Chopped Jelly Roll Race Finished

The chopped jelly roll race lap quilt is finished. I got all of the strips sewn together end to end in about an hour last night, The total length was about 1,500". Then finished the remainder of the sewing tonight in about an hour. I used a 3/8th" seam allowance for the remaining steps as i wanted the quilt to finish less than the usual 64" long. It finished at about 45" by 55".
Backing and quilting on the agenda for tomorrow night then attaching the binding on Friday and hand sewing the binding to the back on Saturday.
Not knowing how it would look until it was finished was a bit scary but I think it turned out okay.

From this

To this

To this

Oh, the messes I make for myself!

I decided that I wanted the colors to change more frequently in the jelly roll race quilt and I wanted to add a lighter solid to brighten up the darker fabrics. So I cut all of my strips into 3 different random lengths and cut different length strips from a cream solid that I had left over from Andrew's Argyle. I must admit that "scrappy" is not really my thing and I tend to agonize for hours and sometimes days over the color placement. I don't have the extra time to waste on this project since the Birthday party is on Sunday and it is currently Tuesday evening, and I have to work all week. So I am going to play a little game with myself and hope for a good outcome. I tossed all of the chopped up strips into a laundry basket and gave them a good mixing. I have challenged myself to grab blindly from the basket for each strip and it is going on in that order, period. The only rules are: 1) NO PEEKING!!! and 2) I can only throw a strip back if it is the same fabric as the one it will be placed next to. Off to the races! Wish me luck...

A little sad and a lot crazy?

I put Andrew's Argyle in the mail today and for some reason I'm kind of sad to see it go. For me the joy of giving comes from seeing the excitement on a childs face and I am going to miss that with this one. This was the first time I've ever mailed a quilt and I just hope it makes it there safe. So, I had the crazy idea this morning on my drive into work that I should make another last minute birthday gift. This one will be for my husband's grandmother who is turning 96! this weekend. I went to the Bernina Pfaff store that opened recently right around the corner from work (dangerous location for my finances, lol) and purchased batting and fabric for the back and binding. I already have a jelly roll of moda historical blenders that I am going to use to make a jelly roll race quilt which should go very quickly. I already used a few strips from it for Andrew's Argyle but I think there will be enough left for a lap/throw quilt. I'll post again tomorrow to let you know how that turns out.

Baby Argyle Quilt

I wanted to make a last minute birthday gift for a little boy turning four, so I made this adorable quilt. It is based on the Baby Argyle pattern by Angela Yosten. I assembled the squares and the remainder of the quilt top a little differently and added raw edge applique letters at the bottom for the name. Although I tried a few new-to-me techniques, it was pretty easy and quick to assemble. It only took 3 evenings after work to piece the top and one more late night after work to quilt it. This was my first time incorporating free motion quilting (around the letters), my first time doing raw edge applique on a quilt and the first time adding decorative hand stitching (the dark lines through the argyle blocks). Some of these turned out better than others but I'm trying my best to not notice my imperfections. I am going to mail it tomorrow. I hope he loves it as muh as I do! (the pictures are not the best quality and, silly me, I can't figure out how to rotate them, maybe another night when I am a little more awake)

Piked Peaks quilt top

I was finally able to complete a quilt top that I have been working on between tote bag sewing marathons. This is my version of the Piked Peaks pattern from the Modern Neutrals book by Amy Ellis. I added a pop of red and converted the pattern to a paper piecing pattern since that is a skill that I have been wanting to learn and I wanted to make sure that my points were as precise as possible. I plan to add a red binding but I haven't decided exactly what I want to do on the back yet. It is going to be a gift for a super cute little guy who lives a few houses down from us so I was thinking of using the left over bits from the front to make a large letter J in the center of a white background. Hope he loves it as much as I do...