BluePip Designs

At the beginning of the month I took a look at my untouched WIP list, which really encouraged me to work on projects that I've already started.  I didn't finish anything, but I've done a good job evaluating what I'm already working on!  Lots of happy progress.

Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10
WIP List at beginning of month: 17*
WIP List at end of month: 17
Untouched in 2020: 4
Active QAL Projects: 2
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
Catitude Pillow (Started April 2020) - The asterisk is gone and.a fully finished photo was added!

Quilts Started
None by me!  But my oldest was bored with all the rain we had Memorial Day weekend.  He's run out of ideas for my old felt scraps, so I gave him a basic primer on the iron, rotary cutter, and seam allowance and let him go crazy with all my solid scraps.  He's making an improv quilt!  The best part is it doesn't count against my WIP list because I'm completely hands-off on this project - available for consultation only…

At the beginning of this month, I took a walk through my WIP Walk of Shame - projects that haven't been touched yet this year.  I proudly stated that I would make progress on at least three of them.

I started with a rainbow for my Rainbow Blossom quilt!  I printed this pattern (not available currently) back in March when Kristy sent an updated version of it, and I'm not sure why I took so long to piece it up.  It came together quickly and I enjoyed the chance to sew the curved pieces - my sewing life needs more curves!


Making this rainbow did exactly what I was hoping to accomplish with this goal: I laid it out with the rest of the quilt, looked at the blocks left in the quilt along, and planned out the next six I need to put together.  This leaves one corner empty but I'll figure it out when I get to that point!


After I did that, I couldn't get the orange feather out of my head.  So I grabbed my yellow and orange scrap bins and just kept going!  Kristy is releasing a…

I made three quilt goals for 2020 and one of them was to get my WIP list down to under ten projects. If you've been reading my monthly recap posts, then you've probably noticed it's actually growing instead of shrinking!  I feel like I have three types of projects: ones that I start and then finish fairly quickly; quilt-alongs that are caught up but waiting for the next instruction; and projects that I lose interest in for whatever reason and then they sit for months or even years.

The picture below shows the current state of my sewing room - five projects that I am actively working on: a quilt-along that ends this week; a quilt-along that lasts an entire year; a project that is just waiting for a little bit of finishing; my "sanity" project, simple patchwork; and a kid sewing project.  I anticipate finishing both the pillow and the watermelon quilt top this week (going right into quilting!)


But half of the quilts on my list haven't even been touched yet this…

A full month of staying home is behind us.  I've never had any desire to homeschool my kids, but I'm happy to say we made it through and they might have even learned something!  As for me, I coped by starting new quilt projects and keeping up on my quilt-alongs.  A few of these are waiting for the finishing touches in my en route package.

Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10
WIP List at beginning of month: 16
WIP List at end of month: 17*
Untouched in 2020: 8
Active QAL Projects: 4
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished (2)
2018 Summer Sampler (Started May 2018)
Catitude Pillow (Started April 2020)* - Just a tiny bit of finishing work needed!

Quilts Started (2)
Wake Me Up SAL - the classic lines in this one just really appealed to me.  I haven't done anything like this in a while and it was fun to work with big pieces of fabric for once.  My stash didn't have quite enough dark pinks, so my slow package contains the last two, plus a piece of low volume fabric that just jumped in becaus…

My April goal should have been pretty easy to complete, but as with most things during the quarantine it was overly optimistic.  It wasn't very hard to piece the top out of my stash;


Or have some fun quilting the cats;


Even even making a giant (19x19) pillow form out of an ancient piece of yardage and filling it with squares of batting scraps was pretty easy (I cut them into one inch squares [eyeballed, not measured] and then pack them in).


But it's still not technically done.  I couldn't find any fabric in my stash that I liked well enough to be the back.  For a mini quilt, I would have pieced something together and called it good, but since it's a pillow I wanted it to coordinate.  So on April 11th, I hopped online and bought some more of the grape grunge dots to have a cohesive finish.  As of today (April 29th) I'm still waiting for that package to arrive.  And once it does arrive, it's going to have to sit for a few days before I feel comfortable opening it…

Two years ago I launched my Quilt Block Summer event, and today I am sharing the final quilt that I started as part of that program*: Summer Road Trip.  I ended February with the quilt basted and hit the ground running with it in March.  Then everything fell apart and I just kept going - I didn't even plug my iron in again until March 15th and that was only to make the binding for my Rocket quilt.

So, without further ado, my finished 2018 Summer Sampler quilt!!


Since quilt photography isn't "essential" the picture was just taken in my backyard.  It's not fancy, but it will definitely remind me of the world at the time I finished it.  Each block is custom quilted and my mantra for this quilt was "less is more" - make it pretty without over-doing it.  I'd quilt and quilt until I had about two dozen hanging threads, then take a break and visit with my family and bury them all.  I didn't know how I was going to quilt each block when I started, but I…

I'm currently in the middle of a post-big project slump.  I spent all of March working on my Summer Sampler project (just two feet of hand-binding to go, it's happening tonight!), then I caught up on my QAL blocks.  Now that I have more of a choice (aka no secret sewing!) of what to work on I'm having trouble committing to my next big thing.  I should probably sew myself up a mask or two for my next trip to the grocery store, but instead I decided to start on a project I saw in Make Modern Issue 32:  the Catitude pillow.


These three cats went together in about an hour and a half, so my goal is to completely finish the whole project.  My new normal includes distance learning for three kids so that's going to be an interesting journey as we sort all that out, but I'll need my sewing time to keep my sanity.

I'm linking up my goal with Elm Street Quilts.

Pen and Paper Patterns released four brand-new holiday patterns today and I am sharing my tester version of her Firecracker pattern (all are available as printed patterns too)!  This is technically a 4th of July quilt, but I used springy Easter colors and then photographed it on a morning with a light dusting of snow (it all melted about a half hour after my son helped me take this).  Crazy, yes, but somehow appropriate for this weird Twilight Zone life we are all living right now.


This quilt has a lot of fun fabrics in it - the rockets are made from some long-stashed original release fabrics: Grunge Dots by BasicGrey and ombre fabric by V and Co.  The fuses are made from Spectrastic and the explosions are a mix of Speckled from Ruby Star and metallics scraps.  Finally, the background is the fantastic Dreamweaver Spirograph fabric in teal - it just reminded me of fireworks in the sky.

I liked the Spirograph fabric so much that I used it on the front and the back.  I didn't quite …

There's not much to say - this month definitely did not go the way I expected it to.  Instead of visiting with both my sister and my brother (two separate trips, we live in three different states), I got a lot of extra time with my kids and sewing machine.  It might be the first time that I'm not happy to get extra sewing time.

Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10
WIP List at beginning of month: 17
WIP List at end of month: 16
Untouched in 2020: 8
Active QAL Projects: 3
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
February's Grunge Dots and Sparkles Secret Sewing Project (started February 2020) - Reveal tomorrow!


Quilts Started
None!  Hard to believe I know!

Quilt Progress (4 WIPs touched)
2018 Summer Sampler - aka the reason for the lack of blog posts this month.  I didn't even turn my iron on until halfway through the month because I got sucked into quilting, quilting, quilting!  Each block is quilted in a different pattern with at least two different colors (I used 6 overall!).  My goal …

For the past week I've been consumed by a single project.  You may recall that at the end of last month I basted my 2018 Summer Sampler and started quilting it.  I'm pleased to say that I now have 3 blocks completely quilted and 7 more partially quilted (out of 20 total).


This has pretty much taken over all my sewing time.  I'm doing custom quilting and again focusing on a "less is more" principle.  I thought I'd do a few blocks and then bounce back to other projects, but instead I find myself quilting until I have a dozen or so ends to bury, then taking a break to bury them, repeat, repeat, repeat.  I'm enjoying trying different motifs - the ones that work well get used again and the ones that don't work as well get used once and then abandoned.  My goal for the month is to just keep trucking along with this and finish at least twelve blocks total.

Another fun thing that's been going on is some independent kid sewing!  My kids found the book Stuf…

Happy Birthday to the all the Leap Day Babies!I have to lead with that since I have a special one in my life!  Welcome to my monthly recap as an incentive to stay on track for my 2020 quilt goals.  As expected, my February list is far less impressive than January's was, but I still got a lot done.

Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10
WIP List at beginning of month: 16
WIP List at end of month: 17
Untouched in 2020: 8
Active QAL Projects: 3
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
None, but I expected that.

Quilts Started
More secret sewing this month - I made a whole top and sent it off to be quilted.  I can tell you it's full of grunge dots and sparkle and uses my Almost No-Waste Flying Geese method!


Quilt Progress (5 WIPs touched)
Sunshine blocks are finished!  19 of them have been sent in to be replaced with other maker's blocks and the 20th (pictured below) is staying here with me as the start of my finished quilt!


The Pandas are together and the Summer Sampler 2018 is basted!

Blocks m…