Round & Round by ThimbleBlossom

**Full disclosure - this has been sitting here typed up for almost 3 weeks waiting for me to get good pictures. It never happened. Sorry! :)

I finished my quilts! Hurray!

I love the binding! It's my favorite part!

In fact, I finished them on day #1 of a 3 day trip . . . so I had nothing to do on my 8 hour drive home! How's that for underestimation?

Anyway, here is the finished quilt.

Its Round & Round by ThimbleBlossom. 

My Review: (remember, while I've been quilting for a long time, I'm not great at it. So my reviews are my opinions based on my sewing level, which is somewhere between beginner and intermediate. I call it Crappy Intermediate)

It's a great pattern! I love all of her stuff. Her quilts seem to be close enough to vintage that my grandmother appreciates them, but there's always a modern twist. There's always an impact, and I have received a WHOLE lot of complements on it! Especially from Miss A.

Her patterns are well written, but complex (at least to me). Honestly, I can't drink while piecing them. I chain pieced all of the HSTs, but when it came to the blocks I had to lay them out and sew them one at a time. I labeled each row and put them back on the design wall after every seam. And I STILL screwed up the placement of some of the stars. Each block took me about 45 minutes (early on it was over an hour). So it was real work for me, but, again, her pattern took me step by step. The only confusion was when I tried to expand it to king size . . . but that's pregnancy brain, not ThimbleBlossom ;)

All in all, I recommend her patterns, but not as something quick and easy. It's a project that you really have to want to do, but I'm so glad I used it for Miss A's big-girl quilt. It's something really special!

On her Big Girl Bed!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Round & Round by ThimbleBlossom
Top Fabrics: Some Kona gray (not sure which) and a TON of my scraps. As much purple and pink as I could stomach!
Backing Fabric: Doe by Carolyn Freelander in gray (108" baby!)
Binding Fabric: Widescreen by Carolyn Freelander in Orange (again, 108", but I had cut it up. So I couldn't use it for a back!)
Date Began: April 2014
Date Completed: January 22, 2016
Recipient: Miss A
Reason: Technically: Her 5th Birthday, but honestly, she needed a quilt for her bed that matched her room.
Pieced and Quilted by: Me!

I also finished my ThimbleBlossom Swap Mini. (see above, review is basically the same)

Front

Back

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: Fireworks by ThimbleBlossom
Top Fabrics: Some Kona cream (not sure which) and Sky Ships and Bats in the Belfry in Plum from Tula Pink's Elizabeth Line
Backing Fabric: 16th Century Selfie in Plum from Tula Pink's Elizabeth Line (My dad thinks this is hilarious. He likes it better than the front)
Binding Fabric: Tudor Windows in Plum from Tula Pink's Elizabeth Line
Date Began: November 2015
Date Completed: January 22, 2016
Recipient: Can't tell you, it's a secret swap!
Reason: ThimbleBlossom Swap #2
Pieced and Quilted by: Me!

UFO's Down: 2 of 16. And onto the next one. I'm working on a King Size quilt from Cabin Fever by Natalia Bonner. It's my second quilt from her book, and I love it!

See ya!
EL

PS: I met Jackie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio at our DMQG meeting. My cool level just jumped, right? ;)

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm kind of freaking out here!

Packing and Sewing

I am frantically washing clothes and packing things and trying to clean the house (and keep it clean) so we can leave first thing tomorrow . . . and I decided to throw a "quick" sewing project in the mix, just to keep things interesting ;)

First of all, I did get both my full-size and my mini quilt ready to go. They are quilted and the binding is machine-stitched down, ready to be hand stitched!

I hope I can get them finished and washed at my mom's house

. . . she can help me get some pretty pictures of them!

Because I'm SOOOOOOO proud of myself for getting these done, I decided to make myself a present! I honestly thought I wouldn't have these ready to bind until the end of January, and my deadlines aren't until the second week in February, so if I finish this weekend, I'm 2 weeks ahead of schedule! That NEVER happens!

So instead of starting on another one of my UFO's on my list, I decided to try something I've been wanting for a while, the Goody Goody Binding Kit (tutorial by Vanessa of Lella Boutique)! It'll be helpful to finish my binding on my trip too, right?

My only problem is that the strap for my thread is too fat to go through my spool.

 :(. Oh well, it's keeping the scissors in the holder I made too big 

(trying too hard to be cool . . . My downfall every time!)

It took me about a week, working in little bits here and there (teething baby . . . lots of grump in my house this week). It's a great tutorial, easy to follow with lots of little steps. I liked that I could do one or 2 things and easily put it down and pick it up again. Somedays I only had about 10 minutes, so it was nice!

Fabrics are from C&S Moonlit.

I had a random FQ bundle lying around, so I decided to use it!

Mine's not perfect . . . nothing I make ever is, and I'm ok with that! It's just for me and the colors are bright, so I'm happy.

And a little reward for finishing some UFO's helps keep me going! I'm ready for the next thing on my list! :)

See ya!
EL

Progress!

I have progress to show you! Hurray!

I finished piecing Miss A's quilt top on Sunday (1/10) and got it basted the next day!

So bright and cheerful!

I worked on it for 2 days, and got the quilting finished on Tuesday night!

My stitches need work, but for me, done is better than perfect!

Thankfully, Miss A LOVES it! She couldn't even wait to get it bound before she started using it!

She's watching the downstairs TV here.

This weekend I plan on cutting the binding and getting it stitched to the back. I'm going out of town next weekend, so I want to do the hand part of the binding while I'm gone.

When I've completed it, I'll post the whole thing (hopefully with better pictures) with a pattern review. (Again, it's Round & Round by Thimble Blossom).

I'm pretty proud of myself! I know it's not the best piecing or quilting, but I'm usually so slow that I wasn't expecting to even start quilting before February! It's amazing what ACTUALLY sewing (instead of thinking about sewing) will do for your productivity! I will actually have this done before her birthday! (Even my husband is impressed at that!)

Since I pulled off the miracle of getting this done, I was able to work on my Thimble Blossoms Swap!

My partner likes brights, so I went with a couple of prints from Tula Pink's Elizabeth line. TP is usually pretty good about bright and happy colors!

Firework Mini by Thimble Blossom.

My goal is to get it basted and quilted this weekend, and hopefully half bound next week. It's just one block, so it shouldn't take that long, right? Again, I want to do the hand binding next weekend while I'm at my mom's.

It's kind of nice to actually be able to show you progress! That so rarely happens! It makes me want to sew more when I have something to show for my time! Maybe I'll actually get through all my UFO's this year! (Or is that just a pipe dream?)

Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

See ya!

EL

On the Lasting Effects of Pregnancy Brain

So, after my last post, my momentum died. You don't want to hear my sob stories (even though I REALLY want to bitch about them), so let's chalk it up to holidays with small children and leave it at that.

Anyway, for New Years I got myself the new Quilter's Planner and I organized my year!

Off the top of my head I counted 16 UFOs (at least have fabric bought for it). So my goal is to make a dent in the list before starting anything new.

I love the way she organized this page!

My first priority is to finish Thing 1's birthday quilt (started May 2014). Her birthday is February 9. I had 3 blocks pieced, plus 11 more blocks cut, HST made, and organized (ready for piecing).

Pattern is Round & Round by ThimbleBlossom.

Here's my funny story.

Thing 1's bed is a full size . . . The mattress is 53"x72".  The pattern makes a quilt that's 68"x72". All I should need to add are borders on top and bottom to make it fit the bed, right?

I stressed myself out a ridiculous amount on this quilt. For some unknown reason, I did a TON of calculations at the beginning to make the quilt 96"x107".

Why? The only thing I can think is that I was pregnant at the time. I blame pregnancy brain!!!!! All I really needed were some borders on top & bottom.

So I've been freaking out thinking I had to make 14 blocks instead of 7. Hee hee hee!

So, as of today I have 1 more block to piece (instead of 8). And each one takes me an hour and a half, so that saves me 10 hours of piecing!! Hurray!!!

I love my design wall! 

I have 1 block to fix (too bad I can't blame pregnancy brain for this one).

There are several things wrong, but I'm just fixing the VERY visible one!

And then I can piece the top! If I keep up with the 1 hour a day/4 days a week, I should definitely have it done by her birthday!!!

So here's to a new year, and to crazy math mistakes from 2 years ago that save you time!

Happy New Year!

EL