WIP Wednesday

My biggest WIP continues to be the Tetris QAL quilt. We're on to block 5 this week with just one more to go so the end is in sight. 

Tetris quilt in progress with 5 blocks done

My Tradewinds quilt and runner are finished up so one less WIP on my plate. Will be posting the finished photos as soon as I take them. 

Tradewinds quilt straight line quilting

My other WIP is now a high priority. I got a project accepted to Stitch magazine and need to get it done ASAP. This will be my first ever published project so very exciting. Won't be published until spring 2013 so have a while before I see it in print for real. Here's sneak peek of the fabrics.

I'm always amazed at just how many things the rest of your are working on and getting done. Very impressive to say the least. Hop on over to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and see what everyone else is working on. Keep on stitching . . . 

Tetris Block 4

Week 4 of the Tetris QAL and I had a little catching up to do. I'm so addicted to playing each Tuesday that I can't wait for Melissa to give us our shapes of the week. And since I have it set up in Illustrator it's so easy to keep playing with different layouts that sometimes I don't stop myself and move on to sewing. That's what happened last week. So this week I caught up and sewed both blocks.

week 3 block

week 4 block

Sewing two blocks isn't really a big deal but it did make me realize it's much better to keep up. Procrastination is usually my middle name, so the fact that I'm keeping up is pretty satisfying if I do say so myself.  : )   I even have a pretty good idea of how I'd like to finish up the quilt top. Here's what all 4 blocks look like together. I love how the white pops.

All 4 blocks so far

How about you? Are you keeping up? From what I've seen it looks like there are going to be lots of very nice quilts as a result of this fun QAL. For those of you using black instead of white for the empty spaces I think it looks very striking. Looking forward to seeing everyone's finished quilts. Keep going, the end is in sight!

WIP Wednesday

This marks the second week for me of WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced. There are so many wonderful projects in the works by the looks of it. Hop on over and check out a few for yourself. You're bound to be inspired. I know I am when I see all the new WIP's each week. Please leave a comment or two when you visit. It really helps turn all these WIP's into finished projects. Gotta love that.   : )

My WIP for the week is my Tradewinds tablecloth and matching tablerunner. I used my Cascade pattern (see pattern here) for the main tablecloth and posted about the trouble I was having with the quilting. It was heavy and I had a lot of drag. Hhmmmm . . . do you suppose it had anything to do with my helper who wouldn't get off the quilt? Oh the things I put up with.

Originally I was going to make matching napkins with the bonus blocks that are created when the top is sewn. But I just didn't like any of the block arrangements. What I did like was this great zigzag layout. So instead of napkins, the extra blocks became this tablerunner. I added a border to the main quilt so might do the same with this. Can't decide. What do you think?

I finished the quilting on the main quilt today and will bind later this week. Hope to finish up this little runner too. Then maybe I'll make some napkins from extra yardage if I find more Tradewinds on sale. Love this line. Here's the main quilt before border. I used a layer cake plus a little extra yardage of the bamboo lattice print. This pic was before the border was added.

I've also been working on my Tetris QAL blocks. Still having lots of fun with it and looking forward to the finished quilt. You can see my blocks here. Stay tuned next week and I'll share the finished Tradewinds quilt. Some weeks are better than others at finishing and there are times when I think everyone but me is getting lots done. Hope you're getting lots done too.

Tetris Block 3

Week 3 of the Tetris QAL and it just keeps getting better. This week I had a harder time switching Melissa's colors over to my color scheme. It just got confusing for a bit between shapes and colors. I should have made my little color chart right from the beginning. Plus, it would have helped if I had kept her blue and green my blue and green. But alas I didn't start out that way so now just need to be very careful about which color goes where without getting confused by the shapes.

I know this might seem too exacting, but I'm determined to play the game for real. No switching shapes, colors or the order to suit the design. That way I have to work with what I'm given and have less control. Not something I'm used to.

But I must admit I was awfully tempted to cheat this week. I did more layouts than in the previous 2 weeks and at one point came up with a way to fill all the squares . .

Did anyone else notice that there were 2 different L shapes? The blue and orange L's read like an uppercase L no matter which way you turn them. The last 2 L shapes in green and red are the mirror image or backwards L's. Maybe this shape has been flipped before and I haven't noticed?

Oops. Just checked and sure enough, for week 2 the L shapes were flipped. Oh well . . . I'm learning. That's what I get for using the shapes in Illustrator and assuming they were all the same just in a different order. Probably won't bother to remake the block but at least I know to pay more attention. 

Anyway, if only that last red L shape (my dark blue L shape here) had been flipped I could have filled all the spaces. I even considered flipping it just so I'd have a full block. It would look like this:

But once I looked at the 3 blocks together I realized how much the empty spaces are adding to the overall design . . . so no need to break the rules after all. Here's my block for week 3. Haven't sewn it up yet so this is my photoshop image. Yes I have 4 empty spaces. I'm definitely not going to win any real Tetris games that's for sure.

Now that there are 3 blocks, I'm beginning to see the whole quilt top come together and have some ideas for how I might finish it up. Glad this is a quick 6 week QAL because the end is in sight and I'm excited for the final results.

This is my WIP of the week too. I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday's for the first time. Hop on over and take a look at what everyone is working on.

Fresh Tossed

Another month of summer begins and it's time for another fruit/veggie quilt in my kitchen. August around here is when the gardens really start to produce all their bounty of veggies. I have friends who have the most amazing garden every summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, onions . . . you name it they probably grow it. As for our garden, I'm more of a flower gardener than a veggie gardener, but we do manage a couple of tomato plants every year. They produce enough for us and the tomato worms. Can not believe how big tomato worms are. ICK!!! Sorry but I am not a worm girl. Have to have my husband pull them off when I see one.

The design of this quilt is a mix of all kinds of salad goodness. I foundation pieced the blocks using a juicy tomato print for the center that I wonky cut. Then I added varying width strips of green veggies followed by colorful veggies and ending with another border of green. For the center block I switched up this order. I used the leftover scraps of all the colorful veggie to piece an outer border.

And what better way to serve up some fresh veggie goodness than in my veggie dish collection. You know I love my fruit and veggie dish collection. : )  Here's some of the veggie dishes.

A very colorful quilt to say the least. It's perfect as a tabletopper when serving some fresh veggies to snack on. I love eating fresh garden salads this time of year. Makes me feel healthy. So here's to eating well. Now go eat your veggies.

Straight Line Quilting

Arggggg!!!!!!
I was all set to quilt my Tradewinds quilt today but it's not cooperating at all.
It's the second time I've used spray basting, but I don't think that is the problem.
It's the first time I've used flannel as a batting instead of regular batting. I wanted something thinner because this is a tablecloth and I thought it would actually be easier to manipulate while quilting.

It's heavy and hard to move around. Didn't occur to me that flannel would be heavy.
The layers aren't holding together well so things seem to be slipping. The spray and the flannel are not playing nicely together. Could be the weight, could be the thinness of the flannel.

It's times like these when I don't understand the people who say they love machine quilting. At the moment I really don't like machine quilting at all.

Ah, well. Needed to vent. I will persevere. I'm trying to keep calm and quilt on. Tomorrow is a new month and time for a new fruit and veggie quilt. Hope you'll come back to see my Fresh Tossed salad quilt. But for now I think it's time for a margarita and some Olympics.

At least my kitty is calmly quietly oblivious to my distress. Why she wants to do a face plant while she sleeps is beyond me though.

Tetris Block 2

Time for Tetris Block 2. When I started this QAL last week, I thought I would make each week's block over the weekend. That way I could stay focused on work during the week and enjoy a change of pace on Saturday. WELL . . . I couldn't wait till the weekend!

Since the fabric squares are all cut it's just too easy to whip up a block. I have the grid and the basic shapes set up in Illustrator so it's fun to grab the new shapes of the week and play.

When I started, I wasn't sure whether the colors stayed the same for each shape from game to game. Now I know they don't and it's probably for the best. Just in case anyone is wondering, I assigned each of the colors Melissa is using one of my blue/green colors. It's tempting to consider switching it up to suit the block, but I'm going to resist. Here's how my colors correspond to Melissa's.

Don't ask why I didn't leave the green green and the blue blue. It didn't occur to me. And since some of you have asked what colors I'm using they are: Kona cotton in Deep Blue, Pacifica, Lagoon, Jade Green, Chartreuse, Kiwi, Clover and White.

I know the idea of the real game is to fill all the squares so there aren't any "empty" ones, but the designer in me would rather see some empty spaces. The white squares keep your eye moving around because they add sparkle to the block. So instead of reworking the shapes until I came up with an arrangement that fills the entire block, I just let the empty spaces play out. I did try to balance where they occurred though because I didn't really want two empty spaces next to one another. This week I even opted for a block layout that ended up with 5, yes count them 5, empty spaces. Guess I won't win any Tetris games, but I think this livens up the block. What do you think?

Hard to see the difference in the two aqua blues in the lower right from this photo, but there are actually two colors there. Next time I'll probably try to avoid those two colors side-by-side of possible.

Hope everyone is having as much fun playing Tetris as I am.  : )