My Day Off, and "just 30 minutes" has been successful

It's Sunday! Family worship, quick lunch, NASCAR, quilting. What could be better!

Earlier this year I made a list of all my "project started" and organized everything in clear project boxes in my sewing room, a visual reminder that I had a lot of piecing to do! I've been trying to work through those projects but have to admit I've been distracted a little and played around with some instant gratification quick scrap quilts in between those patient UFO's.

Well, today I decided to return to my original goal of working through my already started projects and since it's my "day off" today was a great day for some quilting fun.

Last year I decided to redo my living room. In the past we had this really ugly blue couch and I'd tried to make the room livable by adding beautiful blue curtains and a blue and yellow quilt to hang on the wall...that was three years ago. Last summer we replaced the blue couch with a new brown couch -- and I decided that the blue just had to go. I had just quilted a quilt for the local quilt shop that was to be a block of the month and fell in love with the fabric. Upon close inspection I realized it was fabric from a cover of The Quilter Magazine (March 2008) and it just seemed to me that this line of fabric by Marianne Elizabeth would be perfect in my living room.

I started the project in the magazine (also on the home page of Marianne's website),how be it, making mine smaller to use as a lap quilt on the couch, and got as far as the setting triangles prior to adding the borders. That's when it became a UFO (sigh).

Wanting to replace the blue and yellow quilted wallhanging I decided I needed to use these same fabrics for a borders class I had signed up for during the summer. Alas, that's still among the ranks of "projects started" needing only 2 more borders to complete.

In the meantime I made the living room curtains...that took months to complete...takes a while when you primarily work on your "days off" (for me that's Sunday afternoons). They were completed by my open house at Christmas (nothing like a deadline of having guests to motivate!)

And with those same thoughts in mind...that of having a deadline with guests coming next month for longarm workshops with Jamie Wallen...I decided it was time to add the borders to my Quilter's Magazine Cover Quilt I fondly just call "Living Room Split Rails". Ta da.


I even pieced the back and prepared the binding in hopes that I'll be able to quilt it in the next few weeks if I can get caught up on everything else. Keep watching the side bar for those Quilts in Waiting to turn into Finished!

In the meantime I have stolen about 30 minutes almost everyday and finished up the binding on this fun little lap quilt. I call it "when life gives you scraps add a happy stripe and make a quilt"


I had fun quilting it and of course one of my butterfly (logo) found it's way among the fiddle faddle. That's what I call my freestyle quilting when I just take off without a plan and just doodle. I took a few close ups and will post them later in webshots.

These were left over strips from my "ugly quilt" made earlier this year. Individually I love the fabrics, there's some really fun ones. I do like tropical related fabrics so that explains the lobsters, fish, whales, parrots... but what I've discovered with the recent quick scrap quilts has been that I need a calm, somewhere to rest the eye...that's where the stripe came in, although it's anything but calm! A few weeks ago I tried again and made another scrap quilt...I don't think I took photos of it, but it's now in the Quits in Waiting category (complete with pieced back and prepared binding)...anyway, I'm learning some valuable lessons about color value and hope to do better in the future (grin).

In an effort to finish using these particular scraps I pieced the back and I think that's my favorite part of the quilt, that's its somewhat reversible. Several years ago when I was new to longarm quilting and quilting in general I had a friend ask about the possibility of a reversible quilt and I sorta pooh-pa-ed it saying that it would be a waste, better to have two quilts than something reversible. Well, never say never. I like the way this one turned out.

And as always, Pixxie is proud of it too.


Such is my beginning of what I hope to be a good quilting week! Maybe next weekend I can work a little on that other living room quilt...would really be nice to have it "all together" when I have my guests....hum...deadlines are good motivators don't ya think?