Skill Builder Quilting

I finally got around to quilting March's Skill Builder blocks.  Since I technically messed up the pattern for the first one, I didn't want the quilting to follow the lines.  I actually chose to make it curved lines in direct contrast to the block.  I used Leah's River Path - it's kind of a double U shape:

The second block is probably my favorite so far.  It's no secret that I love Loopy Lines, so when I saw that Leah added spirals to loopy lines I knew I had to try it, and yes, I absolutely loved this design and can totally see myself using this on a bigger scale for a larger quilt.  It's called Loopy Doopy Spiral:

 A look at the back:

Brain Cell Depletion

I don't know if it's from my recent additional responsibilities at church or my husband's particularly awful work schedule, but I've been so tired lately and as a consequence I keep doing really dumb things.  Now that I think about it, being 7 months pregnant is a pretty good excuse as well.  I used to think "pregnancy brain" was a joke, but I tell ya - I feel like this baby is sucking away my IQ.  I'm getting dumber by the day.  My car keys will be sitting right in front of me and I'll be frantically searching everywhere for them (with absolutely no memory of the last time I used them even if it was only 5 minutes earlier).  I am a constant source of amusement for my husband.

Anyway, I say this because the quality of my sewing seems to be sliding as well.  My seam ripper and I have recently become rather good friends.  Last night I was piecing together the April Modern Sister's blocks and I had the weirdest thing happen:  my tiny triangles didn't even remotely line up with the larger triangle.  If you take into account both sides - I was at least a full inch off.

I went back and checked my cutting measurements and they were all correct.  I guess my scant 1/4" was a little too scant.  I probably should have double checked the size of my triangles, but I've never had any issues with this before, so I was completely dumbfounded.  I sat there a minute and thought of the 20 triangles I needed to seam rip and then a thought entered in my head, "I wonder what it would end up looking like if I didn't fix it.  How bad would it be?"  The more I thought about it the more curious I became, and I decided to just center it and if it was totally hideous I'd redo the whole block.  What did I have to lose?

Does everything line up? Absolutely not.  Is it hideous?  Not at all.  Am I ok with it?  Yep.  The only thing that I wasn't taking into account though was that I still had to make a corresponding second block.  I was going to make sure all the triangles were the right size for that one, but then I thought it would probably be better to match the blocks since it's going on the same quilt.  So I give you 2 dysfunctional blocks for the price of one!

Now if only I could find a way to raise my IQ back up...

More Blocks

I've gotten into the flow of plowing through the production of blocks lately.  :)  I'm on a roll which is good, because I'm finally caught up to blocks that need to be done for this month.  Here are the April blocks for Do. Good Stitches:

  This month we had to make 2 Modernized D9P blocks.  These blocks are a lot of fun, because they are easy to put together and there are a ton of variations to choose from.  It makes the process fresh and varied.  The colors we had to use were red, turquoise and dark brown with a white background.  I also love being a part of bees because it forces me to use color combinations I wouldn't normally think of using. 

Starting Bee Blocks

I started making my Bee blocks for the Spring Round of 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee.  I was in the mood to make some more wonky stars.  The first 2 are very similar in color requests, but with a different background color.  I love how something so subtle as going from white to gray can change the look of a block.

Skills Aren't Exactly Building

I finished my 2 March Skill Builder blocks yesterday.  The first one came together quickly and was pretty easy.  Woven Star:

The second block was a serious pain in my booty.  Sometimes I'm not a big fan of so many triangles.  I had some point issues, but I wasn't too bugged.  I was looking at the block closer this morning though and I realized I sewed in the 3rd row upside down.  Oh, for the love!  At any other point in my life I probably would have been tempted to rip it all out and redo it, but I'm currently too tired to care (which is probably why I sewed it wrong last night in the first place).  I'm over it- Good thing it's a sampler quilt.   Woven Chevron:

Hungry Caterpillar Finish

I'm so excited about this quilt.  It's bright and cheery, and I love Hungry Caterpillar.  Both of my children recognized the caterpillar right away and started "reading" the book on the quilt.

I don't know what it is about baby quilts that always make me resort back to loopy line quilting, but I love how spread out you can make the design.  I added hearts and stars to the loopy lines this time around to give it a little more interest:

Now that Ben's quilt is done I'd say he can come at any time, but since I still have 10 weeks until my due date I think it would be better not to jump the gun quite so soon.  I suppose I should start actually getting the house cleaned up and ready for his arrival. 

Linkin' up to TGIFF and Link-a-Finish-Friday.  

WIPing it!

It's been a while since I've actually done a WIP post, because I haven't been all that organized with my sewing lately.  I thought this would be a good way for me to figure out what exactly is on my list of things to do and make sense of my current projects.

I finished up the quilting on my February Skill Builder Blocks last night.  This is Em Dash:

 It's a Zigzag Spiral in the dashes.  Here's a look at the back:

The block before was The Mood:

I still need to piece together my Skill Builder blocks for March.  However, I'm up to date on Do. Good Stitches.  I just finished the wonky stars a couple days ago:

Baby Ben quilt is layered and all ready to be quilted.  My goal is to try to get this quilt done by the end of the week:

Other projects
Sisters BOM- up to date
4x5 Modern Quilt Bee- I need to decide on a block and make 5 of them
Quiet Book - Ugh.  No progress.
Christmas quilt - nada nada limonada

Stats for the Week:
New projects - 0
Completed projects - 0
WIP- 6
Linking up to WIP Wednesday. 

Spiral Mess

I have a number of things that need to be quilted.  I finally got around to quilting one of my Skill Builder blocks from February.  I wanted to work on spirals, so I found the perfect design for it.  Leah refers to it as Spiral Mess, and I think it fits its name perfectly:

 View from the back:

 ps- I think Spirals are a ton of fun to quilt.