I Joined a QAL

This may or may not surprise you, but I have decided to join in on a quilt along.  I have not been sewing full steam ahead now for almost three weeks (maybe four).  Life has thrown a major curve ball that has left me feeling a bit empty and my head is spinning.  I've been focusing on me and decided that this QAL with Roseanne and Sue at Home Sewn By Us is exactly what I needed.  There are really no rules, no time frame to finish and three quilts to choose from.  I will be making the Up From Here modern quilt because, well...I need everything to be up from here.  Seems fitting.

I decided from the get go this will be a quilt that I will sell.  With fall right around the corner, I decided to go with the colors of the WV Mountaineers, blue and gold.  This would make someone a fun football quilt.  I took to Facebook to take a poll on which color version people liked better, more blue or more gold.

I actually found myself drawn to the one of the right, more gold.  But almost overwhelmingly, people like the one on the left better.  The people spoke and so I sew on.

I popped by a local quilt shop to pick up some on sale yardage to get myself started and over all I'm happy with my selections.

The pieces cut up very quickly and I'm happy to report I am half way done with sewing the blocks.

The construction is very reminiscent of Sandra's Play Time Plus Quilt, which I promise has it's own finished post coming soon.  I believe I may be able to have a flimsy finish on Up From Here later this weekend and that feels really good say.

I apologize for kind of falling off the blogisphere over the past couple weeks.  I am happy to report that I am almost down 20lbs and feeling rather good.  I think I may hold off until August to bring back our UFO Linky Party, hopefully everyone who was joining me on Saturdays will come back and play some more.  The first block of Fireburst is still scheduled for August 1st and I can't wait to share it with everyone!

Also an update on my beloved Newton.  Sadly, we made the decision on July 2nd to let him go.  His tumor just kept growing and he finally stopped eating.  It was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make, but one that had to happen out of love.  It took about a week, but his litter mate Becker, is doing well.  He's stopped sniffing me every time I leave the house and come back in and has returned to my chair stealing, food all over the floor messy goober that I've always loved.

Fireburst Mystery Quilt--Flying Geese and Square in a Square

Happy July 1st to everyone!  It's time to get cracking on the next set of instructions on the Fireburst Mystery Quilt.  In just a few days, here in the United States fireworks will be lighting up the sky in celebration of our independence so think of this as a small show of sparklers in preparation for our New Years fireworks.

This month we will be making a few flying geese units and a (yes one) square in a square unit.  That's not so bad, right?

Flying Geese

You will need one C rectangle and two A squares to make the Flying Geese units (remember to refer back to the cutting instructions chart if you need to).  Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of the A squares.

Place an A square on top of the C rectangle, right sides together, and sew on the diagonal line.  Trim 1/4" away from the sewn line and press open or toward the A square.

Place the other A square on the opposite side of the C rectangle, right sides together, and sew on the diagonal line.  Trim 1/4" away from the sewn line and press open or toward the A square.

Use the chart below to construct the following Flying Geese Units.

Square in a Square

Using a Fabric 2 E square and four Fabric 3 A squares, draw a diagonal line on the wrong sides of  each A square.

Place a Fabric 3 A squares in the upper left corner of the Fabric 2 E square, right sides together.  Using the stitch and flip method, sew on the diagonal line and trim 1/4" away from the seam and press open or towards the Fabric 3 A square.

Place a Fabric 3 A squares in the upper right corner of the Fabric 2 E square, right sides together.  Sew on the diagonal line and trim 1/4" away from the seam and press open or towards the Fabric 3 A square.

Place a Fabric 3 A square in the lower right corner of the Fabric 2 E square, right sides together.  Sew on the diagonal line and trim 1/4" away from the seam and press open or towards the Fabric 3 A square. 

 Place a Fabric 3 A square in the lower left corner of the Fabric 2 E square, right sides together.  Sew on the diagonal line and trim 1/4" away from the seam and press open or towards the Fabric 3 A square. 

Your finished square unit should measure Baby-4.5" square and Lap 8.5" square unfinished.  The good news?  Your finished for the month.  We only need one.

Here are my pieces all stitched up.

So that's it for the month.  I hope these units sew up super quick for you.  Feel free to post your progress on our Facebook page.  You can also download a PDF file of these instructions for free here.  I cant' wait to see your progress.

UFO Busting #26

This will probably be one of the very few not upbeat posts you will find on my blog ever, so let me apologize first.  Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to re-evaluate things, whether you want to or not.  That's me right now today.  Absolutely nothing quilting related happened this week, unless you count straightening up the sewing space and filing away fabrics.

I did, however, start to work on a very important UFO, one that will remain a UFO until the day I die and that is me.  I am probably my most neglected UFO.  We will always be our most important UFO and we can't forget that.  I had forgotten that.  We don't realize how we feel about ourselves can actually bleed off onto other people and they may not perceive/interpret things as you do.  There are no magic crystal balls into other people.  So this week, I shook off the cobwebs, picked up my boot straps and started doing just that.

It's hard to admit that you are unhappy with your body.  It's easy to have confidence sitting here at this computer...you can't see me.  There's nothing wrong with me per se, I look just fine.  Maybe I could say I could be healthier.  So this week, I have focused solely on what I've put into my body and started cleaning the spaces around me to remove the clutter.  I have to say, I feel slightly better.  It will be a process and a challenging one at that, but in the end it will be worth it.

After a week of cutting the carbs to pretty much zero and focusing on good fats and protein, I can start to feel and see a difference.  Don't get me wrong, I'd probably wrestle you to the ground right now for a Reese Cup, but I'm choosing not to.  I will however give you sad eyes while you eat it and don't be alarmed if I try to sniff it or possibly lick it.  I'm told the sugar withdrawal will pass.

I hope to return to my upbeat self soon, but for now, this is where I'm at, and that is okay.  We can't be Suzie Sunshine 24/7.  However, there are things to look forward to.  Tomorrow I will release the next set of piecing instructions for the Fireburst Mystery QAL.  I can't wait to see the progress you guys are making!

So let's take a look at what you guys were up to last week.  Last week Wendy at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilty Life had a project finish.

She calls this one Sunshine and Shadows.  With all rain around where I live seeing this lovely burst of yellow sun shine was a wonderful welcome.

I want to give a huge pat on the back to Janice at Color, Creating and Quilting.  She is determined to hone in on her free motion quilting skills.

Last week she shared a new quilting motif she has been practicing and the progress she is making on quilting Ashley's quilt.  Make sure you hope over to her page and give her some encouragement.  She is doing great!

So what have you been up to this week.  I hope there was more quilting in your life than mine.  Link up below and tell us all about it.

An InLinkz Link-up

UFO Busting #25

Only one more week and we will be officially half way through this year...how is that even possible?  How are you holding up?  Hopefully, we are making some progress on something, new or old.  This week I'm still chugging right along, floating from project to project like a good worker bee collecting pollen.  I've got things in all stages growing over here.

Let's start with a finish.  This week I posted about finishing the Mini Wayward Transparency Quilt, which I am happy to report was mailed and should have been delivered yesterday.

Mini Wayward Transparency

I do believe this little mini quilt qualifies as a squirrel, if ever one did.  About a month ago, I seriously decided to drop everything and make this quilt...DrEAMi?  While standing in line for a steak hoagie (glamourous right?), I ran into a girl I graduated high school with.  She and her daughter had been to the quilt show and she was telling me that her daughter fell in love with the blue quilt I had entered.  They were walking around picking which quilts they were going to vote for in the people's choice category and her daughter stopped when she spied my version of Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl's Wayward Transparency Quilt and said that that was her quilt.  When she read the tag she realized it was my quilt.  I thanked her for sharing that story with me it truly made me smile.

UFO Busting #24

This week, I busted a not my UFO.

I quilted and put the finishing touches on David's birthstone challenge project, Alexandrite and Pearls.

Alexandrite and Pearls

I'm not sure where to start because I'm so in love with this little 16" mini quilt.  Let's start with technically, it is not my quilt...legally only half mine.  Sorry, bad joke.  This little quilt is the brain child of my husband, Dave the Quilt Engineer and will be his entry in our guild's Birthstone Challenge.

When the challenge was issued, he decided to go with one of the designs from his sketch book.  The birthstone(s) for the month of June is Pearls and the more modern Alexandrite in beautiful purples and turquoise.  When he showed me the fabrics he had picked out, I knew no matter what he created it was going to be beautiful!  Plus there was a bit of jealousy because all I had to work with was reddish brown on mine.