a lot of ground to cover

I've been sewing.  Not as much as I could.  Not always as much as I want, but I've gotten a fair amount done.  And I've been thinking about blogging, but that's REALLY fallen behind.  Again.

So there's a few linkies going on where I want to share my progress.  And I know I should have posted more frequently to keep it simple.  But, you know, life.

So I'm going to try to cover them all in this post!  If you're here for the linkies, hang in there.  For those of you who read my blog more regularly, well, probably nothing is going to be all that different!

First up: UFO Challenge!

My #7 Science Geek Hexie quilt top.  This quilt all started because my quilty friend Linda sent me a message about science geek fabric at a local-ish quilt shop.  All other things were stopped and I drove, in a flying frenzy to beat closing time, to said quilt shop and purchased fabrics.

This was 2014.  Yeah, 2014.

You can see the hexie ruler I purchased for this project in there, too.  I already knew what I was going to do with the fabric.

It took a while to get to the project and cut those hexies (I remember doing some at our quilt show in 2015) and get them layed out on the design floor...

After watching a few tutorials on sewing hexagons (I didn't want those half-hexagons, as that loses the design in the fabric more than I like), I was ready.  I think.

Okay, this is going fairly well.  Onward!

It seems I never posted a photo of this top on the blog, but here it is.  I'm not sure when it was finished to this point, but this photo is from 2015, so there's that.

And then it sat.  I love it.  I want to finish it.  I knew, even, how I was going to quilt it.  Did I quilt it?

Nope.

I put it on the UFO list for this year.

I bought back fabric for it in March - at the same time I bought fabric for the UFO for that month - because I found something so absolutely perfect I couldn't NOT buy it.

Its number came up this month, so I jumped right in and quilted it, right?

Ha ha ha ha.

No.

But last weekend it was cooler and I decided I was going to tackle it.  The lights on my longarm light bar produce a lot of heat, so using it in summer weather isn't always comfortable.  (In winter months, I shed clothing while quilting because it gets warm enough for just a t-shirt...and I'm perpetually cold!)

So I did.

On the longarm, ready for another pass.

I chose a fairly simple overall pattern (simple, ha!), so it went fairly fast.  I still need to decide if I'm going to lop off those angles and make it square or tackle weird-angle binding.  So technically it's not done yet, but again, it's fairly warm and with no whole-house air conditioning, sitting under a quilt to bind isn't exactly high on my list.

A closer look at the quilting (and the back):

The colors are really washed out here, but for a day that's not raining or overly windy, I'll take sunshine for my photo shoot!  The quilted circles are maybe 2" across for the largest.  I love it.  Molecules!  (But my pebbles, as these are at their most basic, aren't perfect.  They got better as I went, though.  Sometimes.)

This quilt is, um, probably about 60"x50" or something.  I didn't measure, but it's a nice couch-size quilt.  If you're not 7 feet tall like my hubby.  (Okay, he's only 6 feet tall, but I feed him well, so he needs his couch quilts to be extra large.)  It's my design, if you can call throwing a bunch of hexagons together at random any sort of design.

And then, while I had the longarm up and running and was feeling good about it and the weather was cooler, why not load and quilt a second?  (This was my plan all along, if we're being honest.)

Sheeeeeeppppppsssss!

This one was started because I'm a fool and thought I had enough green to do this with the rainbow scrap challenge last month (May) when the color was green.

Wanna know how much of my green stash I used to make this quilt?

None.

I also did not use any florals in my stash (because I don't have any because I'm not a girly girl like that and don't buy stuff with flowers unless really I have to).

I did use stash fabrics for the cornerstone blocks and the brown ground strips.

So yeah, not much of a stash-buster.

But so cute!

Load it up! (Sorry, no photos here - story on that soon.)

The colors are a little washed out here again due to sunshine, but you can really see the quilting!

The sheep still need legs and I should probably have done those before quilting, but that epiphany did not happen until I was taking the photos today and realized how much fun it's going to be to try to not embroider legs onto the back of the quilt.

And the back?

Sheeeeeppppppsssss!

When I found this fabric (while shopping for fabric for a baby quilt - more on that soon), I bought it.  Seriously?  When is this NOT the right back fabric for a floral sheep quilt?  It's flannel, but that just means it will be better to snuggle under in the winter.  You know, when I'm actually cold.  Not today.

I still have to figure out what I'm going to bind this with - maybe the leftover florals from the sheep?

The quilt blocks are from the Farm Girl Vintage book by Lori Holt.  And though the blocks are different, it's actually the Picnic Quilt layout from the book.  It's about 70" square.

While I was finishing the science geek quilt, my parents showed up.  We store their boat in the winter and it was about time they retrieved it!  (To be fair, there was a family reunion happening mid-June, hosted at my parent's house, so that sorta took a lot of extra energy and time - now that it's over they can go fishing.)  My mom walked in and handed me a bag of quilt part.  "This is a quilt I made for your dad.  You're going to quilt it." went the conversation.  I'm WHAT?  I don't usually quilt for others.  And when I do, I offer after careful consideration of the quiltmaker and the situation.

Well.

I love my dad and since it's for his birthday (I had a week and a half at drop-off - his b-day is this coming Thursday), I suppose I'll do this.

(And since I was unloading Science Geek and loading Sheep while all this was going on, that's why there's no longarm photos of the sheep quilt.)

I think it's okay to share here, as I don't think he reads my blog.  I'm not even sure he knows I have a blog.  Does he even know what a blog is?  Hmmm...

(Dad, if you've found this and read this far, look away.  Or don't tell mom.)

He's very involved in Boy Scouts.  He wasn't much as a kid, but he saw both of my brothers through earning their Eagle awards and has continued to be very involved as an adult volunteer in his retirement.  He's done a lot of cool stuff (ice climbing anyone?) and seems to have a lot of fun in all his adventures.  I believe my mom told me he was awarded an adult Eagle award not too long ago.  I'm not sure what that's all about, but I did go to the Silver Beaver ceremony (a super-big deal adult volunteer award) a few years back.

So my mom made this for him. It's a panel in the middle with a few borders around it.  She told me to quilt it however I wanted.  So I did flowey-water-like stuff in the borders and stars in the center.  Fairly simple, but getting from one star to the next without overlapping proved harder than I though it would.  Apparently I left my brain at work yesterday?

(I quilted this early today - trying to stay ahead of the heat!)

It's as tall as my clothesline, so probably about 70" long, but not quite square, so maybe 60" wide.

(See how well I measure things?  I do measure before I buy backing, but I never remember what those numbers were later.  And this one I didn't buy any fabric, I just made sure the back was big enough before I started because that's happened when I quilt for others!)

Between all of this nonsense, there's been the rainbow scrap challenge.  (See, I said I'd get there!)

The color this month was yellow.  My yellow stash is fairly pathetic.

But I had plenty enough for the cats!  Just not so much in the variety category.

I thought I used yellow a lot and should have lots of leftovers.  I guess not?

13 more cats!  They don't look too spectacular here on my funky ironing board, but that's okay.  They'll look spectacular in my quilt.

(I also bought about 5 yards of fabric for part (all?) of the back of this quilt, but no photo yet.  I finished the bolt and can't wait to finish the cats so I can use the back!!!!)

There's also been dolly quilt construction:

I was hoping there'd be enough of the sheep flannel to just keep rolling the big quilt and quilt this one on the longarm at the end.

Nope.

I'll have to piece some backing and quilt it later.

These blocks (aside from the 2" squares across the bottom) are also all from the the Farm Girl Vintage book.  It all started with the grey sheep I made to test the sheep quilt pattern and see if grey was going to be okay and then decided they NEEDED to be floral sheep.  This little guy languished a short bit, but he's happy now surrounded by his patchwork garden.

This quilt is 24" square.  Larger than most dolly quilts I've made, but it's SO CUTE!  Part of me wants to keep it.  But what for?  No, some little girl is going to be so excited to get this for Christmas.  It's going to the fire department for their program.

And last but not least is the current baby quilt.  I shared a fabric pull in my last post, but that's been edited a lot.  And a few new fabrics purchased.  Here's the start of sewing to show the final decision:

Lexie helped with the design floor layout:

(She's so cute!)

This quilt doesn't lend itself well to mass-production, so there was quite an argument with not only Lexie, but Emma as well, regarding my use of the design floor and that I should be feeding or petting the cats because this is NOT a design floor, but the place where heavily neglected cats pace when they decide that not having been fed in 4 hours or petted in the last 10 minutes.

So once I could, I picked it up...

(Colors are truer with Lexie.)

It's ready to sew into strips, but this is where it's been since Sunday.  Work has been a little crazy and it's been hot upstairs in my sewing room in the afternoons, but we'll see how the rest of the weekend goes.  I have to work the 3rd (Monday), but do have Tuesday (the 4th), off...

New news?

The UFO for this month is #12.  That's the Whirlygiggle quilt:

I'll need to dig this out and measure so I can buy a back.  (And then promptly forget how large it is so I have to make something up in the blog post where I share it finished.)

And the color for my cats this month is blue.  I have a LOT of blue.  I was just thinking to myself the other night that I need to make a blue quilt to use up some blues.  Perhaps this blue project, if it gets off the ground, will NOT require me to buy most of the blue that will go into the quilt...as the green sheep project did...?

If you've made it all the way through, congratulations.  (I tried to keep it full of photos to at least keep you interested!)

Now I'm going to go figure out what to feed the hubby for lunch.  I've been snacking all morning, knowing he was going to be home around 2:30 and hungry.  This way we can eat together.  Or maybe I'll drag him out quilt back shopping with me?  I'll feed him as his reward!  (And maybe we'll hit Harbor Freight - his favorite tool store - and see if we can find something quirky for my dad for his birthday, since I don't think telling him I quilted his quilt is enough.  And I'm pretty sure my mom would be angry if I gave him the whole quilt from me!  Maybe I'll let the hubby buy a tool, too?  If I tell him just one, it's a game to find the most expensive thing in the store, though...)

Happy quilting!

Katie