september UFO done!

I know it's early in the month, but I'm going to show it off anyways!

You'd think I live in "The Windy City" - Chicago - but I don't.  I guess I just have bad timing for photography?

Time for plan B.  That plan should have included tying my hair back...

This project started out the UFO year as blocks pieced and appliqued, but for the most part not embroidered.  The embroidery turned out to be taking longer than I anticipated and most of them weren't very pretty.  I redrew a few of them, but wish I had looked more closely at this kit before purchasing.  I don't think I would have bought it - the embroidery, not the colors, drew me in.  Lesson learned.  :)

There are a lot of places on the quilt where beads would probably add a lot of interest, but since I don't know how well longarm quilting goes with beads present, I'll add those later...if I ever finish it beyond this point.  For now it's been hidden in the sewing room closet - hung up with a bunch of other tops I started for no reason and now don't know what to do with!  (They store easier as tops, folks!)

The official info:
"Floral Breeze" kit from JoAnn Fabric
82" x 91"

But this isn't all I finished on Saturday!

Another top!

That green really made this quilt green.  Yikes!  But it's not a bad thing.

This is for my sister-in-law's second baby, due by c-section the day after Thanksgiving.  (That's November 25th for those of you who don't live in the US.)  Plenty of time to get it quilted (once I figure out what to do), but you all know I'll be sewing the binding down Thanksgiving morning!

I'm really pleased with how this came out.  You may remember the original, shown in my post here (scroll down a bit).  How very different with brighter colors!

And then I made dinner.  :)  Feta and Bacon Stuffed Chicken with Onion Mashed Potatoes but I don't recommend the potatoes.  They were a bit bland and dry.

Sunday afternoon = more football, so back up the sewing room.  I'd found my cutting table (it was somewhere under all the baby quilt fabric!) and clearned some space on the ironing board from the UFO blocks, so I allowed myself to start something new.  Something with a deadline!

Kinda makes me think of fruit slices...

Remember this?

Remember I talked about the head scratching and hair pulling to figure out how much extra fabric to buy?  Turns out I didn't need it.  ARGH!  But that means I have extra in case I make any mistakes (cutting these was not as easy as you might first think) or for throw pillows if I don't!

It took a few deep breaths to cut into this fabric, though.  Three flowers are needed for each block and each of these three is a different size.  Lots to keep track of, but I think it's all good.

I haven't started sewing anything yet, but I hope to soon.

And the pink fabric was for pillowcases, but I'm going to try to get this quilt done (top at least) first and see if I have enough left over to use for cuffs on the pillowcases.  The pillowcases will be for my niece's birthday (in November), but how cool would it be that a month later she gets a quilt that matches for Christmas?!  I hope it works out.

I just hope I can make myself part with this when it's done because it's really cute!

So that's mostly what I've been up to.

Happy quilting,

Katie

PS I nearly forgot to add this!

Proof I passed!  (MPS = Minimun Pass Score)

september book stack and UFO

Here we are again...the 4th of another month...so another book report!

That blue sticky note (that tried to curl up in the awful humidity) marks the top of the stack in July.  I forgot to mark the top of the stack last month, so we'll just leave this as a whole stack reference this year...assuming the sticky glue holds all year!  Not much progress this month, but I've been studying.  My exam is Tuesday.  (Fingers and toes and everything else crossed that I've studied enough to pass!)

And this month, Judy pulled #11 for the UFO number.  That's finishing up the Floral Breeze quilt - into a top.

The blocks are all together, including the applique, but there was a lot of embroidery to be done on this one and I petered out very early into it.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see that the two blocks on the left will take a bit of work, but I think I should be okay.  (And I think once this one is quilted, I will add some beading because some of those viney stems are pretty lonely, but that's for another UFO challenge...ha ha!)

I also have putting the top together as part of this month's challenge, so I hope I don't run into any pieced cornerstones or craziness like I did last month!  (Maybe I should go look at that setting kit now?)

I hope all of you in the US are enjoying your holiday weekend.  My nephew is here tonight, so he and my hubby have the TV on and are each playing handheld video games.  Everything is turned up about as loud as it can go...it sounds like there's about 12 people in my house with those two and they're completely oblivious to each other, but I think they're having a good time.  :)

Happy quilting,

Katie