Current Projects or better Known as "Squirrel" Moments

You know you're in your happy place when you have quilted more in the past couple of months than you have in the previous year!

It's always good to rediscover your WIP/ UFO's and your stash. After all you did buy or start them because you did at one time love it...looking through the past can rekindle the passion for that project left undone or fabric unused. And boy do I have a lot of UFO's! But That will be another post, LOL

The following pics are my current projects that I am working on

 

In the basket is Bonnie Hunter's newest leader and ender challenge which is called "Checkerboard Rail Fence" I have made quite a bit of progress on this one already...it goes together really fast.

  

This is another Bonnie Hunter quilt called "Lazy Sunday" from her book "More Adventures With Leaders and Enders". I actually had all the blocks pieced before we left TX with the intentions of finishing the quilt once back in AZ, HOWEVER......when it came time to put it altogether my blocks were off by 1/2"!!! some how my seam guide got out of line back in TX. This is why you should always recheck your seam guide from time to time. Any ways couldn't just use the blocks as is since there is a pieced outer border on this quilt. So I had to rip out all the seams and start over.   

 

While all of this is going on I decided it was long over do to put those bonus triangle units to good use... so went to Bonnie Hunter's blog to search her free patterns to see what I could fine to use these units. I decided to go with "Emery's Stars"  

 

Here is a pic of one of the blocks, finishes at 6" square in a baby quilt.

 

and here is a pic of me putting together "Lazy Sunday" once I resewed the blocks with the proper seam allowance. Currently the whole quilt center is pieced and is awaiting the inner border and the outer pieced border to be sewn on.   

 

Remember this one? Hocuspocusville! I pulled it out to work on it. All of the embroideries have been done for well over a year now, just need to push it past the finish line. 

 

 

So I pieced the embroidery blocks together and added the outer border.

 

 

I even added the decorative feather stitch in purple between the blocks. I now know why the designer decided to add the black ric rac around the center of the quilt...since the center is on point the pattern over sized the setting triangles and corner triangles...so when you go to trim down the center to fit the  embroideries you end up having to cut off your points :( to get it to the proper size. I'm sure with time an patience someone could re draft the center to fit properly but hey this has been a UFO for way too long now and I want it finished! Waiting for some cooler temps to put it on the long arm to finish it off...maybe in time for Halloween 2017...fingers crossed.

 

And then there is quilts that have been tugging at your heart since the first time you saw them...this is one of them. The first year I started long arming for the public one of my customers brought me the "Jewel of the Prairie" quilt that was featured in a 2005 Fons & Porter magazine. It is a Judy Martin quilt design based off of her Shakespeare in the Park Quilt. Over the past 12 years I have been wanting to make this quilt...have purchased fat quarters multiple times only to use the fat quarters in other projects. So this past month I decided why not, now is as good as time as any to get this puppy started...I ended up cutting for 2 WHOLE days!!! I hate the old school cutting directions for triangles and corner triangles that magazines use for the patterns. Thinking back it would have been a lot easier if I would have consulted a conversion chart to see what the finished unit size was suppose to end up as. If I did then I could have easily have used modern tools such as the easy angle/ companion angle rulers or even my Accuquilt Go (I have all of the die shapes needed except for the 6" finish shapes). Oh well live and learn.   

  

If you are familiar with this pattern you will understand why it has taken me so long to jump into this quilt project. It is very INTIMIDATING! with all of the cutting, not knowing finished unit sizes or how the pieces were going to fit together when you are cutting it all out...should be interesting! 

 

This is block one, I needed 28 that finishes at 6"  oh and if you're wondering I'm naming this quilt "Jewel of the Southwest" since I am using southwest desert colors.  

 

 

Then last but not least I was inspired to start a string spider web quilt, Bonnie Hunter has a great tutorial on how to do one under her free patterns tab on her blog. Since I have a lot  of Halloween fabrics (love all the bright colors) it was a no brainier to put the 2 together. My game plan is to make a king sized quilt so I can have it on my bed for the month of October (maybe not this October though, lol).

 

The orange that I am using is a Kona solid and the color is called "Goldfish" I have a whole bolt of it (bought it to use for cheddar quilts) in the future...