Tag Archives: Stars

Life is all a Work in Progress…. Here’s some of mine.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, sometimes I get lots of things all going at the same time and when I take just a second to breathe its all a bit overwhelming.  When I’m focused in on a single project then its easy to just keep right on going, like some puzzle where you just put in one more piece… “just one more block” so you can finally realize the big picture.

So on the one hand, when you have multiple projects going, doing a Quilt-A-Long(QAL) is a bit helpful, since you can focus on just one block and then you know that the object is to just do one a month so you’d best stop. Leaving the next block for next month is what you are supposed to do, and not just sitting there taunting you.

So first up… my QAL block for April is Luigi.

Issa' Luigi!

Issa’ Luigi!

I personally like Luigi better than Mario.  I don’t know why… maybe its second child/second player related… but if you make me choose, I want Luigi.  So my quilt means… Luigi gets completed first.  I did assemble him facing left, whereas the original pattern has him facing right.  But I like the variety of not having all my characters facing one direction.

I have also managed to push out more star blocks, and am now up to 33 stars.

Twinkle
Twinkle
Over 25% done!

This does mean I’ve managed to complete one of every different fabric type.  I’ve started to make them a bit more assembly line style, which does help with feeling productive and actually getting them done.  I tend to make from four to six all at the same time.  Hopefully I can keep on track and get all my stars complete this year.

Lastly…. I made a small test block for someone online, and they gifted me with a charm pack of beautiful autumn colored batiks.  (A Charm pack is 40 5 inch by 5 inch squares)  When I saw it my first thought was autumn leaves, so I set out to find a quilt block.  I finally settled on a Tree of Life Block with each of my batiks as leaves on my trees.  So I fiddled about with my paper and pen until I arrived at what I think is a solution.  Then the next time I was out, I bought some background and Tree trunks to go with my leaves and now I have it all ready and waiting for the first cut.

Spring Sunshine on an Autumn Quilt.

Spring Sunshine on an Autumn Quilt.

Not shown here today is my movie strip quilt that is hibernating awaiting more photos, my Christmas Cathedral Window I want to use up Christmas Fabric Scraps on, the Kandinsky Art Quilt I’m still working on plotting circles for, or the Star Trek Disappearing (Space) Nine Patch that I need to buy the solids to go with my prints.

Ah well… they will all get finished eventually, right?

The Good, The Bad and the Brioche!

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The Good

Thus far this month, I’ve tackled a few smaller quilting projects.  One of which started out as a simple conversion of a bedskirt into a set of valances for Dale (of the Sunflower Dresden quilt fame).  But then I had fabric left, and if you do any kind of scrappy quilting that you can’t let so much as a perfectly good 2 inches of fabric go to waste, let alone any amount larger than that!

So I made a normal pillow case, trimmed in “valance plaid” and then I had more fabric so I made a few quilt block decorative pillows too.

Three pillowcase fronts.

Three pillowcase fronts.

The blue and yellow floral is new, but the dark blue and yellow are scraps from her sunflower quilt, the light blue from my first quilt.  Both smaller pillows are backed in her “valance plaid” to help tie the whole ensemble together. The inside pillow forms were made from some of the plain white that was a part of the bedskirt.  So all told I bought a yard of fabric, and ended up with 3 pillows, 3 valances and I still have a smidgen left.

Smaller pillow features my first ever button holes on my sewing machine too!

Smaller pillow features my first ever button holes on my sewing machine too!

The Bad

First off, I decided to join in a Quilt Along (QAL) with an online group.  (Details here) Now the joining wasn’t the bad part; its probably more of the good part since I don’t belong to a quilting guild or tend to get very social with my knitting and quilting.  But… the shop was out of the recommended interfacing, and the line was forming behind me at the cutting counter so in the words of the third knight in the Temple at the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, I chose poorly.  I chose a non-fusible/non-sticky kind, and its too narrow to do a whole block at a time.  I am attempting to forge ahead with some spray adhesive to see if I can make it work.  Thus far I’ve laid out the first block:

Here's a photo while I was waiting for the adhesive to dry. You can see where I will need to seam the two sections together.

Here’s a photo while I was waiting for the adhesive to dry. You can see where I will need to seam the two sections together.

Like most of my quilt projects, I tend to take several cell phone photos of it as a work in progress and post them in an album.  Which you can check out here.  Wish me luck!  I might just need it.

In other mixed good/bad news, I did forge ahead with three more stars on my giant star quilt.  I am not super thrilled with how some of the points came out, and was feeling kinda crummy about it.  I do think the later pillow project actually helped, as it has similar cuts and came together very well.

A Green and two blues

A Green and two blues

The Brioche!

A while back I fell in love with a certain pattern for a shawl on Ravelry that uses Brioche stitch.  So this year I told myself I was going to learn.  And with the help of some left over Seahawk Action Green, I started with a nice beginner brioche scarf.

Brioche doesn't look like it has a wrong side. Just a side of a different color.

Brioche doesn’t look like it has a wrong side. Just a side of a different color.

And so just before the Seahawks finished up with the 49ers, I finished up with my Brioche Scarf!

The tails are done in single color.

The tails are done in single color.

Now I just need to find the yarn I want for the shawl project and I’m all set.  I’m looking for a spring green  for one color and autumn spice for the other.