My March finish

Well, I'm not doing so well with my New Year's resolution to finish my projects with a few days to spare....  but does anyone ever really keep their resolutions?  Seriously, I'm still aiming for that - it just didn't happen this month.
However, I did finish quilting and binding my "Arrows" baby quilt.  It's going to be a gift for friends of my son - they're expecting their first baby in a few months.  They have no idea if it's a boy or girl, so this will be the gift if it's a boy, and I'll be making another quilt for a girl.  My son was home on the weekend, and he approves of the quilt, so that's the first hurdle behind me!
So, here it is:

I used 2 charm packs of Malka Dubrawsky's "Simple Marks Summer" for the arrows, and a coordinating orange for the border and binding.  I can't wait to find out if the baby's a boy or a girl!

More scrappy goodness!

I still have one project for the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge...
A few weeks ago, I worked on a scrappy quilt project that is one of our Guild challenges - to make a completed project, at least crib-sized, ENTIRELY from stash.  I found the perfect quilt design in an older issue of Scrap Quilts, and managed to get the top done.  I had so much fun doing it, (and fabrics cut for it!), so I decided to make one more RSC project.
I used the same taupe and white fabric for the starter strips (most of it ends up being cut off), and then I started to add, first, my dark and bright blues, followed by February's pinks, and then March's teal / aqua challenge fabrics.  I decided to use only 3 sections each month, hoping that I'll end up with a quilt large enough for at least a child's quilt, or even maybe a lap-quilt for someone confined to a wheelchair.
Of course, now that I have this month's projects done, I'm eager to find out what April's colour will be!  A lovely bright green perhaps?  That would be encouraging for us - we've still got snow in the forecast for Wednesday and Saturday....
The strips so far:

National Quilting Day Mar. 15, 2014

I've just got a few minutes left in National Quilting Day to post my latest quilt top!
I've been wanting to do a "Plus Quilt" for a few months at least.  I've been scooping up charm packs when I find them on sale, and I finally got 5 matching charm packs from the "Snowman Gathering" line.  I laid the top out on my "design floor" (I don't have room for a design wall...), and this morning, I started pinning the rows together.  Every time I got 4 or 5 rows pinned together, I went to the sewing machine to piece them together.  Then I went back to the rows on the floor, pinned a few more, sewed those strips together, and repeated.  I finally got the last rows sewn together around 11:25.  I didn't want to take the time to press all the seams flat - my hubby was (im)patiently waiting to hold the quilt up while I took the pic, and he was ready to hit the hay.  (The time change may have been a week ago, but we're both still trying to catch up with the hour of sleep that we lost).
I'm sure you've been holding your breath, anxious to see my quilt top - so, here it is:

I have a bit of yardage of at least one of the cream-toned prints, and I may use it for a border, although most of the Plus Quilts don't have a border.  It just might pull all these fabrics together.  I'm thinking of adding a flange of one of the navy prints as well - but I'll leave that until Monday...

More Teal Blocks!

I'm trying to keep up my routine for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt blocks - I showed you my Japanese x and + blocks last week, and today I have my teal/turquoise "Kickin' Stash" blocks.  I didn't realize that I had such a wide variety of teal fabrics - but it sure comes in handy for challenges like this!
Here are the 2 blocks I've done for today:

I also started another set of blocks for this challenge - it will make a completely different quilt than these blocks will - I hope to be able to share that project with you next week.

On My Needles

It's been a few weeks since I shared my current knitting project.  I haven't really made a lot of progress - there's been far too many other things going on to be able to sit and knit something just for me.  I did finally have an opportunity to add a few inches worth of knitting on the sleeves of my sweater / shrug - and here's the proof:

I always knit both sleeves at once - that way, I tend to get the shaping to match on both sides of the sleeve, and the shaping gets added in at the same place on both sleeves - brilliant, right?  I thought so!  

I love how this yarn is striping up - it's a marble chunky from James C. Brett, so it works up fairly quickly too - so, I just might be able to finish this up by month's end....  Here's hoping!

March's project

I've been trying to decide on what to focus on for my March "Lovely Year of Finishes" - not because I don't have many things to choose from, but because I have too many!  Add to that, a very busy month coming up, with birthday celebrations for a number of family members (including my dad's 85th!) - and I didn't want to pick something more challenging than I'd really have time for.
So, after doing a version of eenie, meenie, miney, moe, I've chosen to complete a child's quilt that I pieced a few months ago.  I've had the backing for as long as I've had the fabrics for the top - now it's just a matter of layering the quilt, doing the quilting, and binding it.  My son told me a few weeks ago that one of his best friends just announced that he and his wife are expecting their first child(!) and I immediately offered to make them a quilt.  That's what we quilters do, right?
So, here's the top, and the backing - I knew as soon as I saw the fabric that it would be PERFECT for this quilt!

I haven't decided what to use for the binding yet - it will probably be the same orange as the border - I'll decide when I get working on the quilting.  I'm off to link up to Melissa's blog!

A New Month, a New Colour!

Today is Mar.1st, which means that the Rainbow Scrap Challenge will have a new focus colour - and it's teal / aqua, and every blue-green shade in between!  Thankfully, my Fat Quarter drawer and my scrap bins both have an abundance of these colours; consequently, I've had a busy day!  I try to cut all of the fabrics that I'll need for my chosen blocks (Kickin' Stash, and Japanese x and + blocks) - I'm not sure if I'm going to have enough time to make up the units, but I'll try!
Now it's bedtime, and before I go, I want to share my newly-made Japanese x and + blocks.  Apart from the very first one that I made, I'm trying to make sure that all of the fabrics have some of the assigned colour in them - today's blocks do, but there's not a lot of contrast between the some of the dark and light fabrics - I'll let you decide!