Finally some Zentangle action...

I have been seriously out of sorts with my tangling efforts since the beginning of the year. When I have had the time (which hasn't been often) to sit and tangle I have been sorely disappointed in my efforts. I have tried to keep up with the challenges presented by The Diva but have not actually posted one in months, although a few have been even been finished. Through it all I figured that it was just a matter of over-thinking... in the beginning I was just making random stabs at it and doing passingly well. Then the process got a bit too cerebral and that took the natural flow away and I had the previous good results to 'live up to'. I needed to get back in there and just do it and get over the slump. Sometimes I just want to quickly draw one or two patterns over and over with no plan and no expectation of a decent looking whole in the end and I have let myself do that some too which has helped. So along comes a different challenge... or 'dare' as she calls it over at "The Bright Owl". Erin will be posting mandala templates for tangling and hosting a link-up each time. I thought that the new format might just bump me out of my rut. So here is the result for the first 'dare'... two versions.

I should have chosen something other than paradox for those inner triangles... it loses so much of its punch in isolation like that. I'm not sure what I was doing in the four circles... but I like it as a whole - ironically it looks better in this smaller version than it does in my book! As usual, the Mooka lends a bit of a deco feel to the whole thing. 

I like the garden-y feel of this second one... a little Tufted, a little Facets, some Fescu and an uneven Fengle in the middle. I love how the unbounded sides of Mumsy look like they are larger than the bounded sides... totally an illusion since it all fits in the same original circle. Overall sort of spring like - also looking better here than in my book. Maybe I should scan all my pieces in and look at them on the computer, maybe I would be happier with the results more regularly!

So thanks to Erin for daring us to try the Zendalla format. It should be interesting to see what comes of it.

Wow, actual progress!

I have actual progress to report on projects that existed before this week! How novel!  We will not mention that one of them was started the week before last... let's just focus on the forward movement, shall we.

This week I have... worked more on the New York Beauty block set that I started... well, I said we weren't going to talk about that. I think I know what direction I am going in now and have a sort of layout plan in my head. Here they are...I like the identical blocks opposite from each other and the same block patterns with different colors pieced together, I think it gives it some 'order'. I still have to play with the layout and figure out where I need to go from here, but I think this will be the general idea. I also decided to slow down, do one block at a time and the curved piecing has been going better. I think I just got excited and was trying to rush through. 

While piecing those I have been working on the HST UFO from ages ago. I think I have all the blocks I need plus a few. I need to shuffle them about and find the final balance and then I can sew them together.

I have also been working on the second to last blocks of my Tweets applique again. I have some leaves left to make, but everything else is made and glue basted and I am well into stitching many of the elements. No picture of this one, sorry. Maybe next week when I have the leaves finished.

So those are works in progress this week. I am stoked to be making progress again!  Now I need to actually, you know QUILT a flimsy once in a while! Check out other people's progress for the week over at Freshly Pieced.

A Monday Post Inspired by last Weeks Design Wall!

This last week was spring break around here and I figured with the two youngest home by myself there would not be much sewing time, but it turns out that I must spend most of my time going back and forth from school, the bus stop and activities because with those all on hold there was more time than I thought. I also basically didn't cook and the youngest must be growing because she napped several times late in the afternoon until early evening. That and I could stay up as late as I wanted in the sewing room because the other inhabitant was off hiking 30 miles on the AT.

So there are two things going on in the sewing room here now. The first is my new weakness, New York Beauty blocks. You can read more about my fall from my former grace (not having gotten sucked into tempting new projects)  here - but the short story is that I was pushed over the edge by a Design Wall post of a friend from last week. I have only two more blocks than when I 'started' because the hikers got home severely limiting my late nights in the sewing room. However, despite the lack of time my other problem seems to be that I am getting stuck with colors now... I like what I have so far, don't want to duplicate and am worried about ruining the feel and balance of the mix. Ugh. At first I had not expectation and therefore was totally free... now I feel constrained by what I already have and am stuck. I actually like the half finished block better in the photo than IRL so maybe it is OK. The green and purple was originally supposed to go on the gold and red paper pieced section but they just didn't get along. My curved piecing is also going down the tubes. I started out pretty well and have maybe started to think about it too much or something because it is getting worse instead of better. I have to find a way back to the 'fun' with this one or I will never get enough to do anything with.



The other one that I am working on as leaders and enders while I paper piece is this ancient 2.5" HST project. These are all waste triangles from the pinwheel bed sized quilt pictured below that I made ages ago. I began trimming down the HST sets leftover from all those corners and sewing them into blocks long ago when I was obsessed with the pattern from the flannel lap quilt also shown below, which was also made ages ago. The untrimmed HST's have been sitting in a basket awaiting trimming and sewing together for a long time... they sort of feel like part of the decor of the sewing room by now. I realized that I could actually almost see the bottom of the basket and thought this would be a great leader-ender project. I would love to get this together and decide what else it needs to be 

'finished' as one of my quarterly FAL projects. I am within a few blocks of being done and then I just have to do a little moving blocks about to establish balance and then I can piece the center together. I just now realized that they are arranged differently than the flannel lap quilt... I guess the accent corners in the lap (pink) are on every block and the accent corners on the one above are on every other block so it looks very different... interesting. So I guess I might play with the arrangement  some as well and see what developes. Any suggestions for what to add to the outside to make it larger?  I have a stack of HST's of the background tan and the solid red from the border of the original, but I am not sure if it is enough to do much of anything with. I will have to count and see. If nothing else I will use them in the backing somehow. 

                                                                                                                   

To check out what other people are up to this week check out Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times.

Oh I am so WEAK!

I have resisted lots of temptation this year.... I did not get involved in the Swoon craze, although I love that block. I have not been tempted by the granny squares. I did not succumb to the Farmers Wife QAL. I did catch a mild case of hexie fever, but it was a small project and it was done before the holidays, as in pieced, quilted, bound and gifted. That is like a minor miracle around here, a finished quilt in less than a decade. I have also resisted some great sales and been trying to work on what I have or at least with the stash I have on hand.
You know where this is going right?
I got a little too interested in the Design Wall Monday post of a friend of mine who is working on New York Beauty blocks with a QAL. Her's are turning out fabulous. That piqued my interest... I started browsing around at the hosting blogs... found the list of downloadable block patterns... got to thinking about the large pile of jewel tone Quilters Candy semi-solids I have in the drawers upstairs... ugh.
So here is where I am after nap time yesterday plus 6 hours late at night last night...

The bug is still buzzing in my ear so I will have to make more. There are lots of blocks I haven't tried! The thing is I don' really enjoy paper piecing... it is kind of a pain and I find it very slow. I am improving my non-existent curved piecing skills... so that is good right? I do love the finished blocks and I prefer the random arrangement so I need enough to make it, well, random looking. I guess the best news out of this is that I made myself make the binding for the quilt at the quilters right now before I began. AND, I can leader/ender HST's together to make blocks for another, very old UFO that is up on the smaller design wall right now. SO maybe I will have that together by the time I am done with this obsession.
So, as far as works in progress... this is a *sigh* NEW project. I am leader/endering a waste triangle project from long ago, made the binding for the gift quilt I should get back this month and made no progress on anything else... even the half quilted holiday wreath top. I am so lame! Check out other's works in progress over at Freshly Pieced.

A quilters quarterly report....

OK, no judging please, it has been one heck of a quarter! I have only managed to post twice in March and have not even finished any Zentangle challenges, although I started many. Sad, I know, but at least one of the things keeping me busy during that time was a quilt. It wasn't on the UFO list, unfortunately, but I started it in mid February and finished top and back last week at it is at the long arm quilters until mid to late April. Other than that I did get some things on my list done or at least worked on.

First on the list was to border the crumb quilt. DONE! We won't talk about that no back has been made and no quilting has been done... The goal was to get the border finished and I did! Go me.

Second on the list was to make a backing and quilt the Winter's Winning Hand. PART done. I made the backing... a sort of mish mash of leftover parts and some Gingerbread Man fabric that seemed appropriate but wasn't big enough. I never got around to the quilting part so technically not a finish although progress was made.

backing for the wreath

Third on the list was to quilt the Holiday Wreath. I made the backing and began quilting it. I ended up doing some machine trapunto on the ribbons and then stuffing them even more before I even started the quilting. It may have been a mistake as it is going to be mighty hard to get my skip-happy machine to quilt right close to those fat sections... but live and learn. At one point after cross hatching the background around the wreath and getting into free motion stitching around the motifs in the borders I ran out of thread and it took a few days to get more of the right color... By then 'the moment had passed' so to speak and I had moved on to other things. I hope to pick that back up this week while my son is off hiking and I can stay up and sew into the wee hours. So, again, not a finish.

The charity quilt I was planning on finishing was worked on! I pulled it out, made a few blocks, decided on how big it will be and found the rest of the fabric I need for it. Still not done, however and no new photos.

So, I got one thing on my list done and made a very special retiring teacher a huge queen sized quilt from beginning to 'flimsy with backing' and added all sorts of sentimental value to it with names and signatures from students and teachers. Not too bad for a quarter, even if not everything was on the list! Now I need to assess what I will work on in the coming quarter. Thanks for stopping by. To see what other people have managed to finish this past quarter stop by Quilter in the Gap's quarterly check in post.

Many things in progress, few things actually done...

Hello all you lovely blog-land readers. I am alive, but just barely. I knew two months ago when I scheduled my calendar that the first half of March was going to really stink, and I was RIGHT! I have been overly busy and had some not so lovely additions added to the mix like the death of a terminally ill family member, the long lasting yucky cold of my preschooler and the failure of a committee member to fulfill her duties regarding the science fair leaving me in the lurch at the last minute . Now, of course because said preschooler crawls into bed with me and puts her stuffy little head right next to mine on the pillow... and coughs in my face... I have that same yucky cold AND a ton of things to do! Yea me!

BUT... one sunny day late last week before I was completely snowed under by the science fair I did manage to take a couple of pictures of the only project currently getting any attention and one project that has been finished for a while but I have not had in my possession until now. First, the teacher quilt has all border vine applied and stitched and all of the green leaves stitched as well. I have one flower done and have added two of the bees. This is a distance photo, I don't have detail photos yet. I have also added all the names that will not be written by the children themselves... that in itself was a comedy of errors, but nothing horrible and that just makes it 'handmade' right?

This is what the bees will look like and I have been debating how many I will add... one to a flower seems a little too regular, two to a few flowers might be a little crowded. What do you think?

This project is a quilt for the assistant pastor at your church who left... um three years ago almost? It took two years to pull it all together working with various quilters making blocks. It was a finished flimsy late last spring. It was finished by the quilter, also a friend of the pastor, last summer and we have been waiting for the current senior pastor to decide when to give it to him. I just got it back from the quilter's daughter last week so I finally got to see it quilted. She does a great job and honestly, when you can find a quilter who WANTS to bind the quilt for you its a winner! She enjoys binding... how amazing is that!

Being the work of multiple quilters it was exciting to put it all together but I think it came out nicely. I love this layout and its ability to accommodate so many different sizes. I hpe he appreciates it and it is not too lame that it took so long to put it all together. 

All my other projects are on hold. I had hoped to finish a number of tops this quarter. There is one that is part way quilted (holiday wreath) and one that has had a backing made (winter's winning hand). The crumb quilt is finished, although I have made no further progress on the backing or quilting. To see what others have 'in progress' visit Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. 

I have made Crumb progress... but only in my head!

I had really wanted to get a few things actually quilted... this is called 'quilting' right? Not 'piecing'? However (and there always seems to be a 'however' in my life) I got caught up in a piecing project (shocking I know!) that is for someone else and has a deadline and must be sent out to quilt which will take goodness knows how long. So, all my limited sewing time has been spent doing that. It is turning out fabulously, if I do say so myself (see the past few posts and tune in later this week for a photo of the final top photo) but it has kept me from completing even the small top I was actually quilting in January when I ran out of the right color thread. Drat, foiled again!

So this is a re-hash of the final crumb top, Hearts of Gold. I plan on quilting it... and this is where the 'progress has been made - I made an actual DECISION! with a gold toned variegated thread in a large overall meander. I don't think it can stand too much of a pattern since there is already so much going on. I may do a straight line grid to stabilize the whole thing before I start. I will also certainly take special care with my hearts - probably echo quilt around them a couple of times and work the meander around them. There are a few other crumb tops, some of them actually quilted! over at the Crumb Round Up.