Week Ending Update

Aside from buying 20 fat quarters and nearly 6 yards of fabric at 50% off, this week has been mostly about work. Yuk! My college class was of a demanding nature this week - too much prep for it, nearly 1-2 hours daily, which was eating into my sewing time. Fortunately, the next 5 weeks ought to be smooth sailing until those little cherubs take their final.

I have been kind of saying that I did not want to make more flimsies until I quilt & finish the ones I have made. This is largely because i have a couple quilts in mind to make, but refust to start one in good conscience while many are unfinished. As we all know I have the attention span of a flea or a gnat, and a couple days in the last 2 weeks, I decided I wanted to slim down my strip box & my stash of ridiculous novelties (most of which was passed on to me at Linus functions). So, I pulled some outlandish Japanese novelties (look closely!) and my all-width strips and went to town.

The next day I decided I wanted to do the same thing. I kind of failed that task since I pulled stash fabrics and actually cut the strips for my "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" quilt. OK, it's good at using novelty stash tractor FQ's that I had, and a few other materials that were not my favorite. But my strip box is an overflowing MESS still! I'm sure some little boy will love this (assuming I can get it out of the clenches of my kids long enough to quilt it!)

Finished quilts...

This one is finished, but pictures are over here onthe SFRR3 blog...

I also finished off this top, which I just love in red & purple. I didn't photograph it. I found a piece of lofty poly-bat that I am very happy to get rid of. Since the polybat is a pain to MQ, I just tied this one and added a scrappy red binding. It will work just fine for a Linus donation.

Here are three more that have been finished up (machine quilted & bound) within the last few weeks. The right one is the broken heart blocks from the birthday block swap, while the others were shown as flimsies a few weeks ago.

My 2009 count for Project Linus quilts to donate is up to 17 finished!

In the evenings, most days I find a little hand quilting time. I am trying desperately to finish Sophie's quilt before it's too warm to have it on my lap. The quilting is sooooo close to being done.

I have made 16 little bows that I will hand stitch onto the tops of the swags. This is the region of the quilt that hangs down the bed so it shouldn't get abused too much if she's on the quilt. They are out of the striped (& slightly irridescent) Lakehouse Dry goods fabric I had hoped to use on the binding. Since the binding will have to be bias cut (I am scalloping the edge, despite swearing to never do this again!!), I decided I didn't have quite enough. I have sadly been unable to find the print anywhere! So, on Tuesday's mega sale, I got 3/4 yard of a Kauffman Fusions that appears to match well. I'll know for sure when it arrives next week.

...a little intertwined rope quilting at the top of her name (very top of quilt)

...the corners with spiral stars

The last bit of hand quilting I am doing is outlining all of the yellow ribbons. It's about half done now, and I hope to finish this during the next week. I'm ready to bind!!

Lastly, I have been mulling over what I may do for my 1st border on my SFRR3 center. I can't tell you which block I have, but I can say I have been considering doing a traditional pickles & rings border (like you'd see on a wedding-ring quilt).

Have a great & productive weekend-