WIP Inventory

Having finished a couple of small quilts, I decided to take inventory of my current works in progress and their current status.  I am hoping that this will help me see that progress is being made during the spring and summer slowdown. These are just the quilts I have been working on in the last few months, and not the other unfinished projects that are stored away.

Some people might be overwhelmed by the number of projects listed here, but I really enjoy getting to choose which project I want to work on. Since they are not standing in a straight line, being worked on one at a time, in order, when progress is made on one quilt, the whole group is making progress.

Here they are in no particular order.

 

Drunkard's Path

Ethnic Drunkard's Path was started in August 2003 and it is the closest to completion. It is already basted and a lot of the dark purple and blue spaces have been quilted.  I need to finish quilting it and bind it.  It is a fairly big quilt -  a big lap quilt. 

 

Colonial Bricks

 

Colonial Bricks was started September 2018. It has been pieced and the backing and binding fabric has been chosen and cut. The backing needs to be wider, so I am piecing the leftovers to insert to make the backing wider.

 

Sunlight in Winter

 

Sunlight in Winter was started December 2018. I am making the blocks one half yard of yellow fabric at a time. I used up half a yard of the butterfly fabric, and half a yard of the grunge fabric. I had a whole yard of the grunge fabric and since it is the darkest yellow, I decided to use that half yard to make the squares because I think the squares will show the pattern and it is my darkest yellow.  All of the yellow fabrics are very similar. I like that look but will consider adding more patterned yellows when I am closer to completion. I will not make the whole blocks until all of these subblocks are done.

 

Uncommon and Unexpected

 

Uncommon and Unexpected was started February 2019 as a part of a quilt along.  One of the things I really liked about the original quilt is how the cornerstones made the sashing look like circle dancing around the squares, and my eye moved from one overlapping circle to another.  My quilt does that, but the diagonally placed squares, and the striped fabric, and the small number of blocks stop the eye from bouncing too easily at the circles.  I want to add more blocks to help show more of that movement. Some of the border has been pieced but I am still thinking about how I want to accomplish that.

 

ATC Holder

 

ATC Holder was started November 2018. It doesn't look like a lot of progress has been made on this, but there has been.  All of those photo corners have been cut and pressed. I think that was the hardest part.  I need to strip piece the cornerstones and once I do that, I think I will be able to piece this pretty quickly. There isn't any decision making left on this quilt until the center has been pieced. It is deliberately plain to let the ATCs stand out.

 

Circles 365

 

Circle 365 was started November 2015, and I have been sporadically working on this quilt since then. I am putting the circles together into the quilt top when I have enough, and it is 2/3rd done. The quilt is getting pretty big now so I have decided not to take it out since my blog readers have seen this quilt grow from time to time.

 

Fourth Rail

 

Fourth Rail was started January 2019 as a leader / ender to use up scraps.  The layout has not been decided but this one looks pretty interesting to me. I have a lot of pieces already cut so it is just a matter of sewing them together.

 

Stitchery 

You probably forgot about this stitchery, but it is pretty close to completion. It's been a while since I worked on it. The first time I mentioned it on my blog was August 2018, so it was started about then, but I  bought the kit from the thrift store a long time before that. It is made with yarn.

 

Seiring Genealogy Book

 

I don't think I have shown you this genealogy book, but I started it shortly after I finished the Priest Genealogy Book in December 2017. I have the pages all ready and all the genealogy information has been printed. I need to make the cover, add the genealogy printouts to the pages and embellish the pages a bit more. The cookie box is going to be used in the quilted cover to give it more stability.

 

Cultural Fusion Rail Fence

I showed the Cultural Fusion Rail Fence as part of the Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop. It was started November 2015.  The quilt top is done and the backing and binding fabric has been chosen.

 

Be a Diamond

I will be taking a part of this blog hop. My day is April 25. I want to keep it simple so this will be my April mini of the month.

 Bunny Parade

I am giving you a sneak preview of this quilt which I finished yesterday. This is a free pattern from Moda Bakeshop called Bunny Quartet. The designer of the pattern also provided a tutorial for a carrot on her blog, which I used as you can tell from the photo.  So my bunnies are a trio and not a quartet. She changed the name to Easter Parade, but since I have Elephant Parade quilt in the works, I am going to call it Bunny Parade.

Since it is a bunny quilt, I will show the whole thing to you on Easter. Since the diamond quilt will be my April mini of the month, Bunny Parade is my May mini of the month, so I will also show it to you again in May as a reminder. I don't want you to get tired of it so I am only giving you a preview now.  I know from personal experience that if you buy a Christmas present in July, it still counts as a Christmas present, even if you can't wait and give it to the recipient in July.

 

Quilt Statistics

 Since I pulled up my spreadsheet to record the finish of the bunny quilt and give you the start date for all these quilts, let's talk about the stats, shall we?  I have started 127 quilts and have finished 99 quilts, which is a 78% completion rate.

It takes me an average of 242 days to complete a quilt. This number has gone down, mostly because of all the mini quilts I have been making lately.  A lot of my quilts get done much quicker than 242 days, but I also tend to pick up projects that needed an incubation period. When I get an old UFO completed, that average number of days to completion goes up, but that won't stop me from working on my UFOs. The stats are there to record my progress, not to tell me what to do.

 

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 11

I spent this week making the Bunny Parade quilt. I also took inventory of all of my works in process.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 76 out of 76 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

I checked my results from last year, and I was at 100% on March 18th, so I am on track for this year.  The following week, the 25th, I sewed 2 out of 7 days. I'll see if I can beat that this year. It doesn't sound like a high bar to reach.

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch
What I Made on Monday Yes I did make all of these today, why do you ask?
Peacock Party

Throwback Tuesday: Lansing Leaves

Jumping on the bandwagon after everyone has abandoned it, I decided to show you an old post from my many years of blogging.  I chose a random year and a random month. I only wrote one post that month, so it was easy to choose the specific post, July 19, 2014.  In this post, I explained how I made a quilt top while living out of a hotel room for a month. You can read it here, Lansing Leaves Quilt.

Since that post, I added another round of leaves as a border.  I also sewed alternating flying geese for the borders. I wasn't sure if the border fabric matched the center very well and probably had some issue with the size of the rows. You can read the whole story by reading all the Lansing Leaves posts here.

While it is tempting to finish it - either as is, or with the alternating flying geese border, but for now, I am going to keep going with my current quilt, Colonial Cotton Bricks, and at least get the top finished.

Who's The Leader?

I am working on teaching my quilts some to have some self-control and patience.  They have to wait their turn as I randomly throw bits and pieces of several different quilts into the sewing machine to see what turns up.

I've been diligently working on the Sweet Land of Liberty blocks. I am very late in starting this quilt, and would at least like to be timely in getting one month's blocks done in a month. I showed you the two applique blocks already.

This is the next applique block. If it doesn't look like oak leaves to you, what can I say?  I did my best.

This is not the right size, as it should be a square, but I figure I will add or subtract fabric as needed when joining with the rest.

Circle Block 247

This block showed up while I was sewing.  The red fabric is from the new fat quarter pack. I used it to make the churn dash for the applique block.

Circle Block 248

This one started with leftovers from the Colonial Bricks quilt.

I am also making the Colonial Bricks quilt.

Each of the quilts have been patiently taking turns as I decide which piece gets done next.  I choose the order in which the pieces get put into the machine.  It may be a mad frenzy to avoid starting any new quilts.

I am the leader here.

 Either that, or the squirrels are taking over my brain and my head is about to burst soon.

Weekly Update

 It's time for my weekly update for my stitching 15 minutes a day. I am happy to report that I spent more than 15 minutes a day every day this week.  I worked on the applique blocks for the Sweet Land of Liberty quiltalong at the beginning of the week. Then knowing that Moda had a Jelly Roll Day on Saturday, I worked on stitching the 2 1/2" strips I bought.  I'm not sure if it is a Jelly Roll (made by Moda) or some other name from some other manufacturer, and I am not honoring a holiday just for one company, as I am hardly ever brand loyal, but I figured it was as good a motivation as any to work on the Colonial bricks quilt.

I really admire people who say "Here's the quilt I made today", since I've been working on the bricks quilt all week, and even though I've made substantial progress, it is nothing like a whole quilt top.  This quilt reminds me of the rail fence quilt I made, as they are both simple and made up of rectangles.  The rail fence quilt is a generous lap quilt and I really like the size, and even though I was planning on making this Bricks quilt small enough to be a baby/toddler quilt, I've decided I want to make it bigger. The fabric in this collection is already looking like a scrap quilt, since some of them don't really match each other without the intermediary fabric, so it won't ruin the mood/style by adding others to the mix.

Stash Update

I hardly ever provide an update for my stash since I don't buy new fabric on a regular basis anymore. I have avoided going to stores that will provide too much temptation. But I did manage to open an email about a clearance sale and bought some backing fabric and the "jelly roll" I am using for the Bricks quilt, and then I won two fabric prizes, so my stash has been thoroughly enhanced this week. I'm sure my neighbors must be thinking I won the lottery, getting packages every day.


Linked to: 15 Minutes to Stitch 
WIPs on Wednesday 
Off the Wall Friday 

Edited to add the stats!

15 Minutes to Stitch

I am late posting my progress for last week, but I definitely sewed all seven days working on the bricks quilt and the Liberty quilt I mentioned in my last post. My progress as of Sunday was:

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  212 out of 259 sessions
Success rate: 82%

One Quilt Finished; Two Quilts Started

After I showed you the finished Unassuming Quilt, which somehow wound up being its official name, I knew that I could start a new quilt.  After some deliberation (there are so many quilts I want to make), I decided it would be Sweet Land of Liberty, which is a quilt along that is being hosted by Lori of Humble Quilts. That's a flag, not a hatchet, and has not been sewn down yet. I need to cut a bigger piece to turn the edges under.

That quilt would have been more than enough, because I do want to take my quilting time to finish some of the quilts I have already started.  But there was a sale at Keepsake Quilting and I bought this jelly roll without having a specific plan.  It's called Colonial. When I got it, I liked it even better than the picture, and decided to make a simple baby quilt out of it.

I considered making one of the quilts on my list, but in the end I decided to make it easy and make a simple bricks pattern, alternating lights and darks. It will be a rectangular checkerboard! I will have to supplement the jelly roll with lights from the stash, but that is all right if the quilt becomes a little bigger. I'm thinking it will make a nice baby/toddler quilt as my supply is running low.

I checked my spreadsheet to make sure I record the new quilts, and the finish, but it looks like my Unassuming quilt was so unassuming, it didn't even make it on the list as a started quilt! I was just making some blocks and playing and somehow a quilt showed up.  You would think that one finish of a quilt that wasn't even on the list and two starts would lower my percentage of finished quilts, but I had also forgotten to list my Valentine's Day swap quilts, so I am still at finishing 80% of the quilts I start. Of the quilts I finished, it took me an average of 262 days to make each one.

When I was in school, I would be thoroughly disappointed with an 80%, but as an adult, I think it shows me as a free spirit who doesn't have to follow anyone's rules, even mine. Quilting is fun for me, and it is going to stay that way.

Linked to:
Moving it Forward 
What I Made Monday 
Let's Bee Social
WIPs on Wednesday

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.    

C. S. Lewis