a match made in... THE STASH??

Lists are effective. I'm not a list person, but I tried this past week and let me tell you – it's done what I had hoped. It's kept me on track. Is it silly that this is such a revelation to me?

I started the week with 3 big projects on my plate, plus a couple of smaller items to break up the days. I managed to finish 2 quilt tops (one of which was simply a matter of piecing 25 bee blocks together) in 2 days, and got quite a bit of footing on one other.

So, first on the priority list was getting together a baby quilt for friends of mine who recently had their first baby! The item on this list for Jan. week 1 literally reads, "work on Hopman quilt" with a continuation in Jan. week 2 reading "Hopman quilt top finish." I ended my day yesterday with this:

This not only allowed me to cross off week 1's list item, but to amend week 2 by crossing out "top finish" and replacing it with "quilting" (to read "Hopman quilt quilting")! Woo hoo! Ahead of the game, right?

Next on the list was to work on putting together the top for the Bliss circle of do.Good stitches November quilt as much as possible. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this was a first time stint for me in the role of "quilter" for the group, and I did give myself some challenges with this one, not having regular or uniformly sized blocks. I'm also still expecting a couple of more blocks to come in, but figured I should get moving on putting together what I do have.

There are still some gaps to fill in, but progress is progress, no?

This morning when I went to the studio I had both of those projects up on the design wall from the previous day. The plan was to pin baste the baby quilt, but first comes the issue of choosing the backing. As often happens when I am not working from a pattern, I didn't quite know the finished width of the quilt (I knew the length to be 52" only because of border strips), and wouldn't luck have it that it turned out to be just 40 1/2"!! My color inspiration for the background for this quilt was a piece of Valori Wells' "Fleurish" which I've had for a few years now

The fabric piece is approximately 43"x58". But then I looked over at the shelf where I had gotten this older piece and saw another possibility left over from my early days of quilting when I was WAY into Stack 'n' Whack quilts - a fabric piece that I have used here and there, but still have close to 3 yards untouched. I was holding it up to the design wall to see if it would be suitable as backing for the baby quilt (which it TOTALLY would have been!!!)

and something magical happened... I saw it up against the charity quilt. And what better to use for the backing of a charity quilt than a fun, beautiful fabric that's been on one's shelf for years simply because one might have changed course and moved away from that style over time?

And really, who can argue with kismet? That Valori Wells piece turned out to be the perfect size for my quilt, and honestly, I was choosing the sashing and background for the front with it in hand, so that should tell me something right?

That quilt is now basted, awaiting quilting, to be completed during January week 2. And here's real testimony to my blogging world - I forgot to photograph the other quilt top I completed this week! It's the green and brown spider web quilt I talked about last month here. it really looks very much like the photo of all of the blocks up on the design wall!

Okay, I notice I'm rambling, which means it is past my bedtime.

Sunday - let's reflect

It can sometimes be difficult to get back into the swing of things after taking a little break. I'm finding that to be the case with my sewing, not just the blog, but things are beginning to roll again. I only have one NEW item to show for the last couple of weeks, but have been trying to photograph other things and update my Etsy page.

And yesterday I went to a baby shower for a good friend, for which I went to my standard shower gift - the Amy Butler Nappy Bag. It amazes me what a great response this bag gets, but I'm glad it works!

I used a twill from the MoMo collection "It's a Hoot" for the outside of the bag.

(love that owl!)

For the lining and pockets I kind of pieced together some coordinates I had already in the stash - since I didn't actually have the pattern with me when I bought the lining fabric, so I bought short - it ended up being the lining on the back of all of the pockets. But thankfully, I had a bunch of that Robert Kaufman Metro Living in green, which I had passed up on a previous project, and it just happens to work with the MoMo. Yay!

And it's nice how well the Valori Wells "Nest" and Joel Dewberry "Modern Meadow" coordinates fit perfectly as accents in the pockets.

I'm either crazy or stupid

About 2 weeks ago a good friend of mine contacted me to ask if I would be interested in donating a set of place mats to the Rose Festival Auction happening in October. The Rose Festival is one of Portland's major annual events, with a year of fundraising and organization, and about 2 months of various attractions, events and festivities culminating in a fair, festival, parades and a crowning princess.

I have a few sets of place mats already made, and I just figured that I would use one of those, but by the time I got the donation form a few days ago, I still hadn't decided on a set to use. That says to me I wasn't prepared to fall back on ANY of the ones I already have in stock. Dagnabit! Oh, and I have to have them done in less than a week!

Soooo, I sat up for over an hour in the middle of the night on Thursday with fabric combinations and selections swimming in my head, trying to figure out HOW I would get all of this done. I already had in my possession a good amount of a Valori Wells print from her new line, Wrenly

And my solution: pick up some of the green color way in the same print, find coordinates for both, and go to it! So, after over-sleeping (due to my 3-4:30am interlude) I grabbed some coffee on the go and headed down to visit Marie at good ol' Cool Cottons. And boy-howdy, she worked her magic, put my fears at ease and helped me get psyched for this unapproachable prospect.

I started by pulling together close to 8 prints for each side (color combo):

These selections eventually got edited down to 6 fabrics per side:

One of the things that Marie and I had discussed was bringing in a grey fabric with the greens, but it had to be just the right grey... and I got back to my studio, auditioned just about every grey-green, green-grey, green-aqua, grey-white (you get the picture) I found on the shelf, but then there was the hidden gem of what remains of my Jay McCarroll Woodland Wonderland squares. And it must have been meant to be, because once I cut what I needed for the project, I was left with this:

Friday afternoon was dedicated to the laundering of the new fabric, planning and cutting. I got far enough to lay out 1 set of six reversible mats, which will be sewn to the batting tomorrow.

Yes, it WILL get done. And binding on Monday is the plan.