...And Now for Something Completely Different

I have been working on DD#2's quilt for the past few days. It is definitely not my usual style of quilt. This is a lousy photo of it, the colors are off and you can't see the patterns on the fabrics at all. The are not solids, trust me on this. DH keeps messing with the camera settings, and I forget to check to see if he's changed them. Don't worry, I told him I was going to blame him ;-)

I am going to try several new techniques when quilting this quilt. I am going to pin baste the quilt from the backside, and follow the design on the backing fabric. The backing fabric is a floral, and I'm going to use a blue/green variegated thread to quilt it. It will be my first time quilting a quilt with the free motion foot instead of the walking foot. Lots of firsts, but you have to start somewhere.

The technique used on this quilt top ends up leaving you with lots of cut-offs. I love using cut-offs to make other quilts. The book the pattern came from gives you ideas on using the cut-offs, but I am going to do my own thing and come up with my own pattern. I think I'm going to have to make a few more pieces to do what I'm thinking of, but that's fine. I'm going to have to play with some graph paper too, because some of the cut-offs are going to need to be trimmed down to fit together. This is the part of cut-offs I love, the figuring out how to make another quilt from leftovers.

I'm anxious to get this quilt finished, partly to try the new quilting techniques, and partly because DD#2 has been waiting for me to make her a quilt for a year and half now. It's time to git-r-done!

Community Service Workers

I just finished the baby quilt I was making. The baby's father is a policeman, and I found some cute Matchbox Police fabric to use as the focus fabric. When I was shopping for the fabric, I found out it would have been easier to make a fireman themed quilt, lots more prints for fireman, but I did find some EMT fabric available too. It really got me to thinking about community service workers, and how valuable they are.

As children most of us are taught to respect policemen, firemen, EMT's, doctors, nurses, and teachers, but somewhere along the way, a lot of us lose respect for these people and their authority. There certainly are some bad eggs out there, in EVERY field, and run-ins with them can cause us to become cynical. Most community service people are good people though, genuinely wanting to help others. That's why they chose the field they are in.

A lot of our country has been getting some nasty weather lately, and lots of people are holing up and waiting for the snow to melt. If you are a policeman, fireman, EMT, nurse, doctor, or something similar, not only can you not stay home nice and cozy, but you MUST go to work, and you will be busier than ever.

Even here in Southern Arizona, we get occasional ice and snow, and places like this are not prepared for bad weather. A couple of years ago, Tucson had an ice storm, and every bridge in town was closed. My husband works as an Emergency Room nurse, and staying home was not an option. He left early, but he works on the other side of town, and trying to find a way to work without crossing any bridges was an adventure. We've been ice free so far this year, but places like southern Georgia and Florida haven't. They have been having those same type of problems. Up north they are always battling the weather.

I guess my point is, maybe we can give some of these people a smile, or a thank you. Sure no one likes to get a ticket by a policeman, but who doesn't want them available if our home has an intruder?

Two More Finishes!

Here is the Shamrock quilt done and bound. I'm liking the borders better now that I added the black binding. My husband really likes this quilt, and is not happy I'm giving it away.


Here is the doll quilt all finished too. I don't know that a 16x22 inch quilt counts as a real finish, but I had fun making it and I think it is very cute.

I cut out the baby quilt that will be given with the doll quilt. I don't think I'll have much sewing time in the next week, but my goal is to get the baby quilt done in a week. I am making a snowball and nine patch baby quilt. I like pretty simple baby quilts, so it will stand up to lots of washing. Maybe I'll go watch the Olympics while I draw diagonal lines on squares for my snowball blocks.

Two Posts in One Day

I know I posted this morning but I need a break, so I'll post what I did today.

I got the borders on the Shamrock quilt. I don't know that I'm completely happy with my choice, but I've decided to use black binding and I think that will help. I pieced the backing, but I'm too tired right now to iron it all and lay it out, even though I prefer to leave it sitting overnight before I pin baste. Maybe if I get a second wind after this break I'll give in and do it. I'd like to get it quilted tomorrow, and if I at least lay it out tonight, I'll be more likely to get it done.


I have a bunch of projects already started, and lots to work on, but I did it again, started something else! I started a doll quilt that will be gifted to a big sister when I give her baby brother a baby quilt. I haven't even cut out the baby quilt, but the doll quilt and baby quilt are the next quilts that need to be finished after the Shamrock quilt. I kept changing my mind about what pattern to use on the doll quilt, but I knew I was going to use some of my 1 1/2 inch strips for it, so it would be more to scale. I've never made a doll quilt before, and I was just in the mood to play a bit, so I started the doll quilt and finished the top, all 192 pieces of it ;-) This little top is about 16x22 inches. I knew I could get the top done in one day, but it did take longer than I expected. I was home alone most of the day, so I had the time, and I really had fun working on it. I think I was really in the mood to work on something bright and fun. I'm thinking a pink binding on this one.

I dug out all of my polyester batting scraps and I had a lot more than I remembered. Boy, do they take up a lot of room! If I can piece these up and use them, I will be a very happy quilter. I have about 5 bags with poly batting scraps, and I found two unopened packages of crib batting. I'm glad I located those, because I'd like to use a polyester batting for the baby quilt I'm going to start next week. Unlike my cotton batting scraps, which were pretty similar in size, the poly scraps will be more like a puzzle to piece. I already started sewing some together, and I'm finding it more difficult than the cotton batting was. I'm also finding the joins more noticeable in the polyester. I may try overlapping a bit, and see if that helps. Looking at my polyester scraps vs. my cotton batting scraps is pretty revealing. I've always bought polyester batting by the package, and cotton batting by the roll. I waste a lot less buying by the roll. I've had several times that I was just a couple of inches over one batting size, so I had to buy the next size up. When you do that, you end up with a lot of leftover batting. I always wait to buy batting on sale, especially when I'm buying whole rolls of it. I knew I was paying less per yard by buying it on the roll, but I hadn't thought about how much waste there was when comparing the packaged bats vs rolls until now. Now I know that for me, and my quilting habits, buying by the roll is definitely the cheapest and least wasteful method. Well, cheapest in the long run, those rolls can be expensive.

Finally, a Couple of Finishes!

Yesterday was such a busy day for me! I did our taxes from start to e-filing, so that is done for another year. What changes the last year has brought, as evidenced by claiming two less children than last year. Even our youngest doesn't qualify for the child tax credit anymore, though he's still a dependent. Where did the time go?

Time to reveal my first two finishes of 2010......


I got the split nine patch bound and washed. You can't tell in the picture, but is is quilted with diamond crosshatching. This one needs to be mailed to its recipient, so I'm going to try to pack it up today. I had no problems quilting this on my Juki. I don't know why the Juki hated the frame so much, yet sews fine off of it. Now that it's in a cabinet we're finally becoming friends. This quilt measures 80x92 and I had no problems moving it around on the Juki. The cabinet being the size of a small island helped too ;-)


This is a top I made from leftover parts from the Stashbuster Mystery last summer. Since it is incredibly scrappy anyway, I went with a scrappy binding. I really like that look on certain quilts, and I love the fact I am not wasting anything. I got this one finished yesterday too.

Speaking of not wasting anything, the other thing I did yesterday (besides taxes and finishing two quilts) was try piecing leftover pieces of batting. I buy Warm and Natural batting by the roll (crib and queen sizes), and I have some of both sizes left, so I wasn't desperate for batting by any stretch of the imagination. One of my yahoo groups has been discussing different ways of piecing batting, and whether or not it's noticeable in a finished quilt. The general consensus was that pieced batting is not noticeable in a finished quilt, so I decided to try it. Since I buy batting by the roll, I never have large pieces left over, just strips from oversizing the batting a bit. I just cut the correct size off of the roll to begin with, so I don't have a lot of waste. Sometimes I get a bit of a larger piece if I make a 60" quilt, and can't use the crib batting, so use the queen instead. I usually use all of those larger pieces for burp cloths, so those never last long.

What I had available in cotton batting scraps was strips varying in width from 2" to 8". Using a ruler, I cut the strips to the largest width I could, making them straight and even. I butted the now straight edges together and stitched them with the widest zigzag stitch on my machine. It was fast and easy, and I found it pretty relaxing. I did prewash the strips, because I wasn't sure how shinkage would affect the pieced batting. Warm and Natural does fine in the washer and dryer, and I wanted the pieces to shrink, so I washed and fully dried them. I ended up with three crib sized battings from unusable strips, so I was pretty happy with the results. I can barely feel the joins on the batting without fabric on the top and bottom, so I think it will work out fine in a finished quilt.

I have some scraps of polyester batting I might play with next. I won't bother prewashing the poly scraps, since shrinkage is not so much of an issue. It will be great to use up these batting scraps and not have them piling up just because I hate to throw them out.

Today's goal, get the borders on the Shamrock quilt, and possibly start quilting it. I might just do the borders and then play with the polyester batting scraps, I'm not sure. I should be able to quilt the Shamrock quilt in a day, so tomorrow would be soon enough for that. I'd like to have both the split nine patch and the Shamrock quilt in the mail by Monday. How nice to finally be finishing a few things :-)

Gotta Love a Husband Who Gives Fabric!

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and my husband did just fine in that department. See my new fat quarters! The last two are plaids, but not homespun or flannel, just regular woven cotton. How cool is that? I love plaid!


I bought a couple of new books on Amazon. Now, I admit, I had never heard of Lisa Boyer, but the books sounded funny, and so much is going on my life right now, that something funny seemed like a good idea. I just finished 'That Dorky Homemade Look', and I loved it! I think that Lisa Boyer and I would get along just fine should we ever cross paths. Here is a quote from the book I wholeheartedly agree with...

"My quilts belong crumpled up in little heaps on beds piled high with pillows. My quilts belong thrown over shivery cold legs on winter nights. My quilts belong trailing behind drooling toddlers and wrapped around crying teenagers. It's no wonder my quilt looked funny hanging there on display, all spread-eagled and flat and lonely with a sign that commanded "DO NOT TOUCH!" on it. Suddenly, I felt like I had placed my beloved pet in a zoo."

I love going to quilt shows, and so does she. I often get urged to put a quilt in a quilt show, and I can never quite explain why that feels wrong to me. I love to look at other people's quilts, but I would hate to have mine on display. It's not a matter of feeling as mine aren't good enough to be viewed, it is just not why I quilt. I quilt to make objects of comfort, whether for people I love, or complete strangers when I donate. To me the highest compliment I could ever be paid as a quilter, is if someone came to me, told me they wore the quilt I gave them out, and could I please make them another one. THAT would be high praise! To have a quilt I made be stuck in a closet so it wouldn't be ruined would be utter failure for me. I'm glad I'm not the only one out there that feels that way. I'm also glad there are other people willing to put years into making quilted works of art that I can drool over at quilt shows. I am so thankful there are all kinds of quilters out there, it keeps the hobby fresh and exciting.

Another thing in the book she talks about is your PQ-Perfection Quotient. She used a scale of 1-10, one being an incredible care-free quilter who doesn't believe in using a seam ripper ever, and a ten who is a terrible fuss-budget. She considers herself a seven striving to be an eight. I am probably a 4 on her scale. I will use a seam ripper, but I don't rip every mistake. I am a firm believer in "no one will notice". In my split nine patch, I did rip out a square that was touching another of the same fabric. In my Celtic Mystery quilt, I did not. I only had one place in the split nine patch where the same fabrics were together. I ended up with about 7 in the Celtic Mystery, and I didn't fix any of them. Why the difference? I looked at the overall designs, and decided it was not distracting from the pattern on the Celtic Mystery, but it was on the split nine patch.

I also had been thinking about randomness lately, and that influenced my decision. A big discussion recently occurred on quiltville chat about how to do scrappy quilts. So many people are paranoid about putting two fabrics next to each other that clash. Several of the women had been only sewing pieces together that color coordinated with their neighbors, and the when they assembled the quilt, they didn't like the results. I think it's because they ended up with color coordinated splotches, that didn't flow from one to the other. In a kitchen sink variety quilt, I think it's randomness that makes them work. Because that's my theory, I work differently than most people. In an everything goes quilt, I usually have things divided into darks and lights, but aside from that, I try to not coordinate anything. In fact, I usually look for something that doesn't match at all. Let's say I pick up a lime green square, what does not match that at all?, oh that burgundy will work. That's how I sew, and I've been happy with all of my kitchen sink quilts. Also, when you are really doing things randomly, like pieces will sometime end up together, that's because it's random! If it doesn't affect the overall design, I'm learning to leave it. I bet people with lower PQ's make a lot more quilts than people with higher ones.


DH helped me get the Juki mounted in the cabinet today. Setting the height for the airlift was a bit fiddly.


I started quilting the split nine patch. The nine inch throat on the Juki is nice for quilting. I'm just going to do some cross-hatching on it.


I am trying using masking tape to mark my first lines on the quilt. After that I'll use the guide on the walking foot. I ended up buying a Janome open toe walking foot, because I didn't like the Juki foot. The Juki walking foot was noisy and couldn't accommodate a guide. The Janome walking foot came with a guide, but the guide was shorter than I wanted. I am using the guide from my Bernina walking foot on the Janome foot for my Juki! So far, so good. I got the first line of stitching done, and took off the tape right away. This was much faster than marking the quilt. I'll do all of the lines that slant this way, then I'll put another piece of tape on slanting the other way and repeat. I'm hoping to have this quilt completely finished by the end of the week.

It's a Top!!!!!

All of those Chunks are sewn together, and I got the borders on, it's a top! I contacted my LAQ (Long Arm Quilter) and she is going to quilt and bind it for me. I have so many other quilts in the works, that I will finish myself, that I don't feel too bad about finishing this one with my checkbook. The quilt is 97" square with borders on, and I just didn't feel up to tackling it myself. The LAQ I use is so reasonable that an occasional quilt sent out is affordable. I will probably have her do Double Delight and Carolina Christmas too, whenever I get those tops done. This quilt will be a wedding gift, and the LAQ assured me she can finish it in time. I'm hoping they like it.

So what is next? I'm not planning on sewing at all tomorrow, I think I've earned a break. I'm babysitting anyway, and have plans for tomorrow night, so I doubt I would have sewed anyway, but it sounds good to say I'm taking the day off. When I do go back into the sewing room, I'll be looking for borders for the Shamrock quilt and the little blue quilt.

I used almost all of the brown squares I had cut for the Celtic Mystery. I have enough green and purple squares left to make one each of the little quilts like the blue one waiting for borders, with the four patches and Indian hatchet blocks. I have almost all of blocks done for the completely scrappy one. I like the kitchen sink/everything goes scrappy quilts best, but I know not everyone does, so I'm trying to make a few color controlled quilts as well as the kitchen sink type for donation quilts. My 2010 goal is to use up a lot of precut fabric (to make room to cut up more scraps) so making these little quilts helps with that goal. Of course, making large quilt like the Celtic Mystery uses more fabric, but I like making smaller quilts for donation.

*since someone asked, this was an online mystery and the first chunk's directions are here
http://lynnesfreshhope.blogspot.com/2009/07/celtic-knotwork-1.html

Lynne know I've been plugging along on it, so hopefully she won't mind me sending people to her blog. The quilt was originally designed by Deborah Cohen.

Last Two Chunks

Here they are, Chunks 24 and 25! Tomorrow, I'm hoping to start putting the chunks together. I have them laid out as much as possible on the bed in the guest room. They are set 5x5, but I can only fit them 4x5 on the bed, even hanging off the edges. I noticed about 5 places where the same fabrics are next to each other, and I decided I'm just going to leave it that way. It is not distracting from the pattern, and I only saw it because I was looking for it. I doubt many people will notice. I was originally going to put two borders on the quilt, but after seeing how large it's going to be, I decided to just put one, and use the other fabric for the binding.


Here is the scooter fabric I've been looking for. The seller only had one yard, and I would have preferred more, but I'll take what I can get. I haven't had a chance to mail off my penalty squares for the no-buy challenge yet, but I will gladly send them in.

Happy Birthday, Howard!

Today is my husband's birthday. I would like to say we had a nice time celebrating his birthday, but alas, we didn't. We tried to go out to breakfast, but one of the tires on the van was flat. He had to work today, so we didn't have time to change it. He won't be home until sometime after midnight, so in reality, I saw him very little on his birthday. We are going to have a family dinner, on Valentine's Day, to celebrate his birthday. I did make him breakfast, so he didn't go to work hungry in case you were wondering. He is a wonderful man, and I'm hoping to make up for his not-so-great birthday later on.

I did get a lot of sewing done today. I finished all of the blocks for the ugly quilt, but I didn't take a picture of those.

Here are Chunks 21, 22, and 23. Only two more to go! Yeah! I know this quilt is only squares, so it is not difficult to sew together, but I don't think I've made one that is harder to keep straight. Knock one square out of place, and you're lost. The pattern is so dependent on placement, and there isn't an easy way to keep things straight.

I lay out each chunk on my cutting table, double check the pattern to make sure it's correct, then make stacks of each row. I move three rows at a time to my sewing table, and sew those three rows. At the end of each set of three I use a leader/ender so I can keep my rows in order. I have pins in each row to help me keep it straight, but it gets too confusing for me to do more than three rows at once. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone but me, but trust me, I've done plenty of ripping on this quilt when I get in too big of a hurry.

I haven't figured out where each chunk goes, and I've been debating what to do if I have two of the same fabrics next to each other. I am so anxious to get this top together, that unless it's incredibly obvious, I may just leave it. A few of the fabrics are more noticeable than the others, and if it's one of those, I will probably have to fix it. I'm hoping for the best, and that I don't have too many changes to make when I lay it out.

The center of the Shamrock quilt is done. It needs borders, but I won't mess with that until the Celtic quilt is mailed off to be quilted.

80%

Here are Chunks 17, 18, 19, and 20! Only five to go, so I'm hopeful I can finish the top and get it mailed off to be quilted next week. At least I am 80% done with the chunks. This past weekend did not go at all the way I expected it to. I thought I'd have all kinds of time to sew, but it didn't turn out that way. On the other hand, I didn't think I'd get a chance to sew today, but I got two chunks done after I finished babysitting. I am exhausted now, and more than ready to go to bed.

I have been switching up on my leaders and enders. These last couple of chunks I just used the blocks for the ugly quilt as my leader/enders. I have 70 of the 80 blocks done, and I am currently using the last ten blocks as my leader/enders. When I am finished with the ugly blocks, I will go back to assembling the Shamrock quilt as my leader/enders. I already assembled half of the Shamrock quilt this way, so with 5 more chunks to go, there is a pretty good chance I'll have the Shamrock quilt ready for borders about the same time the Celtic Mystery quilt is ready for borders. That would be good as they both need to be finished about the same time.

I watched the last half of the Superbowl yesterday. I thought it was funny that the Saints won. In my post
http://inthedesertquilting.blogspot.com/2009/12/quilting-serendipity.html
I talked about the football angel that showed up on one of my quilts, and how she probably routed for the Saints. I hadn't been following football this year and had no idea they were contenders. I think my quilting serendipity turned into football serendipity.

Falling Off the Wagon

I fell of the wagon in the last couple of days, as far as no-buy fabric goes, but I'm OK with it. I bought one yard of a scooter fabric I've been looking for for a couple of years. I would have bought more, but one yard was all they had. I bought 2 yards of fabric for a baby quilt that I want to have a certain theme. I thought I had a fat quarter with the right theme, and I was going to make do with that, but I only had about a 6" square. Hard to do a themed quilt with only that much themed fabric. I possibly could have gotten by with a yard of the fabric for this project, but I am fussy cutting, and I always end up wasting a lot of fabric to get the pictures I want. I figured better safe than sorry. Since I blew no-buy for this quarter, I am going to go ahead and order the gnome fabric I wanted to make another scrub top for DH. It has gnomes at world landmarks, just like a Travelocity commercial. It will make a great scrub top. So, one yard of scooter fabric, two yards of themed fabric, and three yards of gnome fabric. Six yards, but all with immediate uses, so I will happily mail off my penalty squares.

Here are Chunks 15 and 16 of the Celtic Mystery. I figured it out, and if I want to send it off to a long arm quilter, I need to mail it out by the 16th. The pressure is on for this one. If I can't get the top done in time, I am going to have to quilt it myself, and it's going to be a big quilt. It's less pressure for me in the long run if I send it out for quilting, but I can probably quilt it myself if I have to. If I can get the top done but don't have time to piece the back, I will buy extra wide quilt backing for it. That is a legal purchase even on no-buy. We'll see what happens.

I've been assembling the Shamrock quilt as I'm sewing on the Celtic Mystery. This is the half I have finished. If I make my SIL a Shamrock quilt for next year's meet, I won't have to wonder about whether to use the black fabric with vines on it yet again. I only have one 2" WOF strip left, and a few squares I put with my pre-cut pieces.

I have 40 blocks made for my ugly quilt, and I think I'm going to make 80. I had originally planned it a little smaller, but it's taking on a life of its own.

More Than Halfway!!!

Odd numbers are so much fun! I need to sew 25 chunks to make this quilt, so I never got half done, but now I'm more than halfway done! I know I'm not really halfway finished the quilt, but I am more than halfway done sewing the chunks. I know what I want for the borders for this quilt, and they are two simple borders, so once all the chunks are done, it shouldn't take too long to assemble and put borders on.

Here is Chunk 13, it's a little one. I think it's a corner.

Here is Chunk 14. I'm thinking this one goes near the center, but I haven't looked at the layout since I printed it out. I do know what the finished quilt should look like, and I'm anxious to see if mine comes out as nice as the other quilts did.

I got this bonus blue quilt assembled, well, the center anyway. I don't have a clue what I want to do for borders, and I don't want to mess with that right now, so I think I'm going to fold this up and set it aside. I'm won't set it aside forever, just until I get the deadline quilts done. I think I will probably stick with just blue and white for the borders, unless I decide to go patriotic. Adding another color at this stage might just look weird. I have about 10 blocks done for the completely scrappy version of this quilt.

I started assembling the Shamrock quilt. I only have row 1 together with the rows of sashing above and below it. I think it will be nice. When I get a bit more done, I'll post a picture. I really like the look of string blocks without sashing, but I needed a larger quilt than what my green sting blocks would have made on their own.

As I'm assembling this quilt, I am realizing a HUGE plus to using sashing with cornerstones. I squared my string blocks to 6.5", I cut the sashing 2 x 6.5", and the cornerstones 2" square. String blocks end up with all bias edges when you piece them on the diagonal like I usually do. Sometimes it is hard to sew them together without them going wonky, especially because there are so many seams. With the sashing and cornerstones, I can line the blocks up exactly the way the should be, and can easily make sure they are not stretching out of shape. I'm sewing them with the string blocks down towards the feed dogs, and the sashing up. It is going so well sewing it this way, I know I'll be making more string quilts with sashing. I won't make all of them with sashing, because I do like the look of them without it, but if I need an easy quilt, sashing makes it easier. If any of you have been avoiding making string blocks because of the bias edges, try sashing and you'll find it very easy to stay on track.

On the Design Walls

After looking over the list I made yesterday, I decided I have too many quilts waiting for assembly, and I better get a move on. Because the Celtic Mystery has all of those little pieces, and they are sooooo easy to get mixed up, I don't want to assemble anything large as leaders and enders while I'm working on it. The quilt I'm making with all those leftover blue squares is doable, and since I finished the last blocks for that last night, I started assembling it today while working on the Celtic blocks.


Here are the first seven rows sewn. The rows are not sewn together yet. There are twelve rows all together. This is an easy pattern to do as leaders and enders. It is four patches and Indian Hatchet blocks, and the four patches are just random, you don't have to do darks and lights. This pattern is so easy, I started another one today, done completely scrappy, so now I'm working on 14 quilts at once. Insanity has set in!


I threw the green string blocks for the Shamrock quilt up on the design wall. I was trying to get a balance of the bright greens in the quilt. I have sashing and cornerstones cut for this, to make it the size I need. When I get the center of the blue quilt done, this one gets assembled next. I haven't completely decided on borders for either quilt.


As for my Celtic Mystery progress, I got two chunks done today. Here is chunk 11...


...and here is chunk 12. I am almost halfway there, yeah!

Chunks 8, 9, and 10

Chunk 8

Chunk 9

Chunk 10

I finally feel like I'm making progress on the Celtic Mystery quilt. Let's see, 10 out of 25 chunks done, so that's 40%. I'm getting there, slowly but surely. In case you were wondering how these go together, they don't go together in order, so chunk 8 does not go next to chunk 9. Since the mystery was last summer, I have the final layout, and I could make them in the order they go together, but I decided to just go for it the way I would have done it had I not gone to South Africa and kept up with the mystery.

By the time this quilt is ready to assemble I'm going to have several at the same stage. I have over 30 blocks made for the ugly fabric quilt, and I'm almost done the blocks to get rid of the extra blue squares from the split nine patch. It's funny, I didn't count up how many extra blue squares I had, but the pattern I picked used almost all of them. I'm going to make another quilt with the same pattern that has every color in it, completely scrappy. I have a bunch of 2 1/2" squares pre-cut, and the pattern I'm using is easy and a great size for lap quilts. Hopefully I'll be able to at least lay out the blocks soon so I can take a photo for the blog, so you can see what pattern I'm talking about.

I'm working on so many things at once it's crazy, but so far I'm keeping it pretty straight. I have Post It notes everywhere in my sewing room, reminding me where I'm at. Just for fun, I'm going to see if I can name what I'm working on and what stage the project is at.

1. charity quilt from Stashbuster mystery leftovers- waiting for binding
2. Split nine patch- top done, next step- piece backing
3. Carolina Christmas Mystery- blocks done, next step-cut sashing since I want mine with sashing, and assemble
4. Double Delight- blocks done, next step- assemble center or finish maple leaf blocks for border
5. Shamrock quilt- blocks done, sashing cut, next step- assemble
6. Autumn string quilt- blocks done, next step- cut sashing and assemble
7. Swing Your Partner quilt- blocks done, next step- cut sashing and assemble
8. ugly fabric quilt- about half the blocks are done
9. blue square leftover quilt- most of the blocks done
10. Celtic Mystery quilt- 10 of 25 chunks done
11. Perkiomen Daydream quilt- about 25 of 400 blocks done
12. DD#2's quilt- cut out
13. Scooter quilt- finalized design, and found a good scooter silhouette for applique today! Next step- choose fabrics

I am also working on string blocks when I need a break and want something easy to do. I have a bunch of those done, and lots more strings to sew. The oldest quilt on this list is Double Delight which I started in January 2009. It would have been finished long ago, if I hadn't been difficult and decided to make it bigger, straight set it, and make a pieced border for it! I've been working on all of these as I have time to, so really, they are all WIPS and not really UFO's. Actually, looking at the list, six of these I've started in the last month. I must be crazy!

The Celtic Mystery quilt is my main priority right now, so anything else I work on is a bonus. The split nine patch and the Shamrock quilt are next in the priority queue. I'm hoping to send the Celtic quilt off for quilting, while I'm planning on quilting the other two myself, so that's why I'm in such a hurry to get the Celtic quilt top together, so I can have time to send it out for quilting, and still get it back for my deadline.