#finishit2013

I finished binding my xplusalong, Sunshine Daydream! I'm so psyched about this quilt, it's so bright and sunshiny, just in time for spring!

I bound it in Kona Azure, which is a nice contrast, and as the only solid in the quilt, it gives your eyes a rest as well. The backing is an old sheet - my favorite sheet set that I can't use anymore since I went from a double to queen bed when I bought the house. So now I get to have it in a quilt forever. Booyah.

Almost done!

I finished quilting my xplusalong, Sunshine Daydream! I'm so stoked to get this quilt on my bed!

I did some simple straight line quilting along the x's and the plus's, and I really like how the intersections of the quilting mimic the block pattern. I did two lines in the vertical and horizontal sections (the pluses) and just one center line of quilting on the diagonals (the x's). I wanted to do double lines on the diagonals at first, but found that that created at hot mess of chaos at the intersections in the middle of each block. I like how it's turned out!

On to binding!

Quilting a monster

I started quilting my xplusalong the other day. It's definitely the biggest quilt I've ever machine quilted. I've done other big ones either by hand quilting or tying.

I'm doing a pretty simple straight line grid with the walking foot on this one, because I figured that would be the easiest based on its size. I'm using a really pretty pale pink Aurifil 50wt.

Yeah. Manhandling that beast through my machine was a lot harder than I expected! And I have a large harp machine!

Part of my problem is that my set up isn't ideal. My table is relatively small, and I don't have a drop-in table. The quilt kept catching on the edges of my extension table. I improvised with some tv tables to catch the edges of the quilt, and at one point I was using (clean!) rubbery gardening gloves to get a better grip. The process was getting smoother the more lines I did, but it's still going to take a lot of trial and error.

Sunshine Daydream

I finished my xplusalong quilt top! I even basted it! I try to baste as soon as I finish a new top because I HATE pressing and don't want to fold it up and put it away just to have to press it again later to baste it. Now it's on my pile of things waiting to be quilted!

See all these pretty open seams? I don't like them as much as I did a few days ago... I hate pressing... Except when it's cold in the studio. Then I love it - I like to put my hands on the hot ironing board :-)

I only had to move one piece of furniture to baste this thing. Score.

Yes, I stood on the arm of my sofa to take this picture. This thing turned out much more orange-y than I wanted. Oh well, it's like sunshine. Hence the name, Sunshine Daydream. It's a line from a Grateful Dead song.

Oh, look, I like open pressed seams again. So flat and pretty...

So close...

I can almost taste it! I wanted to have the top done tonight, but it's not going to happen. Having been up for almost 30 hours straight means that I had to stop with only TWO seams left to sew. Hopefully tomorrow I can finish it up and get it basted too!

Blocks are done!

I finished all the xplusalong blocks! All 42 of them... it kinda felt like it would take forever, but it wasn't too bad. I'm really tired of looking at some of these prints though, lol.

I arranged them on the design wall and have three rows put together as of right now. I already have my batting and backing ready, so I'm hoping this will finish out quickly so I can put it on my bed and have a little early spring :-)

Coming along!

My xplus blocks are done! Except not really... I finished the ones I had cut out already and then decided that I wanted to do one more row, to make it fit my bed a little better. This thing is turning out to be a beast! So I did 9 more blocks yesterday and started cutting out the extras. A couple more days and the top will be done!


Empty plates = finished blocks!

Just keep cutting, just keep cutting...

Happy scraps!

Some of the finished blocks - in the daylight for once! This is not the final layout, I've just been throwing them up there as I've finished them. It's turning out more orange than I'd like, so the new blocks I'm doing are going to be lighter, and I'll mix them around in there.

Insomnia....

I really need to stop staying up all night sewing.... 25 blocks done though!

X-Plus progress

I'm making good strides on my xplus along quilt. As of tonight I'm about halfway through the top. I decided to stick with my initial instinct about the color scheme when a friend told me it looked like Lily Pulitzer ;-) I used 30+ fabrics and cut everything out before i started piecing, and sorted the blocks out so that there wouldn't be any fabric repeats in the blocks. I used paper plates to keep everything organized. Here are some Instagram pics that I took yesterday!

Jumping on the bandwagon...

The xplusalong phenom that has been all over Instagram is kind of rocking my world. I resisted the scrappy trip along, but I succumbed to the allure of the xplusalong block. I was organizing my stash over the weekend (more on that later), and discovered that I have a LOT of pink. So I decided to use some of it to do a couple of these blocks. I tried to be cool like Holly at Bijou Lovely and cut all my fabric beforehand, but that backfired. I realized I didn't have enough yellow for the background, so right now I only have enough different prints for about five blocks.

The color scheme is a little too strawberry shortcake for me at the moment, I think it might get a little overwhelming if the whole quilt looks like this, so I'm rethinking the colors.

Here is the first block, which was way fun to make. I'm stoked about getting back in the studio to crank some more of these out!