350 Blocks Project, Week 13

Has it really been 13 weeks already?

I’m so late getting these posted, it’s almost time for Week 14 . . .

Let’s see . . . 13 weeks, 1 block a day, I should be up to 91 blocks. Whew! I’m still ahead so far. I really want to not be behind on at least one thing, and so far on this, I’m doing well.

I thought it was going to turn out to be a 7-block week, but I was wrong . . .

Here’s what I did manage to get done . . .

Monday’s block: Stephanie’s Secret Garden blocks

These are the blocks for Stephanie‘s turn at the Two’s Company Bee we’re in together. You can see other quilts, and blocks, and read more about all the participants’ quilts here: Two’s Company Quilt Bee.

Thursday’s block: Ochre Color Challenge

This week’s color challenge over on 15 Minutes Play was Ochre. This is fun! I’m going for a monochromatic look with all my blocks. And I’m doing a sampler of 12″ blocks. I’ll decide what to do with them together when the 12 weeks is up. I’m not as happy with this one as I am my mauve one, but we’ll see how it goes with the others, and if it won’t play nice, I’ll remake it later . . .

And that’s it for this past week — just these 5 blocks. More than week 12, but only barely. I guess I could have squeaked out a couple 9-patches or something just to have 7, but since I’m still ahead, I didn’t sweat it. My total is up to 154. (Again, I made a few blocks I can’t show just yet, and I spent a lot of time at the longarm.)

This block project was totally meant to further me along in finishing some UFOs, but it seems I’ve also started quite a few quilts along the way just in the last 13 weeks. Hmm . . . I think I need to buckle down and make some blocks that will help me with a finish or two. We’ll see what happens this next week.

How are you doing on blocks for this year?

350 Blocks Project, Week 12

I quilted my little fingers off this past week!

Well, up until I severed the end of my index finger with a box of Saran Wrap. Which only proves I really don’t belong in the kitchen. And being somewhat anemic, I really can’t spare the blood!

Once again, I got to work on quite a wide variety of things. I like it when that happens! Unfortunately, most of it was not for me.

So I kinda fizzled on making blocks for myself this week, but here’s what I did:

Thursday’s block: Mauve Color Challenge

Victoria is posting a weekly Color Challenge over on the 15 Minutes Play site, of which I am a proud member, although nowhere near the most prolific. But I love V’s challenges, so naturally, I jumped right in. The first color we were challenged to use is Mauve . . . Yummy, huh? Oddly, I had no shortage of mauve fabric in my stash  . . . ugh!

That’s it. Only one more block for myself. But . . . my total count is now up to 142. So, really, I’ve been sewing. I’m just not allowed to talk about it yet. Bah!

Oh, and because I really did need one more UFO, I went to guild meeting tonight and won the whole bunch of those Mexican Star blocks . . . now I have another quilt to put together!

What have YOU been working on?

350 Blocks Project, Week 11

The time is just whizzing right by.

2012 is already 1/4 over!

Just a few days left to finish up my taxes.

Every year I say I’ll do them sooner, but it just never happens.

I’m sure it’s all because I’m so busy sewing!

Here . . . I’ll show you what I did just this past week:

Monday’s block: Made in Cherry Cowboy Quilt

I finished up the last two sections of my Made In Cherry Cowboy Quilt and got the top all completed. Karin also made hers out of cowboy fabric, and I like hers better with the darker background. I wonder if she’ll trade me? Probably not.

However, mine will work out OK in the end, because I want to do some fancy quilting in those big open areas, and I’ll use a dark binding, and that should fix it right up.

Tuesday’s block: Charm Square table mat

Not only did I put these pieces together, but I also quilted them into this little table mat, and I even have the binding put on already. Sometimes I amaze myself! This is made from the Howard Marcus Collections for a Cause “Faith” line.

I listed it in my Etsy shop, but I’m having second thoughts about that. It would look really cute on my new coffee table that I don’t have in place just yet. I guess if it hasn’t sold by the time I get my living room re-do finished, I might just have to keep it for myself.

Saturday’s block: Guild Strip Challenge

I made a third block for my guild challenge quilt. I love how this is coming together, and I hope I’m not disappointed when I’m done. (Some things just look better on paper, tho.)

And that’s it for this past week. Only 4 more blocks. But I’m still ahead, so there’s no guilt yet. My count of blocks for the year is now up to 121.

If you’re following along very closely, you’re now wondering  . . . “Hmm . . . if she only did 4 more blocks this week, and last week she had 111 done, how did she get to 121 this week? That girl can’t count right! Poor thing . . . “

Well, I can explain that. I do a lot of commission work, and I can’t always show you that stuff. But I still have to sew like crazy, so some of my jobs this year are really boosting my block count! And . . . eventually, I’ll get to show you what I’m working on.

And now if you’ll excuse me, there are cows in the driveway, and they’re not ours. I need to go find their home and chase them back there before Skeeter has a meltdown.

350 Blocks Project, Week 10

I did pretty good this week on a wider variety of blocks.

Here’s this week’s blocks . . .

Monday’s block: “S” block

Our Modern Guild challenge for February. It was Donna’s turn to offer the block challenge, and she chose an alphabet quilt. I took the “S”, because it’s my initial, blissfully forgetting that it was paper foundation piecing, which I don’t like, and the “S” had lots of pieces. I should have taken “I” or “H” or something . . . Anyhow, I made it just fine, altho I already wish I’d chosen different fabrics. I don’t think it shows up like it should. We were supposed to match our fabric to our letter, and I had this “saddle” fabric I wanted to use . . . live and learn . . .

If you’re interested in the alphabet quilt, you can get the block patterns HERE.

Tuesday’s block: Mexican Star

Another Modern Guild challenge block. This is Jackie’s March challenge block, from an Eleanor Burns BOM. Jackie is a certified Quilt-in-a-Day instructor! We were supposed to use dark blue for the center cross part, and the rest was up to us.

Wednesday’s block: Bouquets for Hazel, Block 1

This is the alternate Block 1 I made for the Bouquets for Hazel Quilt-Along I’m hosting on my other blog. You know, the one about my mother’s diary . . .

Thursday’s block: Guild strip challenge

Each year, my other guild (not the modern one), offers a yearly challenge. This year’s challenge involved lots of 2 1/2″ strips, and I’ll be writing an entire ‘nother post on exactly how it worked and what we did when I get my quilt closer to finished. But I’ve been working on mine, and this is one of the blocks. And yes, they’re all different, because I can rarely stand doing the same thing twice. It’s an ADD thing . . .

Friday’s block: More tiny HSTs

Saturday’s block: Even more tiny HSTs

Still no plan, so I still can’t tell you more, but the pile is growing, so maybe soon . . .

And that’s all I did this week. No progress on any of my real BOM projects. Sometime I’m gonna have to get crackin’ on those . . .

My count is now up to 111 blocks for the year. Woohoo! I can hardly believe there’s this one thing I’m not behind on . . .

How are you doing on your blocks for the year?

350 Blocks Project, Week 9

Week 9 already?

Where does the time go?

It’s a good thing I’m ahead of the game on this.

Here’s the blocks I made this past week . . .

Monday’s block: The Happy Tree

I made this block for Kim’s Home Sweet Home Quilt-Along. You can get the tutorial HERE.

Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s blocks: Autumn Daze

These are what I work on when I need fast blocks to put together. But . . . it should mean that I’ll have that quilt put together faster than I would have otherwise, right?

Thursday’s and Friday’s blocks: Random 4-patches

I made these 4-patches to test something I’m thinking of starting. These are a miserable fail, so I’ll throw them into a scrap quilt and start over.

Saturday’s block: Teeny HST block

I still don’t have enough of these to have a coherent plan, but when I do, I promise I’ll show you what that is. It’s just I have to know first, before I can tell you . . . This particular one finishes at 2 inches. I have a bunch in all different sizes. I’ll tell you where they came from later, too. Keep you in suspense a bit more, how’s that?

And that’s all I got done this week. Six, not seven. But 6 more than I would have done were I not challenging myself. A couple of UFOs closer to being done. That’s never a bad thing, is it? My count is at 104 — I’ve passed the 100 mark — woohoo!

How are you doing on making blocks this year?

350 Blocks Project, Week 8

It’s a good thing I made lots of blocks earlier when I could, ’cause the last few weeks sure haven’t afforded me any time.

Last week I only added 3 more blocks to my 350 Blocks Project.

I made another block for my October Challenge for my Modern8Create group:

I made a base block for the February Challenge for my Modern8Create group. You’ll have to stay tuned to see what I’m going to do with this base block . . .

And I made the March block for my Two’s Company Bee. This Bear’s Paw went to Mary:

And that’s it for last week. Hopefully, I’ll do better this week. I started out so well, I’d hate to get behind! After 8 weeks, I should have a total of 56 blocks finished, and my count stands at 98! So a few bad weeks won’t hurt me, but they could start to add up pretty quickly . . .

How are you doing with your UFOs this year?

What are you doing to force yourself to make progress?

350 Blocks Project, Weeks 6 and 7

If you’ve been reading along, you’ll know why I didn’t have time to post any of the blocks I made last week, and you’ll also understand why I didn’t actually make a block every single day, but multiple blocks on some days.

Here are the blocks from Week 6 . . .

These are all for my Modern8Create group challenges.

Our challenge for last October was to choose a particular color palette, and then make an improv, sort-of-Gee’s-Bend-style quilt. I’ve done two blocks for mine so far. Yes, I’m behind — you should not be surprised at that!

This next one is for the January challenge, where we were to choose a word and make ourselves a quilt from it. Obviously, I’ve chosen the word “Inspire”. And even though this is the entire quilt, I’m calling it a block. It’s not large, and as soon as I quilt it, I’m done. You can read more about both of these projects here: Modern8Create.

I have not actually begun stitching on my February challenge, but I have a plan, so it’s not far off. And now, the March challenge has already been issued — I can’t seem to keep up!

That’s all the blocks I made for Week 6, but since I’m ahead, I’m not worried . . . yet.

Here’s my blocks for Week 7 . . .

Black and White 4-patches. There are 8 in this picture, but I showed one of them before, so only 7 of them count.

I was cleaning off the top of my island and ran across that pile of leftover pieces from the Red Boots quilt, and decided to just stitch them up before they get lost for good. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with them, and they’re not all the same size . . . so . . . more on that later. What an easy way to boost my count — almost feels like cheating!

And I made another Triangle Star block. I love the center of this one.

That puts my number of Triangle Star blocks at 6. I think I counted up that I want to make 25 of these to make the quilt I want.

So having an off week or two didn’t set me back too badly. I’m at a total of 95 blocks so far. How are you coming along on making blocks this year?

If you have some to show, add them to the Flickr Group so we can all see!

350 Blocks Project, Week 5

OK, so I’m not only off on my count, but I don’t even know what week it really is. I called last week Week 3, but it was really Week 4, so this is Week 5, and I’m posting a day late, so now I probably have everyone else as confused as I am.

This week was kind of a bonus for getting things done. My guild had a weekend retreat, so from 5:00 Friday evening until 3:00 Sunday afternoon, all I did was sew non-stop! What a blast! I’ll have more on the retreat itself a bit later, but for now, here’s my block progress.

I’m lumping the entire week’s blocks into one big mess, because they were all alike. I did nothing else but 36-patches. And I made 25 of them! That boosts the count for sure!

Here are all 56 of my 36-patch blocks laid out:

And that puts my block count up to 83 for the year so far! And I thought this was going to be hard . . . How many blocks have you made so far this year?

You can see the rest of my blocks in these other posts: 350 Blocks Project, or in the Flickr Group. Go add your own to the pool!

350 Blocks Project, Week 3

Not to brag, but I’m really making great progress on my 350 Blocks Project so far.

I may actually have hit on just the thing I needed to kick me into gear and get some things done. Finally!

How about you?

Have you found just the thing you need to jump start your projects this year?

You can always jump right on into this project. It’s never too late!

I’ve stopped numbering my blocks, and am now just going to put what week it is that my blocks are for.

The reason for that is because I’m managing more than a block every day, so my count is now off . . . in a good way!

I was also asked what to do about quilts that aren’t made in blocks, and other things like that? My answer is: “Whatever you want.” But here’s how I’m planning to do it. I’m dividing things into sections, so, for example, if the quilt isn’t made in blocks, and if a quilt has pieced or appliqued borders, then I’m counting each side as a block (so 1 section = 1 block or 4 borders = 4 blocks). A medallion quilt done in rounds might be counted as 1 round = 1 block. It’s totally up to you how you count it. So, with that technicality out of the way . . .

I was too tired to edit and post my photos last night, so here are my blocks for this past week . . .

Monday’s block: Triangle Star

Really. I’m addicted. I can NOT stop making these!

Tuesday’s block: The Red Boots

This is applique . . . with embroidery. And this is a bad picture of it, too. You can read all about it in my next post, where I’ll show you the entire quilt that it’s a part of (with better pictures).

Wednesday’s block: Star points for the Made in Cherry Cowboy quilt

OK, so it’s really 3 “blocks”, but since they’re all for the same quilt, I’m lumping them together here. And I’m not posting any more pictures of it till it’s all done. My Cowboy picked out the fabric he wants me to use for the background, so there’s nothing keeping me from moving forward on it except time.

Thursday’s block: Triangle Star

If something doesn’t stop me soon, I’ll either have enough blocks for one HUGE quilt or two regular ones. Neither of which would make me unhappy.

Friday’s block: Autumn Daze

Another block from the Kaffe Fassett quilt I’m making.

Saturday’s block: Autumn Daze

And another one. I meant to do even more of these, but ran out of time.

Sunday’s block: Four-Patch

I made this 4-Patch from leftovers from the Red Boots quilt. One is all I’ve made so far. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, or the other leftovers, just yet. I was just playin’ around . . .

I also made (not this week, but back in the first week of January) all 20 of the blocks from the Red Boots quilt, so since I did make them in 2012, I’m adding them to my count, since I want to keep track of how many total blocks I make this entire year.

That puts my count up to 58 blocks so far.

At this rate, I could hit 500 blocks this year! Wonder how long I can keep up this momentum? How about you?

350 Blocks Project: Blocks 15-21

I got to thinking . . .

Maybe I should save up the extra blocks I get made on really productive weeks . . .

So I can use them as “catch up” blocks on not-so-productive weeks.

But no . . . it just doesn’t seem quite fair . . . and it might even make me less productive . . .

So I just got myself busy and got some blocks done.

Then I got to thinking . . .

I’ve shown 19 blocks so far . . .

From 13 different quilts!

That’s kinda telling about how many UFOs I really do have, isn’t it?

And I’m about to show you blocks from yet 2 more UFOs.

What I’m really hoping is that this block challenge is moving me closer to done with several of those, and so far . . . it really is! Is it helping you, too?

Here are my blocks from this week . . .

Monday’s block: 36-Patch

Yet another 36-patch. There are still fabrics in the pile that I haven’t cut into, so I know I’m not done, even though I haven’t counted to see how close I am.

Tuesday’s block: Libertyville, Block 3

Another of the Kansas City Star BOMs that I’m behind on and my sister is finished with. I’ve decided to just rotate through them all until I get caught up. That way I won’t get bored, and eventually, one of them will have to get finished, right?

Wednesday’s block: Autumn Daze

This is a Kaffe Fassett pattern I decided to make to use up lots of scraps. It didn’t even come close to making a dent in the amount of my scraps, and now I just have another UFO.

Thursday’s block: Autumn Daze

Another of these. I may get a wild hair and whip this out and get it finished. Time will tell. But I do have other UFOs waiting in the wings as well. Oh, yes, I certainly do!

Friday’s block: Triangle Star

Another of these. Truly addictive, and I can’t stop making them!

Saturday’s block: Two’s Company Bee block for Mary

I almost forgot I had this one. It got buried in a To-Do pile on my cutting table, imagine that! It’s foundation pieced, too, so I openly admit major procrastination on this one.

Sunday’s block: Two’s Company Bee block for Jackie

Also foundation pieced, I did NOT procrastinate on this one, and just did it as I was doing the other one. I feel so much better now that they’re both finished! You would think I would take away a lesson on not procrastinating from that . . . we’ll see if it sticks.

I also pieced one of the star points of my Made in Cherry Cowboy quilt, and put the borders on a customer quilt. I’m also working on some applique, and should finish a block or two of those by sometime next week.

And I’m even adding my pictures to the Flickr Group today because I’m so on top of things! (But only because I have to make Super Bowl food and head to my sister’s here in a bit!)

How are you getting along with your 350 blocks?