Friday 30 August 2013

Summer Endings, Fall Beginnings!

School is set to start here and that always feels like a fresh start to me.  Back to routines, brand new school supplies and clothes.  It is so full of possibilities!  To celebrate, I'm offering 20% all fabric orders in my shop.  There's lots of great Moda to choose from so head on over to Ella's Cottage, fill up a cart and enter B2S2013 at the checkout.  I am more than willing to ship overseas, just PM to get a shipping quote.  And feel free to ask for a custom listing to save on shipping costs!!

When it comes to productive sewing time, August didn't start out too well.  But after a little whine, I realized I just needed to readjust my expectations.  Instead of expecting to get a lot done during the day, I had to set priorities and steal 15 minutes wherever I could.  Sometimes this meant sacrificing mindless internet time for my machine.  Seems like a fair tradeoff though!


Once that happened, I was able to finish String of Luck for the QAL at Christa Quilts.  This was my ALYOF goal for August


After that, I set to chain piecing Clementine Cross.  The orange is Bella Solid Clementine, the white is Bella Solid Bleached White.



And just this week, I finished up my Swoon quilt.  I couldn't resist joining #swoon2013 over on instagram.  But I wasn't feeling up to the full size.  So I cut back to four blocks and used Bella Zen Grey for the background.  The stars are made from fat quarters purchased from my LQS (I think 2 of them are Riley Blake?) and the green herringbone is from my stash (Robert Kaufmann, maybe?).  It ended up measuring approximately 54" x 54".  I'm really glad I decided to play along because I learned quite a bit doing these blocks.



1. HSTs are really nothing to be afraid of!  And they are so freaking versatile. 

2.  Ditto for flying geese.  I've been leery to try these for a while but nothing holding me back now!

3.  When working with HSTs and Flying Geese press seams open.  The first block was finished when I read Christa's Soapbox about pressing seams open.  I had some pretty bulky spots on that first block so I tried pressing the next one open.  It took a few minutes more but made a world of difference.  And I'm fairly certain I will be really happy when I'm quilting over some of those points!



4.  Don't wait until the last minute to take photos for the blog :)  It's rainy and windy today but I dragged my sick daughter outside to hold on for dear life #parentingfail  The pictures aren't great but I promise I will make up for it once it's quilted and bound.

Looking forward...

School starts next week which means a lot more sewing time for this lady!  However, not all of it will be quilty.  Christmas craft show season is rapidly approaching and my stock needs some beefing up.  Most of my time will be spent on that but I am setting my ALYOF goal to finish my Churn Dash quilt this month.


Linking up with ALYOF, Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF!

12 comments:

  1. I love your FMQing in "string of luck". the circles off-set the squares. nice finishes . . . love your model on the porch.

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  2. Looks like you had a productive month after all! I get stuck in those high expectations too, and also find that cutting out mindless internet time (like...like right now for example, haha) increases my sewing productivity a lot! I love your swoons on grey! That bottom right is my favorite with the fussy cut in the center.

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  3. ohhh your swoon quilt is so cute. Love the churn dash quilt, is it a large one ?? such a simple idea but looks awesome.thanks for linking up

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  4. Nice projects going on and congrats on your finish. I'm also looking forward the school routine :-)

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  5. Yay for a gorgeous Swoon. Loving those colours with the grey background! Fab picture of your daughter with the quilt!

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  6. You've got a whole lot of quilting yumminess going on here!!

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  7. Love your fabric choices on the swoon. Especially the yummy orange!

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  8. All your quilts and quilts to be are wonderful! Great quilting on Strings of Luck! Love the Swoon and the smile on your gal standing with it!

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  9. I think August ended up being quite productive for you - so many beautiful quilts. I love the Swoon quilt. Gorgeous! And I love the photo with your daughter, she looks so happy!

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  10. Wow! I love the picture of your daughter and the swoon quilt. That is one very happy little girl :) Congratulations on all you did get accomplished! I have to readjust my expectations all the time because of my hands too, so I totally understand.

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  11. I love the swoon quilt - such gorgeous colours! Great modelling by the little superstar!

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