Happy Friday Quilt Parade - Flamingo Bay

 Here is a finished daylight view of Flamingo Bay. 

 The quilting is a freehand swirl with some echo quilting. 

 It doesn't show up all that much on such a busy background, but it does add a nice texture to the finished quilt. 

The back was a huge length of pink from a clearance sale at Joann's stretched out with a bit of teal that I bought to redo Sydney's room before she decided on a zebra themed. 
I am now officially done with last years Bonnie Hunter mystery and free to start the new one in November.  I really should resist, but I don't know if I can.  I have been trying to get things finished off lately, but new projects keep adding themselves to my list. 

Big Wednesday Woohoo

I just took the last stitch on the binding for this quilt.  It was Bonnie Hunter's mystery last year and was called Orca Bay.  It is also in her new String Fling book.  Hers was in red, black and white.  My version is pink, teal and purple and is called Flamingo Bay.  Though the top has been finished for  a while, it was supposed to have a pieced border, and the pieces for that went missing for a while. 
I have been sewing bindings in the evenings and by the time I finish, it is always dark.  The next time I am home during daylight hours I will try to take them outside and get some better photos.  Evenings have been busy with school things.  Monday is Academic Team and Thursday I have a class for three hours.  Speaking of class, I have homework to do and lesson plans to think about. 

Bouncing Around

I was already to quilt Smith Mountain this morning, but didn't have any of the caramel colored thread I like to use on scrap quilts because it blends so well with most things. 

So while waiting for everyone to get up and around I pondered the backing for Sydney's teal crumbs.  It is amazing how skinny my stash is getting.  Definitely time to do a little shopping!  Sydney helped me decide on this collection of black prints which I cut in 10.5 inch squares. I love using things up.  So much more satisfying than going to the store and buying a big hunk of generic yardage in just the right color. 

Orca Bay is patiently waiting for binding. Maybe teal?

Still haven't made the binding for the Christmas quilt either. I am thinking of the same red from the inner border. 
Now the hard part -- deciding what to work on!  Bonnie is on with quilt cam, so I'll find something I can do with her. 

Ta Da!

I started quilting bright and early this morning.  Well, first I ran out to the store for dog food, then I started quilting.  And Quilting.  And Quilting.  With all the strings and little bits in this quilt, I thought it needed fairly dense quilting.

I went with a swirly doodle in lavender thread with pink in the bobbin to go with the pink backing fabric.  Now I am going to go sit and sew for a bit.  I have two quilts waiting for binding and two more waiting for a turn on the frame. 

One thing at a time though, SO happy to have this one quilted

#2 on the List - Flamingo Bay Flimsy

Flamingo Bay is officially a flimsy.  I tried standing on a table to get a good photo, but after 32 tries, I gave up and went wonky.  As much as I fought with the pieced border, it is quite nice and fit perfectly.  I have backing fabric picked out, but first there is a quilt on the frame that needs to be loaded.  I'll do a batting inventory too and figure out if I need to do any shopping today.  I have a coupon!

#2 on the List Needs Borders

More pieced borders are looming!  Orca Bay has been done for ages, but needs to have the pieced borders attached.  It is a bit wrinkled from hanging in the closet, so ironing is on the horizon for me.  Long weekends are lovely, aren't they?

Speaking of vacations.  Did anyone see that Bonnie Hunter is going to Ireland?  During summer vacation!  Very tempting, right?  Anyone giving it some thought?

Finally a Flimsy

Orca (Flamingo) Bay has been sitting in pinned rows by the machine for several weeks.  I sat down today to get all the rows together.  I hope the border will help to calm it a bit, as there is quite a bit going on here.  I think all the kids have dinner plans with friends.  How odd that they would all go out without us. I was going to hide out and sew, but I guess now I'll have to be hang out with my husband instead. 

Monday Miscellany

I had grand plans of quilting maniacally on the long three day weekend.  Instead we spent most of the time working on science fair projects.  As a science teacher, I should really love science fair projects more.  All the research was already done, but there was still typing and printing and pasting to finish.

Ryan studied the effect of different temperatures on the rate of photosynthesis in elodea.  See his nice bubble graphs?  He learned a lot about using excel spread sheets. 

Anna tried to kill E. coli with UV light. I learned that working with bacteria isn't worth all the paperwork involved. 

I tried to sneak in a few minutes of sewing in amongst all the science fair fun. So far I have the first few rows of Flamingo Bay sewn together. I only had to frog stitch one block today because it was rotated the wrong way. Yesterday I sewed backwards more than forward.

Big Sigh of Relief

All of the blocks for Orca (Flamingo) Bay are officially done and ironed!  I got the last of the geese units sewn today and then went on a big ironing marathon.  My design wall isn't big enough to hold the entire quilt at one time, I think I'll take over some floor space in the morning and put all the pieces together.  I feel like it has been ages since I've finished anything.  The border is still looming, but I'll feel lots better when the rest of the top is complete.  For tonight though, I reserved two redbox movies  and dinner is just finished with the dishwasher doing its thing. 
 

Step by Step

It was a day of incremental steps.  The string blocks for Orca Bay finally got finished up last night in the wee hours.  Instead of following the directions for the order of trimming I decided to try something different.  Without squaring them up first, I just cut them in half.  

 The nice thing about doing it this way was that I could control the little corner triangles and avoid tiny little pieces on the ends.

I'm still working on getting the corner triangles sewn onto the string blocks, but I wanted to get at least a few blocks put together to see how it is going to look. 

Then I felt like I needed to spend some time working around the house, I decided to tackle the downstairs linen closet.  It has been on my list for while now

Tiny little islands of order make me happy.  If not for the job and the three kids and all the quilting, maybe I could make my whole house look this neat and tidy?  Well, maybe I'll just enjoy the closet for now instead of getting carried away. 

Design Wall Monday December 19, 2011

I woke up bright and early Sunday motivated to sew the binding on both of the quilts finished up Saturday.  Pulling down all the four square blocks left a big open space on the wall, leaving me wondering what to work on next.  I seem to be on a leader and ender marathon these days and so pulled out these Irish Chain blocks that are my 2 inch sized lne project. I'll do some quick calculations to figure out how many more I need before starting on the alternate blocks.  Head over to Patchworktimes to see what other people have up on their design walls today.

Two finishes left me with a bit of cleaning up to take care of, but after that I worked diligently on Orca Bay for most of the afternoon until I got called away to take the girls Christmas caroling.  The 350 HST triangle units are sewn and dog eared while a nice stack of string blocks is starting to pile up.  I've got a system going now.  Each time I go to iron a set of strings, I work another group of 10 little squares through the iron and pin them together.  I think by the time all the string blocks are done the other blocks will be ready to have little triangles added on for step 5.  I know that I am still a little bit behind, but with just two more school days before the holiday I should be able to catch up very soon. Maybe even by Wednesday when I have my 1000th post giveaway drawing.   Hopefully maybe. Until then, head over to Quiltville to see how far everyone else has gotten on Orca Bay.

Design Wall Monday December 5, 2011

 It was a weekend of little bits of lots of things.  I did manage to finish piecing all of the blocks for the Four Square Brown quilt.  I'm not crazy about the light colored blocks, but maybe they will grow on me?   I'll get that webbed together soon and make some decisions about borders.  Rainbow Crumb Bricks is on the frame.  It is about half done so far. The quilting pattern is called double bubble and it goes pretty quick. 

 I got just a few more Bow-Tie blocks put together and spent some time playing with my new Double Wedding Ring die.  If I keep practicing, I am sure I will master curved set in seams.  Pop over to Judy's Blog to see what is on everyone's design wall this Monday. 

In between all of that I worked on Orca Bay step three.  All the units are cut out, and it looks like about 50 of them have gotten finished up so far.  The rest are waiting patiently by the machine until I have time to get back to them again.  I'm not at all sure how these bits are going to fit together in the end, but I have faith that they will.  Can't wait to break out the hot pink, I think it will perk things up.  Be sure to visit Bonnie's Blog to see the progress other people are making on their Orca Bay mystery quilts. 

Bouncing Around

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to work on today.  A couple of things I've ordered recently have started coming in, leaving me wanting to try them all out at the same time.  I've always wanted to make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt, and thought it might be easier with a die to cut the pieces.  I'm calling that my Christmas present to me, and it came on Friday along with a 2.5 inch square die.  So I spent some time playing around with that yesterday until I ran out of the right pieces.  I might cut some more tonight to make enough for a small table runner or wall hanging type quilt in Christmas colors. 

Then this piece of fabric came in from Spoonflower.  I don't remember where I saw the link, but someone had made a periodic table quilt and I thought it would be cool to hang in my classroom.  I didn't start on that though, maybe it would be a good project for Winter Break? 

I started in on step 3 of Orca Bay of course.  Most of the half square triangles are cut out and some have started to work through as I was trying to finish off other things.  I'm just about done with the brown four square, I've just got a few more blocks to finish up.  I prepped some more bow-tie blocks to the collection, but not much has happened since then.  After all of that hopping around though, I thought it would be nice to actually finish something.  So out came the rainbow crumb parade that has been draped patiently on the frame, waiting for me to feel like quilting again.  I had picked out some backing fabric already, so that got put together while Kurt took the kids to see the Muppet Movie this morning.  He hardly ever volunteers to see movies, so I was happy to let him go.  He was out of town at training all week, so the kids were glad to have some time with him, and I was thrilled to let him. 

Despite a fair amount of time in the sewing room today, I haven't got a single finished step to show.  Crumbs are about half done, squares are almost there, DWR is just a suggestion of a quilt and Orca Bay #3 is still just triangles.  I think I'll spend about an hour and see what I can accomplish before cleaning it up for the week.  Tomorrow is the BIG district competition for Academic Team, I've got training on Monday and Tuesday, there are exams to write and papers to grade......I'm guessing not much will happen during the week.  Winter break is coming up soon though, and I am thinking already about the sewing I'll get done. 

Woohoo for Two

Step two of Orca Bay went about twice as quickly as step one.  I got help pulling paper from the back after dinner while the kids were watching Tangled on Netflix.  I like to pull the paper off first and then iron again to get them nice and flat for trimming.  I was wishing I had the 3.5 inch square for my Go Cutter, squaring up string and crumb blocks is so much faster that way.  Judy D. had the niftiest trick for starting the blocks with a little dab of glue to stick the first strip onto the paper. Glue sticks are almost as handy as freezer paper for quilting. Be sure to check out every bodies progress over at Quiltville. 

Speaking of glue sticks, I'm out of prepped blocks for the Cheddar Bow-ties inspired by Bonnie Hunter. I'll try to get some more cut out during the week if there is any down time.  Until then I'm working more of the brown borders through for the Four Squared quilt.  I'm not sure which of these will end up finished first, but they are both coming along slowly and surely.  After finishing the binding on three quilts during the Thanksgiving car trip I'm feeling better about the UFO/WIP list.  I have some Christmas ideas percolating though so it would be nice to cross a few more off the list before I succumb to temptation again. See what other people have on their design walls at Patchworktimes. 

Orca Bay Step One is Done

 I was determined not to start on step two until step one of Orca Bay was completely finished.  Otherwise it gets confusing to remember that you have half of step one done and all of step two but only three quarters of step three.... 
The kids settled in to watch Punkin Chunkin last night, giving me the perfect opportunity to sneak off and get a little power sewing in.  So here are 228 quarter square triangle units.  I made a couple of extras just because sometimes it makes it easier to avoid duplicates when the blocks come together. 

I just got back from a quick morning jog and as soon as I quit sweating, I'll head off to shower so I can start my day.  I think we have robotics practice this afternoon and may work on getting the Christmas tree set up.  Kurt is gone all week and I'm not sure if we want to wait that long to get started.  It is a big tree and takes a while to decorate.  Other than that I think I see string blocks in my future.  Lots of cute little string blocks:)

Step One Coming Along

100 2.5 inch quarter square triangles.  Almost half done.  How cute are they?  Now I need to vacuum, there are dog ears scattered over the house like confetti.  Happy fabric confetti.  Pop over to Bonnie's Blog to see the progress other people are making on Orca Bay. 

3 Down, 221 to go

These are the first three quarter square triangle units for the brand new Orca Bay mystery.  Time for a dinner break before I get a few more put together.  Happy Friday everyone! 

Waiting for the Weekend

It has been the longest work week EVER.   Each day this week I have woken up thinking I should just call in sick and catch up on sleep.  But something important has been going on every single day that has me headed out the door.  Fun labs, big meetings, feast days, bring your parent to school days... all good stuff.... just so much of it.  My students are all checked out for Thanksgiving already, either mentally or physically, but we are pushing on and learning for three more days before the holiday.

As soon as the last bell rings tomorrow though, I'm going to be out the door and headed straight for my sewing machine.  The first clue in Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery will be up in the morning and Heidi is hosting a Friday Night Sew In.  Sounds like the perfect opportunity to unwind after a busy week. I've got two tops ready to quilt, a set of blocks on the wall and a big list in my blog margin of projects to keep me busy for quite a while.  How about you?  Any big plans for the weekend?

New Mystery Quilt

Did everybody see the new mystery quilt over at Quiltville.com?  It looks like Bonnie has chosen red, blue and black along with a neutral background.  I am thinking of doing hot pink with teal and then using dark purple as the accent.  I have a lot of those colors in my scrap bin from a couple of baby quilts that evolved in different ways, so it would be nice to get them into something.  I took a few minutes when I got home from work today to pull some potential fabrics, and I think I like the combination.  The first clue comes out on Friday so now is the time to jump in with both feet!