Sliced Coins Quilt-Along: Cut It Up!

Minor miracles do happen! Case in point:

I decided, spur-of-the-moment-like, to join Elizabeth D.'s Sliced Coins Quilt-Along (link is in my sidebar) and do a baby-size quilt. We're now into the cutting phase, and I managed to finish on time! In time to do the linky, even!


All the while I was cutting, I could feel the pinwheels behind me, laid out as they were on the guest bed, giving me sad looks and radiating feelings of abandonment. They had three seams left, and the top would be ready for borders! How could I do such a thing as *gasp* start something else?

...I refuse to feel guilty.

FNSI Results and Sliced Coin Quilt-Along Fabric, Yay!

Hello, lovelies!

I may be a little bit insane, but being in the middle of a GIANT (for me; it's twin-size) quilt makes me want to start in on smaller projects. And I have smaller projects in the works, but I simply couldn't resist signing up for Elizabeth D.'s Sliced Coins Quilt-Along, especially when I saw she's posting instructions for a baby-sized quilt. That's not that big! I can handle that, right? *g*

So today I bought some fabric. I think Heather Mulder Peterson is fast becoming one of my favorite designers:




And I spent last night sewing! So here's the January Friday Night Sew-In results:

(And I just realized I can link this to WIP Wednesday! Yay! Go check them out!)

Sneaking in

Because I'm very excited to be doing this:



I may even start during this!



Although I really should work on finishing up the Tweetygigs before I start in on some coin-slicing. Hee.

Hello, new semester

And it's the start of the spring semester, and I've got a heavy teaching load this spring, with two sections of Research Methods (in psychology)--which will mean a lot of grading, as we get clipping along in the semester. I wanted to let everyone know that this blog is going to slow down a little, in terms of posting, but I hope to keep up at least one post a week and continue commenting and reading along.

Tonight, though, I have some finishes to share! Mug rugs are so addicting, and fun to give as gifts. Case in point, a mug rug for my MIL, given at Christmas (as always, click for bigger):

WIP Wednesday #9: Adding to my list...

That's right--it's another WIP Wednesday!



It's the last Wednesday before classes begin, for me, so I imagine my progress will get back to true Slow Poke levels after next week, but for now, I'm so close to completing Z's TweetyGigs I can almost taste it!

I posted my first tutorial this week, on getting pinwheel points to match. I'm glad I got that done when I did, because today, glory of glories, I finished the blocks! I had fifteen blocks left:



And had a pile of fourteen when I was done. (One of them ended up being the wonkiest, weirdest stretched-out pinwheel I've ever made. What's up with that? It was like my last one!)



And I was partway through the initial layout when I got called to get my sick Z from daycare:



With any luck, I will be able to get the top sewn together, and the borders on, by next week!

I also started a new project--a mug rug that's more like a mug carpet for my Mr's office. He wanted a big one!




This week's stats:
New projects: 1
Completed projects: 0
In progress: 5

Welcome to all who've wandered in, and don't forget to check out the rest of the WIP Wednesday party at FreshlyPieced!

Flashback: Fireworks Quilt

Today I'd like to share, for Fabric Tuesday, a little bit of a blast from the past: My Fireworks quilt (click for bigger).



This is a generously-sized lap quilt, begun at a stack-n-whack class and finished in fall 2004. It goes with absolutely nothing in our decor (or probably anybody else's), but I love the way the pinwheels turned out.

I have fond memories of creating the pinwheel blocks in our tiny apartment kitchen, in the evening time after a day spent working on my dissertation. Since I hadn't peeked at the triangle stacks after I'd whacked them, I didn't know how each block would turn out, and it was always exciting to see! I'd take them in to the Mr to show him, too. :)



To get the layout I liked, I took photos of each block, rotated and cropped each photo so it was 'on point', and then I made several test arrangements on the computer.

The quilting was done by a local long-arm quilter, using a computer-driven machine and a stars-n-loops pattern. I kind of wish she'd used rainbow thread instead of red-white-blue, but I still like it.



We've used this quilt for all kinds of things--like going under the 6-month-old so she could play without spitting up on the carpet--and now it lives in my sewing room as a spare blanket for the guest bed.

What I really want to remember from my experience with this quilt is that when I first started quilting, I was confident in my ability to mix colors and fabrics, to envision what a quilt would look like and to trust my instincts. I knew this fabric would make an awesome stack-n-whack quilt, and I surprised many of the other, older ladies in my class by picking it. I don't ever want to forget that confidence, that trust in my eye and my instincts--there are so many inspiring quilters out there, but there can be one in here, too, if I listen to her.

Please head on over to Fabric Tuesday and check out the other wonderful projects!

Tutorial: Practically Perfect Pinwheel Points

Perhaps there are already a gazillion pinwheel-block tutorials out there. Or perhaps pinwheels are such a standard in the quilter's repertoire we're supposed to be born knowing how to do them so the points all match up in the center.


I'm currently midway through a twin-size HST pinwheel quilt for my three-year-old's Big Girl Bed (which she'll need sooner rather than later!), and I feel like I've figured out how to get the points to (mostly) reliably match. If you're at all like me, and you weren't born with innate pinwheel-block knowledge, I hope you find this tutorial helpful!

Wee Favorites on Friday!

What a happy Friday morning!

I was tagged by A. J. Dub at Harriet Homemaker Strikes Again with a lovely--and my first-ever--blogger award!



It means 'favorite blog,' and is an award to highlight your favorite 'wee' blogs out there--the ones that we love that don't have huge numbers of followers. Thank you so much, A. J.!

And in turn I'd like to award this to:

• LittleBook, whose Dutch pinwheels were what I fell in love with first, but her cat army is irresistable
• Melanie, whose Dr. Seuss quilt is going to be gorgeous
• Christie, who never fails to bring the happy to my blogroll
• Tracie, who is a criminally-talented fine artist and muralist--if you can dream it, she can paint it!

If you wish to accept this tag, then you in turn should post about it! Don't forget to mention who tagged you, and spotlight 3-5 of your favorite 'wee' blogs (as in, the aim is to highlight blogs with fewer than 300 followers, so spread the love!), and let people know you tagged them.

Do go check them out, and spread the love!

Evolution of a Sewing Space

Hello, lovelies!

My WiP Wednesday post yesterday generated some interest in my sewing space, especially my lovely sewing cabinet!



So, I thought I'd share a little about how my quilting space has evolved and give you some pictures of the cabinet in all its glory:

Recipe for TweetyGig Happiness

I'm a little late to the WiP Wednesday party, but I have progress! :)



I got two more blocks done to catch up with the Layer Cake Quilt Along, blogged about here.

And I've also been plugging away at my three-year-old's twin quilt. This afternoon, after work and before Z came home from daycare, I followed my recipe for happy TweetyGig progress:

Layer Cake Quilt Along: Progress!

So I was so excited for the Layer Cake Quilt Along over at Moose on the Porch Quilts, right? I got a Dream On layer cake as a birthday present, I drooled over the fabrics and colors, the quilt-along started at the beginning of November and...

I made one block.

Then promptly fell behind, as one does when you have eleventy-billion papers and projects to grade at the end of the semester and no time to sew.

But now! Oh, the excitement!

For 2011: STITCH IT UP

So Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy posted this wonderful Lofty Quilty List, and I think it's a fabulous idea to outline the projects one wants to complete in the new year. Since I'm an odd duck in the quilting world (I don't have a stash; I mostly buy fabric as I plan projects), I thought I'd pull out those planned projects and WIPs and get them in one place: