needs it.  

Enjoy your weekend

Groetjes, Jo

March Goal

Goals for March ~
My one goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes is an easy one. I have allot to do to get my longarm business back up and running. With all I have going on I am choosing to be kind to myself.

This is my 2014 New Year's Day Mystery quilt top pieced in January. It was an online mystery with Planet Patchwork, an annual event which I've participated in over the years. This is the last year with Planet Patchwork which has folded. The pattern designer, Diane may be Mary Mayhem will be setting up future mysteries on her Facebook page. 

My goal is to finish the quilting (almost there), binding and a label for a complete finish. 

Other ongoing WIPs and BOMs to work on this month. Amaretto Cottage, a BOM I am doing with my friend Janie. Barbara Brackman's Threads of Memory block 2. A baby quilt for a March baby shower and I hope to get a little further on a quilt I pieced last month, The Big EZ. This will be a window treatment for my longarm studio. First priority is to get me and my longarm running and back to quilting my customer's quilts, then the windows.

Pattern photo of The Big EZ (with my red pen marks)
 

Jo

Looking forward to Spring this month too!


Post update: I forgot to include Cheryl's Easter Baskets QAL to my list of WIPs.
Part one was posted Friday on The Olde World Quilt Shop blog, this is the link.
I have my HST papers printed out and am ready to get started on this little guy :0)

February Goals

First February goal is to finish my Tree of Life quilt top for A Lovely Year of Finishes. I've been working on this for a long time! I love designing my own tops but it takes more time to make with lots of decisions! Falls under 'The Pleasure is in the Process'. With most of them made now, it's on to finishing the top...

Second is to work on Lori @ Humble Quilts QAL ~ MidWinter Blues. Got a start on my cutting...

This is Lori's finished top

 and the antique inspiration quilt that she is working from...

I love this antique quilt and am toying with the idea of reproducing it for my project. Love how the alternating blocks form another pattern and how, altho set on point, looks like a straight set.

Third is to continue on with the Amaretto Cottage BOM with Janie. She and I got started on the next block last Wednesday, there are four of these, this is one of mine...

Fourth is to make the first block in Barbara Brackman's new BOM Threads of Memory...

 

Kathy, a quilter participating in A Lovely Year of Finishes posted her finish (#66) for January and it's her Civil War Sampler top from Barbara Brackman's 2011 Civil War BOW!  It really got me thinking about my sampler and getting that back on to my list of goals for this year. My January finish is #87 the NYD Mystery quilt top. Last night I finished quilting it so it is also quilted for a finish!

Lofty goals considering all I have going on this month switching out longarms and reorganizing my studio. It will be a fun month, once I shake this cold off!

Have a great Super Bowl Weekend!

 

The Mystery is now a flimsy

2014 NYD Mystery quilt top is a flimsy. I am linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes with this quilt top finish as my January goal ~ link to blog post. Link up # 181. Update: This baby is quilted!!!

After a few block layout changes plus I decided to add borders, this top is ready to be quilted! Notice I couldn't do the misfit layout of the original.

Quilting on my New Year's Day Mystery quilt

I am quite pleased with this one, you never know how a mystery will turn out! All the fabrics are pulled from stash scraps and FQ's except the light print in the large HSTs are cut from two half yard pieces that came from Honey Run Quilters. Many of the fabrics are left overs from Petit Fours, a quilt I made from a kit from Morning Star Quilts. Barbara, a new quilt customer recently brought her Petit Fours that she recently finished that I will quilt for her. When she unfolded her quilt top I immediately knew the quilt! Nice surprise!!

Petit Fours made in 2010

This is a pic of my Petit Fours made in 2010 for my friend Suzanne. The left over border print is in most of the blocks in the Mystery quilt top and more scraps I added to the Anvil blocks.

My goal this year is to use up stash and I think I got a pretty good start on that one :0) Another is to start blocks on a 2014 Barbara Brackman ~ Threads of Memory BOM and do a QAL with Lori of Humble Quilts. Both of them posted the first blocks, Lori yesterday and Barbara this morning on her Civil War blog. Check out the links. Off to sew as I have blocks to make this weekend!!!

Enjoy your weekend! Thanks for stopping by

 Jo

NYD Mystery progress

Making progress on the New Year's Day mystery. My January goal for a Lovely Year of Finishes is to finish the top to a flimsy.  Was going for a quilted finish except I may be in between longarms. ;0~) Sold my longarm and have another on the way. Will see how the timing works out on that. Happy dancing!

Anyway, all my blocks for the mystery are made and up on the design wall...

Not the final as I moved a few blocks after looking at this pic. Love using digital photography to view the layout before sewing rows together. It's amazing what you see in placement, especially value. I squared the large HST's that alternate with the Anvil blocks yesterday.

This week I received an email from Linda of Little Bits and Pieces. I won her giveaway for the paperback The Double Wedding Ring by Clare O'Donohue. It's a romance murder mystery and quilting :0)  Thank you Linda, it arrived in yesterday's mail while I was squaring my blocks :0)

I am loaning my new book to my quilting friend Beckie. She is recovering from leg surgery and is going crazy laid up with a brace on her right leg, her sewing and driving foot! The book will be perfect, she loves to read romance and mysteries and this is both. We also started a fussy cut English paper piecing hexie project this week. Hi Beckie, hope you are doing better today! 

It's halftime for the first game of the playoffs today, Denver is ahead. Omaha!
San Fransisco plays Seattle this afternoon. (Pic below is a quilt made by Donna, my and Beckie's friend. I quilted it for her with a football panto. The wool batting adds a nice loft. All three of us use it now and love it!)

Go 49ers! 

Enjoy your day!!!

January and a New Year of Goals

Goals for January~
First up is the New Year's Day Mystery that I started on that day. My friend Janie joined me and she is making one too. Her fabrics are much different, both are scrappy. My goal is to finish this quilt top by the end of the month for a Lovely Year of Finishes. Half of the Anvil blocks are ready...

The remaining are cut, marked, ready to be sewn into HSTs and into blocks for a total of 40...

Alternating blocks are also cut, ready to mark and sew into 40 large HSTs. This is the layout:

This is my January goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes

Second is to work on the next blocks for Amaretto Cottage, a BOM that Janie and I are working on together. Janie is using the fabrics sent with the kit. I am pulling from my CW stash. We are on Block 5 and working at our own pace (Originally a 2012 BOM) My first four blocks...

and this week I made my log cabin blocks for month 5... 

Eight plus four corner blocks for a total of 12. Love that gold and cheddar Jo Morton fabric!

These are Janie's first blocks in her fabrics...

She is coming by today to finish her log cabin blocks and share our progress on the NYD Mystery. 

Third is to work on the design of my Tree of Life quilt and finish this top too!...

Center field is finished. Adding more HSTs for a pieced inner border. Outer border to be added in the red fabric. Almost a flimsy, then it will be set aside until I have my second longarm set up and ready to go! I am so excited!!! 

Which brings me another goal for 2014... to get to know my new machine (once it arrives :0) again, so exciting! Looking forward to working on and improving my machine quilting skills. There is so much beautiful machine quilting being done by some amazing quilters, I want to learn as much as I possibly can. Practice, practice and then practice some more! 

One new 2014 BOM I am doing for sure is Barbara Brackman's 2014 BOM Threads of Memory. Each block will be posted the last Saturday of the month on her Civil War blog. 

The Mystery quilt is my goal for a finish in January for A Lovely Year of Finishes with Bitter Sweet Designs. I really enjoyed the motivation to finish UFOs last year with Carrie at A Passion for Applique.  I would be sew very happy to finish 12 projects in 2014!!!

What are your goals? 

Enjoy a New Year!