please vote!

Voting has opened on the Project Quilting challenge that brought you my last post - and The Unicorn.  You can vote for 10 different quilts (only once each, sadly...), so go check them out.  There are some pretty cool submissions again this week!  Mine is #20.

VOTE HERE!

Voting is open through Friday (well, some of Friday...), so don't miss out!

Since that project was completed, I've not been too busy in the sewing room.  I think I needed a break!  But we did get a few sunny days, so I managed to FINALLY get photos of the quilt tops I've been working on the past few (dreary, cold, windy) months!

In no particular order...we have the Very Vintage Christmas sampler quilt I did with the quilt-along right before the holiday:

This one seemed to go together pretty fast.  I mean, there were a lot of trips up and down the stairs (the living room floor - downstairs - makes a good design floor, but the sewing room is upstairs and I'm not going to drag everything downstairs just for a few hours...), and some help from the cats...

...but it's together now and awaiting quilting.  (Along with far too many other tops...)

Next up is the green X-Plus quilt I made all the blocks for at retreat.  I was excited to get this one together and see how all the greens and greys played together.  I'm happy!  And will be even happier when it's completed and can hang out on my couch...with like 12 other quilts...pretty soon we're going to need another couch...one to SIT on!

The colors aren't great here.  It was a beautiful sunny morning, but it did not work in my favor for taking photos.  Perhaps I should have waited until a bit later in the day when the sun was a little higher in the sky, but I was trying to get the unicorn photographed, too, and that had a deadline!

I had much help with this one, too, but apparently none of the photos made it from my phone to the big computer.  Ah well, I'm sure you can imagine.  But the nice thing about these was that they didn't have to go any certain way (unlike the Christmas blocks), so even those that had fabrics I placed carefully in block construction to go one way or another, didn't have to stay in one rotation.  The quilt is square and there is no official top or side, so all is well here!

Then there's the graduation quilt.  While the date is still a few months away, I decided to get the top put together as soon as I could.  You know, so procrastinating the quilting can have a maximum amount of time.  (I'm still thinking on a motif, but if all else fails, swirls are good, right?!)

Pictured sideways here, this was the best option to get it all without being on the ground.  It was fresh snow, but still...on the ground!  (It was crusty snow, so you punched through it with your boots each step you took...kinda fun!)

This quilt was also layed out on the floor with much help...

Both the kitties who think "NO!" is part of their name, of course, were in attendance.  Also the Peanut Gallery (my hubby) was sitting in the nearby chair (throwing the candy wrappers you see behind Emma on the floor), making suggestions no quilter would ever consider.  (Perhaps I need to work on my fishing suggestions for him for this summer?  Something along the lines of "why not just catch the fish instead of dangling a fake worm at it!"?)

But my quilts wouldn't be what they are without all the help I receive.

And lastly, I used up half of the leftover "lost corner" half square triangles from the heart quilt to make log cabins.  The layout I ended up with is nothing fancy, but worked well for an odd-numbered set of squares.

This also depleted my pink and red strings nicely.  Of course, my stash supplemented, but I do NOT like (making) string quilts and what possessed me to save all those skinny strips is beyond me.  I'm trying to use them up and NOT save them any more!

I don't have a photo of the blocks all sewn together, but trust me, they look very much the same as in this photo.  I'm trying to decide what to quilt - using the diagonal stripes as a guide.  Not feathers, please!  I'll come up with something.  It's not a big quilt (about 36x36), so it shouldn't take long, whatever I decide.

Since these are all done, I'm trying not to start anything new.  I'm trying to use up found bits (lost corners, leftover blocks, etc.) to make baby-size quilts.  Use things up.  But I DID start the Left-Handed Sampler Quilt and am making some of the blocks she introduces for the second round.  Some are very similar, and if my quilt is only going to have 25 blocks, I'd like them to be a little more diverse.  So, once she's done reintroducing her 25 for the second round, I'm going to go back into her archives and pick enough more to have the total I need.  But this is a nice "assignment" every so often to get me into the sewing room.  Once I'm there, it's pretty easy to stay and find something else to work on!

This past week or so, I've added six to my total - 15 done so far!

All dots still, though that purple doesn't look very dotty until you look closely.  Well, neither does that one green, but you get the idea!

As leader-enders, I've also been making a few tiny stars...

Working with pieces I cut from my mom again (and will be for a while!), but getting there.  I'll admit, though, it was tempting during unicorn construction to raid these!  While I had plenty of fabrics, having the squares already cut and ready to use was a big temptation...but I resisted and the unicorn is all my fabrics.  (That unicorn was also a good project to deplete my strings stash!)

With all the tops I've completed in the last year or so, my Rack of Shame is just about overflowing.  Of course, the graduation quilt has to come out of there, but none of the others have any sort of deadline.  Many have backs - already pieced - and are ready to go.  But I procrastinate.  I want to challenge myself to load up a new quilt every Friday and get some of these quilted.  Of course, I don't know what I'll do with them THEN (remember me saying I might need another couch?!), but the Rack of Shame will be less shameful...and a couple ARE intended for eventual donation.  (Perhaps do those early?)

And with that, I'm off to assess the current situation with some pink pinwheels that were constructed a few months ago as leader-enders, but originally left as lost corners.  I have a bag pattern I may use, but skimming through it earlier had me scratching my head a little.  I'm NOT a seamstress!  Wish me luck on that!

Happy quilting,

Katie