January Roundup

This has been a productive month in the quilt cave. It is cold outside and warm in here! I have refocused my efforts and reopened creativity channels.  Part of this includes journaling about quilting progress, challenges and lessons learned. 

I am giving myself permission to skip days writing, which reduces the feeling of obligation to a task and helps me to focus and have fun. The writing allows me to analyze and issue, critique, and then let the criticism go.

One of my important goals for the year is to relax and enjoy the process. And to not worry so much about perfect piecing and even stitching. That just isn't me.

I have finally figured out how to position photos! I knew there had to be a secret tip. Secretly obvious on the same tab that controls the size. 

Challenge Updates

PhD in Quilting & One Monthly Goal

I have completed three quilts this month. My FMQA Sampler and Fabric Self Portrait are the first two UFOs finished this year!  I also completed one new start - FMQA Whole Cloth Corgi.  

I'm utilizing the spreadsheet both as a record of my goals and a plan for which quilts may (emphasis may) be worked on in which order.

As I figure out the best way to grab a picture of the sheet it may be more readable in future months.

More details on my Fabric Self Portrait are found HERE. I started it in March 2021 with my Quilt Bee and finished this month as part of my 'grab the low hanging fruit' attitude.

The FMQA Whole Cloth, was conceptualized in December 2021 and started/completed in January 2022. Details about this quilt and the FMQA Sampler are found HERE. I'm calling this a Red Table Scrap as well, as it might end up on my side table at the office if not on the wall. And it is RED!

Additional details for the FMQA Sampler are found HERE. The post includes closeups of each motif. I pieced the sampler last spring, and put the first motifs on it in October 2021. The goal for this sampler is twofold: to showcase the motifs learned in class and to experience manipulating a larger quilt in your machine. I quilt on a HQ Sweet Sixteen - and I appreciate the larger harp space. It was important to me to finish these two quilts in January so that I could submit them for Graduation from the String and Story Free Motion Quilting Academy and I am happy to say I met that goal!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Table Scraps

I set myself up to succeed for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month. My intent one Saturday afternoon was to select the fabrics and cut the pieces for my chosen blocks so that I could work on them during the ensuing weeks. I managed to complete all six blocks that evening. I'm still hoping to make some red string blocks and crumb blocks and that may happen over the weekend - or in February.  RSC progress is HERE.  As mentioned above, I'm calling my Whole Cloth Corgi a red Table Scrap. I should be more flexible/less deadline oriented by March.

Other Quilty Activities

I have two bed quilts that really need to be finished by mid-February so that I can deliver them in
person when I visit family. These are the Star Bright Quilts that I pieced last spring as I prepared for the Quilt Plan Challenge offered by String and Story. In hindsight, I could have participated in the challenge without a fresh top (or in my case a pair of fresh tops) but cabin fever combined with actually shopping in person again and stroking fabric led to a pair of tops.

One of my challenges was the backs. Both quilts ended up sized for double beds after I added extra bits to the pattern - and I didn't have enough fabric to just seam it together in the middle. I used bonus triangles to create two 90 inch strips. The green strip will be be a horizontal as I have 5 yards of fabric available. The blue strip is vertical - and has an additional 6 inches which will likely end up trimmed off, but was necessary for the back.

I pressed and repressed the Orlando Magic themed top, and managed to sew the center strip to the wrong side of the fabric which I fortunately caught before I added the second strip. That was a frustrating 96 inches to rip out... I'm not a fan of really long seams to start. I've now quilted the blue star points, the blue and black squares and probably 1/3 of the background.

It is slowly moving forward. This is the biggest quilt I've wrestled with so far and I'm still figuring out how best to manipulate it under the needle.  I need to clear off my cutting/pressing space and start pressing the second quilt this weekend so that it is ready to sandwich when I free up the rest of the pinmores from this beast.

Finally - in the continuing theme of grab the low hanging fruit, I added the borders to the Sunflower Runner - complete with mitered corners.

This one is heading back into hibernation for a few months until I can get the second Star Bright Quilt completed. I am happy that I conquered mitering a border.

Linking to:

PhD in 2022: January Report - hosted by Gail Quilts

Table Scraps 2022- hosted by The Joyful Quilter