UFO Busting #75

I've had a bitter sweet week; not a bad week or a sad week necessarily.  Three months ago, I started a new job at a place I absolutely love.  I have the best co-workers in the world.  I had three months to train with and get to know the lady I would be replacing.  After 23 years of working for the company, she decided to hang up the hat, when she found out she would be the grandmother to twins.  This week we hosted a retirement party for her with a theme...a grandma baby shower.  The party was a blast complete with shower games and a diaper cake we made for her.

I say it was bitter sweet because even though I knew I was hired to be her replacement, over a three month period we became fast friends.  I do hope she will stay in contact and will still stop by.  I do not want the shenanigans to end.

On the quilting front, I finally found time to write a post about the quilt I made for one of the Triathlon Gold athletes, Megan.  This was a venture Island Batik offered to the ambassadors and I didn't hesitate to say sign me up.

You can read more about this quilt and Triathlon Gold here.

Dear Island Batik,

I swear there is a September project happening at my house as we speak.  I'm not sure I will get it quilted by the end of the month, but the top will definitely be pieced.

Our challenge for the month is to create a child themed quilt to be given to a child.  I have the recipient already in mind and want to custom quilt this piece, so we will have to celebrate the quilting finish very soon, just not September 30 soon.  

Now let's check out who partied with us last week.  First up we have  Andree over at Quilting & Learning-What A Combo! and her finished Garden Pond piece.

You can read about the process of how this little quilt came to life over at her blog.  I'm just in awwe over all that yummy free motion quilting.  I absolutely love the texture in the water!

Next up we have DonnaleeQ bringing a snack to the party...or did she?

When you see a box like this in your sewing room, you know it's going to be good.  Now the question is, candy or sweet goodness of a quilting project long forgotten?  It's a win either way.  Make sure you hop over and find out the answer to this riddle.

Now it's your turn.  Link up below and show us what you've been up to this week.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Triathlon Gold Quilt--An Island Batik Special Project

I have been waiting since June to tell you more about this quilt, but all good things come with time.  Back in May Island Batik contacted the ambassadors and asked for volunteers to make quilts for members of the Triathlon Gold Team.  What is Triathlon Gold?  Glad you asked.  Triathlon Gold is a team of talented athletes coached by Jarrod Evans training and competing for their shot at an Olympic gold medal.  (read more about them here)  So where do we fit into this?  Earlier this year, Island Batik became one of the sponsors for the team.  As a way to cheer all the athletes on as they work hard and compete, Island Batik asked us to make comfort quilts they could take with them on their journeys.  I said COUNT ME IN!  My own little triathlon endurance race of piece, quilt and bind. This post is my sort of open ended letter to Megan Foley, the recipient of my quilt, on how her quilt came to life.

UFO Busting #74

The big talk in my neck of the woods is dragon flies.  They are everywhere!  I've never seen so many in my life.  The fly around in swarms, completely harmless, just intimidating.  I say bring them on!  They eat mosquitoes and mosquitoes eat me.  Buzzing around my sewing room this week...fabric. 

I had so much fun at last weekend's Judy Lilly landscape class and can't wait to tell you about it (I'm so behind in post writing).  I walked away with most of the project complete.

I just need to applique, add borders and quilt/thread paint and this little gem will be finished.  I actually can't wait to make more!  I bought two more of her patterns...shhhh.  

The real meat and potatoes of the week has been work on my Island Batik project for the month.  I created a design in EQ8 using the spiderweb block and set to work prepping fabrics for the dye cutter.  Color placement is everything for this quilt. 

I realized that a fat quarter of fabric wasn't quite enough for what I needed in some sections, so some on the fly pattern changes happened.  This made things a bit confusing as to what goes where.  So I had the foresight to put my precut pieces in baggies and label them.

So the dye cutting has began and hopefully by the end of the weekend, I will have all the blocks pieced together.  I'm quite proud of this project as an original design.  

Now it's time to see what you were up to last week.  We had a UFO finish!!!  Jan at The Colorful Fabriholic celebrated the finish of her Roman Road Quilt!!

The road some quilts must travel to find a finish is sometimes longer than others.  I think this one maybe had a long journey because, after reading it's story, it had a lot to see before it was time to rest.  Make sure you pop over to Jan's and see how she made this BOM her own.

Next up is Yvonne at Sew Yummy and her recent quilt top finish of her Rainbow Swirl Quilt.  

I love a rainbow quilt and this one is no exception.  Yvonne purchased the pattern after being tempted by an ad picture and I have to say, her pictures have me twitching to go hit the download button.  Let's cheer Yvonne on to finishing this quilt top before the space on her wall for it gets fill by something else :)

Now it's your turn.  Link up below and show us what you've been up to this week.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

UFO Busting #73

It is a busy weekend over here in wonderland.  For the first time in quite a while I'm hitting the pause button and doing something just for me.  My guild is hosting the talented Judy Lilly this weekend with a truck show and a class on making a pictorial quilt.  I'm super excited because this is something completely new and out of my comfort zone for me.  So, I've started packing for the day class and hope I haven't forgotten anything.

I also managed to get my portion of the our guild's charity quilt finished up this week.  At our last meeting we handed out pre-cut kits for everyone to take home and piece for the next meeting.

This is a great way to allow everyone to participate when ever it is convenient for them to sew.  Now all we have to do is gather the blocks and start turning them into a quilt.

I thought I would have a finished quilt top to show you this week, in the way of the Daisy Chain Mystery Quilt...but no.  I show you me picking out the first two rows.

All of the rows are sewed together correctly.  However when I sewed the first two together I pinned and sewed down the wrong side..insert the blooper music.

I also learned how to use the Spider Web Block on Board Dye given to me by Accuquilt.  I'm thinking about doing a short video talking about the block, how I went wrong (on the left) and finally went right.  Always read the directions.

Let's take a look at what you were up to last week.  First up, we have Sandy at Sew This Is My Blog and her one block wonder quilt.

This is not a picture of her finished quilt top.  This is where it started.  I want you to go look (if you already havent') at where it went...because it is freakin awesome!  Some times a piece of fabric has to hang around for quite awhile before we find out where/how it is going to live.  Make sure you visit Sandy and see how she turned this fabric into an eye poppin wall hanging.

I'm also not going to show you Vicki at Vicki's Crafts and Quilting's finished wall hanging either.  Just where she started.

She turned these beautiful fall panel pieces into a wall hanging like she has wizard powers.  I'm always in awe at how others can look at pieces like this and see pieced borders in their head, turning it into something breath taking.  Make sure you hope over to Vicki's to see the finish product!

Now it's your turn.  Link up below and show us what you've been up to.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

UFO Busting #72

This week I am showing up at my own BYOP (bring your own project) party empty handed.  There was zero sewing on the horizon this past week.  I did however get my secret project mailed out, so that should count for something.

You guys, however, were super productive!  Yvonne over at Sew Yummy celebrated a quilty finish!

A UFO that got its start while at a retreat with friends (some of my favorite UFO's started that way) finally had its day of finish and is shinning bright.  Make sure to visit Yvonne and read about those yummy Alison Glass friendship stars.

Next up we have Rebecca at Cheeky Cognocenti and what I'm going to call distracted progress.  Distracted progress?  Was she distracted from her project?  Heck no!  She ignored a suite case that was calling her name and totally moved full speed ahead working on her modified Moda Modern Building Blocks project!

Seeing Rebecca's two big beautiful blocks makes me want to run from this key board and pull out my version of this project and start sewing.  Hey, maybe I will!  Thanks for sharing with us last week, Rebecca!  I do hope that suite case got packed.

Then we have Donnalee at Donnaleeq and her scrap burning.  

Wait...not that kind of burning.  This kind of burning.

The kind of burning that is going to leave you with a beautiful quilt when you are finished and leave your fingers hot from all that sewing!  Also, you have to check out Donnalee's duck, Mrs. Duck.  Mrs. Duck is living the high life...go check it out here!

Now it's your turn.  Link up below and show us what you've been up to this week. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

UFO Busting #71

Welcome back for another addition of UFO Busting!  Sadly I didn't finish cutting my fabrics for the Mosaic Mystery Quilt, but I did make more progress on a quilt started this year that I'm determined not to let become an official UFO, the Daisy Chain Mystery Quilt.

All of the blocks are pieced.  Wooo Whoooo!  I just need to make the rows come together and decide if the quilt will have borders.  It's all bubble gum and fun with the colors of this quilt.

UFO Busting #70

Welcome back for another week of UFO busting and UFO distractions.  UFO busting is where we celebrate those finishes that have been begging to be finished and we celebrate anything you worked on this week.  I hope you can take a few minutes to party harty with us this week.  This week I celebrated a blog hop finish. 

Tuesday was my day on the Island Batik Beat the Heat Blog Hop.  I have been dying to show you the fabrics they sent me to play with.  I received a half yard bundle of the Geared Up collection and had so much fun playing with it.  Read more about these fabrics here and how to join the party and win prizes!

This week I continued working on the Daisy Chain Mystery Quilt.  I almost have all the block A's finished and predict the B blocks will see their day this weekend as well.