Back to School - Kindergarten Style

Last night we had a Back to Kindergarten night at Activity Days.  It turned out really well.  They had 3 rotating stations:
1. They had to draw a picture of themselves and write their name using their opposite hand-

2. Reading Corner with tons of fun children's books-

With so many good books even Glindy wanted in on the reading

3. They made Fruit Loop necklaces-

And...the night wouldn't have been complete without animal crackers and chocolate milk.

The best part of the night for me was watching their interpretation of how Kindergarteners behave.  It was pretty funny - they used lisps, pretended to have a hard time reading, pretended to fight over things, and made goofy faces and noises. 

A Little Progress

1. My September Block for the Blogger's Block of the Month:  Since they're only 8" blocks I'm using all scraps from my stash.  I think I'm going to stick with bright colors for these blocks.

 

2.  SBS Block #12 - The Improv House and Tree:  Improvisation quilting really makes my mind spin, but it's kind of fun in a weird way.  I like to think of it as a house at night.

The first 12 blocks together

3.  I finished my quilt for the "100 quilts for kids" this week.... the full post is here.

 4. Diamond Chains Quilt Along: 

I'm not going to lie- I'm slightly cranky, because I can't match my dang fabric for the center of the quilt.  JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby both mysteriously don't have it anymore, and I thought I had found it online, but um, it came and it's not quite it.  Sigh.  I ordered the next shade darker and it should be here by the end of the week.  If it doesn't match I'm going to have to go to Plan B......I'll let you know what Plan B is when I come up with one.

Ok....moving on - Stats for the Week:

 

New projects - 1

Completed projects - 1

In Progress - 3

No progress this past week-

1. Ladybug quilt - ready to be quilted
2. Halloween Wall Hanging - I should probably get this one out and finish it
3. Mom's Christmas Table Runner - need to get measurements of her new table

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced!

Hippos Completed!

Quilt Front

Quilt Back

I have been inspired by all of the guest posts on SwimBikeQuilt about free motion quilting.  After a couple of botch jobs I had gone back to doing mostly line quilting, but after reading everyone's tips and ideas I decided to be brave and go back to trying new things.  I did outline my octagons, but then I did some free motion circles, a couple of hearts and a bunch of squiggles around the border.  I had a couple of thread tension issues, and it's not the most pristine job I've ever done, but after washing the quilt I was happy with the way it looked. 

 This quilt is part of 100 Quilts for Kids and I'm thrilled to be donating this quilt for a little girl.  To see the adorable recipient of the quilt go here.

Hippo Quilt

Every time my son sees this quilt he says, "Hippos!" so I have dubbed this the Hippo Quilt.

 After some initial measurement flubs I had to scrap my original design and came up with this idea to incorporate the triangles.  The funny thing is that I'm glad I made the mistake, because I like the way it turned out a lot better than my original idea.  Don't you love when that happens?

I was so excited that both of my kiddos decided to show me love yesterday by taking a nap at the same time, so I was able to put together the back of the quilt as well.

 It's definitely different from my usual, but I was in the mood to use all of my scraps to the maximum.

It's all pinned together and now all I have to do is figure out how I want to quilt it.  Meanwhile, check out some of the other 100 Quilts for Kids.  There are some seriously cute quilts being made. 

Oops, Did I Do That?

 Things were going great - I was making wonderful progress - only two more strips to add in the middle and then WHAM - I hit a wall - a quilting wall.  AKA- the additional fabric is a different shade of purple.  Bleh.  So, this is on hold until I can find the same shade of purple to finish it. 

Here's my SBS Block #11 - Beacon Light:

This is an improv block - you randomly sew scraps together to form the material.  This was a bit of a mind-bender for me, because I like neat and precise measurements.  The block is growing on me though.

Meanwhile, I made another oopsy on my 100 Quilts for Kids quilt.  My calculations were off, so now I'm having to cut down all of my triangles.  It's tedious and I also have to come up with another design so that I can salvage what I already have.  Grr.  I think I need to take a mental step back and regroup.  Hopefully, I'll get this all figured out in the next day or so.

Inspiring Music

I'm always on the look out for good inspirational music.  It's hard to find truly moving music because often it's cheesy or overly sappy.  Rob Gardner is fabulous!  (Little side note- I served with his sister as missionaries in Spain 10 years ago and just barely put the connection together) He has two oratorio type programs: Joseph Smith the Prophet & Lamb of God.
The first video is "The Three Witnesses" from Joseph Smith the Prophet:

The second video is a recording session of "Gethsemane" from Lamb of God:

You know you're doing pretty well for yourself when the London Symphony Orchestra is recording your music.  Listen to that cello!!!  It's absolutely gorgeous!

He's also composed 2 secular musicals.  Probably one of my favorite songs is "A Paratrooper's Prayer" from The Price of Freedom (set in WWII):

My favorite part is that most of his music is downloadable in sheet music form.  He has a number of hymn arrangements (Joel was thrilled there was music for Tenors).  It's on his website Spire Music.  

Working It (In Progress)

I spent most of my week working on my Diamond Chains Quilt Along.  I need to add another block in each row to make it larger, but this is what I have so far.....

I stayed up way too late last night completing the middle block, but I got in the groove and couldn't stop myself.  I used the left over triangles from the diamonds to create this block (it's about 21" square).  I really love it.....  I'm really excited to get this whole quilt front put together this week.

I got my SBS Block #10 - Ohio Star - done:

My other project this week is to repair 2 of my son's quilts.  He is a lover of cuddley things, and so he hoards as many "blankies" as possible.  They have seen a lot of love and I need to fix a section of binding on one, and a little section of piecing on another.

 

This Week's Stats: 

New projects - 0

Completed projects - 0

Currently in progress -

1. Skill Builder - up to date
2. Diamond Chains - need to get the quilt top finished
3. Ladybug quilt - ready to be quilted
4. Halloween Wall Hanging - I should probably get this one out and finish it
5. Mom's Christmas Table Runner - need to get measurements of her new table
6. Fix the Little Man's quilts.

Speaking of the Little Man- I took him to Speech Therapy this morning, and when I told him we were going to Speech he replied, "Go Speeps!"  It made me smile.

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced. 

Diamonding Along

I'm making some good progress on my Diamonds quiltalong.  We were given several options for how to piece together the quilt.  I went with the diamonds as a border (of course I chose the one with the most diamond blocks to make).  This is the graphic she gave for this version....

The center block is going to be bigger, but here's my chain of diamonds so far......

It needs one more block in each row to make it the right size, but I'm happy with it so far.  We'll see if I have enough time this week to make the center block.  Things are crazy around here this week.

Exciting!

This may seem really trivial to most, but for the first time ever my quilting has been seen somewhere else besides my blog.... Two of my blocks from Skill Builder Sampler have been featured on Sewn.  So exciting!  

1. Momma Thomps Double Star
2. Flying Geese (the one in the middle)

This seriously just made my day. :)

Compounding Issues

Do you ever make a mistake and then create another one when fixing the first?  Well, welcome to my series of mistakes with this quilt.  First of all- I don't know what I was thinking, but I started quilting it from the sides instead of the middle so I ended up getting a lot of puckering....

I didn't notice that my top was also pulling - I think it's a combination of going too fast and not pinning it together close enough.  Anyway, I didn't notice that the layers didn't match up anymore until AFTER I had sewed on the binding.  Bleh.  So then, being the brilliant person that I am, I tried to fix where the binding didn't attach to all 3 layers, but completely forgot about matching thread color, so this is what I ended up with....

The binding is pulled tighter in some areas to cover some of the mistakes, and to be honest by the end of it I didn't even want to give the quilt away.  I was totally bummed with the way it turned out.

I suppose from a distance it looks alright- just don't look too closely.  I seriously was not going to give it to my friend, but my husband was the voice of reason.  He said, "Do you really think she's going to give it back to you and say how dare you be thoughtful and make a quilt for my baby?!"  Point taken.  I'll swallow my perfectionist pride and give her the quilt.  Lesson learned and at least the baby will still have something to enjoy.

Meanwhile, I finally got all of my fabric cut out for the Diamond Chains Quilt A-Long.  I need to catch up and piece those together this week.  I'm excited, because I think the purples and blues will look good together.

This Week's Stats: 

New projects - 1

Completed projects -1

Currently in progress - 5

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced.