Check This Out!!!!!!

DD#3 had her ultrasound today, and she's having twins! We are so excited! She is having a boy and a girl. We didn't have an inkling before today that she was having twins, so it is quite the happy surprise :-) I didn't get any sewing done today, I doubt I could sit still long enough!

Hmmmmm......

As of just a few minutes ago, this is what the sea quilt looks like. Nothing new is sewn on, it's all just pinned. I haven't decided if I like the way it's arranged or not. It might be too crowded, or I might add a couple more small fish. I do want the bottom more crowded than the rest, sea floor and all. The clown fish will have an anemone under them, as it should be, I just haven't done anything with that yet. It's amazing I got as much done as I did, considering I wasn't supposed to babysit until Friday, but I had baby today and I'll have him for a while tomorrow as well.

I am also completely changing my mind on the border. I had the border all planned, and now that the center is coming together, I just don't think my original idea works. My backup plan as of right now, will be to use a fabric I only have one yard of, so the border will be narrower than I'd like. I just hate it when quilts get bossy and tell you to change everything ;-) I thought of a completely different idea for a border, but it would take me a month to make it, and I'm not doing that.

I had been planning an octopus from the beginning, and the octopus and jellyfish will be a bear to applique. I might start with the octopus, and if it gives me too many issues, I'll ditch the jellyfish. The advantages of not ironing everything on at once!

"Sea" What I've Been Up to!

I finally got the center of the sea quilt together today. I was hoping to do that Thursday, but things came up. Next is to decide which appliques make it onto the quilt, and where they all go. I'm hoping to start that process tomorrow. For now I'll just be pinning things onto the quilt until I hit the right balance, then I will start the applique process.

I have so many other quilts going at once, it is CRAZY! My six inch square busting is going well. I have started 3 D9P quilts, and one D4P. If those four quilts weren't enough, I've also been working with 2 1/2 inch squares making four patches with those, for my favorite lap quilt pattern. I keep re-sorting my 6 inch squares as new ideas come to mind. I'm not doing anything complex with the 6 inch squares, my goal is to get them all into quilt tops pretty quickly.

I still have a pile of quilt tops waiting to be quilted, but I have been making a little (very little) progress on that front. I'll be adding to the pile of quilt tops before I quilt anything. I might do some simple stitch-in-the-ditch or crosshatching on a couple of them just to get the pile down some. I just bought two more Patsy Thompson DVD's on free motion quilting to give me some new ideas to try. They may still be beyond my current abilities, but it will give me a goal to shoot for. I need another month long quilting spree, but I don't see that happening before Christmas. I have a few quilts that must be quilted before then, and those will certainly get first priority.

This next week is iffy on quilting time. DD#2 turns 21 this week, birthday dinner and such to make. She's been craving homemade donuts, so I need to come up with a gluten-free donut recipe for her birthday breakfast. We have a big scooter event next weekend that I will have to spend time preparing for also. I might post another time this coming week, but if I don't, don't worry, just busy, busy, busy!

I Don't Think It Counts as New ;-)

I didn't have a good leader/ender project to do with the dark colored piecing thread I'm using for the sea quilt. I was stuck because I work better with a leader/ender project going. I remembered I have a stack of 6" squares I want to use up, because I am no longer saving that size. I can easily use the dark piecing thread with these because they are so scrappy. Well, now I am working on multiple quilts from my 6" squares, while I work on the sea quilt too. I decided to just do some simple things with the squares, so I'm piecing some D9P, and some D4P quilts. I should be able to get them to quilt top stage pretty quickly, and eliminate this pile of squares I no longer want hanging around. If I have any left after my piecing frenzy, I'll cut them down to sizes I do still save. It doesn't count as starting new projects when the pieces are already cut, right? ;-)

As far as the sea quilt goes, here are my two newest blocks-


The two fish on the left are pretty small. I could cut the fins out of a 2 1/2 inch square and have fabric left over! Now I'm going to add background fabric to all of these pieces, and make the center the size I want. I will fill in some of the blank areas with applique. I have all kinds of things to applique on the quilt, including a sea turtle, a starfish, some sea weed, a sea horse, and some other surprises.

Anglerfish

I was planning on cutting out a couple fish blocks that are in my quilting books, but instead, I worked on my anglerfish, for which I had no pattern. I will still have to add the thing coming out of the fish's forehead, which ends in a glowing ball, but I'm pretty happy with the shape of the fish. If I made it longer I suppose it could be Moby Dick, but once I add the other parts it will definitely be an angler fish. Angler fish have really big teeth so I had to do something for teeth. I sewed rickrack into the seam when I was piecing the triangle in a square block that makes up the mouth. It worked out pretty well, and I think the rickrack makes fine looking teeth ;-)

Here is a link to a photo of an anglerfish for anyone that isn't familiar with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish

Tomorrow I am babysitting, so if anything gets done in the sewing room, it will be amazing. I did choose the fabrics for the next two fish blocks, so maybe I will get them cut tomorrow. I think those two blocks will be the last of the pieced blocks, and everything else will be applique. That means after I get the last two blocks done, I can assemble the center adding background as needed. Once I have that together, the applique should be easy to figure out.