Works in Progress (W.i.P.) #1

Over at Freshly Pieced, Lee does a fun link-up on Wednesdays, Works in Progress. She shares what's she's been working on, finished, or what's still laying around waiting for that loving care. I really like this idea because I am definitely a list person, and I think it might help me stay focused and finish up those forgotten projects if I have a nice list separated like this. Plus it's a good excuse to share where I am with my "In Progress" items.

New Projects:

These are all listed on my side bar.  <-----.  :) I have almost started on the purse like a million times, but I hesitate. Then I was looking through my book: 

Sew Liberated: 20 Stylish Projects for the Modern Sewist

which I really love, and it has the CUTEST purse in there, so now I think I want to do that one, and not the one that I had planned. But I'm just worried it's not going to be the right size, so I have a little playing around to do before I start. I did get some SUPER cute fabric for my birthday last week that I would LOVE to use too! :) (I little extra motivation never hurts!)

I'm sure the purse pouch will wait until after I do the purse so they can match somehow. :)

I'm still waiting for my Kona's to get started on the Bottled Rainbows quilt along. Most of them should be here soon. :) It's so much fun looking at how everyone else's are coming along!

For the pincushion I'm waiting for the Kona's to get here so I can wash all my fabric together.

The American Jane quilt is a way to use my jelly roll, and the other quilt I'm really excited for. I'm going to use Just Wing It by Moda, but I'll probably wait until after the Bottled Rainbows quilt to do it so I don't have TOO many projects going on at once. ;)

Ongoing projects:
Can I say that Project #1 is organizing! I have been going through our room organizing and cleaning everything. Next is downstairs. Not that our house is full of clutter, but when you have tables and desks and closed cabinets and shelves, sometimes it's too convenient to just through papers or whatever else in there to leave for another day. Well, it's definitely that other day... what a mess. ;)

Next up:
Picnic Blanket:

This thing has come together really fast. It's almost surprising! I've layered it and now it's just waiting to be quilted and bound. I'm not sure how I want to do it though. Originally I was going to use my walking foot to sew squares inside the squares and leave the sashing alone, but now that I have a new machine I'm tempted to free motion quilt it. I've been thinking about still staying inside the squares and just use each square for a different pattern. I'm sure it won't turn out good, but since it's going to be an outside blanket, and probably get pretty used and dirty, I'm not so concerned about it's appearance. Is that bad?! Plus, it would give me a TON of practice with free motion quilting so I can quilt Mabel's quilt myself. (Yikes! That makes me nervous). :)
The binding will also be super fast on easy on this. I left the backing fabric bigger so I can just fold over the edges and machine quilt it on. I've done this a couple of times and it usually turns out fine. Again, am I being to lazy? I don't know. I guess I just know that on a huge quilt like this I would never get it done if I did it any other way. ;)


Mabel's Quilt:

I finally got back to the iron on this one. I burned myself pretty good ironing the seams open a while ago and although it's coming together pretty quickly too, it turned me off from it for a while. I really dislike ironing, especially ALL those open seams. :) But it's ironed and I pieced the rows together!

I still need to figure out what fabrics I'm going to use for the sashing (still some different Nicey Jane fabrics). I also need to add one strip on each end of the rows, but I can't decide if I want to do that before I do the sashing in between the rows, or just have a boarder around the inside to separate it from the outside boarder (which is a whole bunch of 2.5" x 5" strips sewn together. I still can't decide if I'm liking it as much as I had hoped, but I think I am. I think the next few steps will make a huge difference! I'm excited!


My last In Progress project right now is a Car Mat:

I started this FOREVER ago and it really has been just sitting and sitting. It's pretty big! Maybe 60"x60" (I don't remember). But it's fun. The red is the roads. I want to use some yellow and sew the center lines down the middle of them. I also have a lake to put in next to the big curve on the right edge of it. I have three houses already cut out to go on the top side, trees to go along the bottom. I'm not sure what else to do, maybe some street signs at the corners and at the round about. The boys already play with it sometimes, though they don't really stay on the roads. ;) On the back of it I am going to put the alphabet and numbers 0-9 around the edges so we can sit in the middle and 'learn' number and letters. :) I already have most of those cut out, I just need to finish getting all of them and then place them so I can start sewing them on. I am really excited about this project, but sometimes it seems like too much... and thus why it's not finished yet. Oops. :)


Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Picnic Blanket

On hold:
see my sidebar.

This week's stats:
New projects - 6 
Completed projects - 2 (Gathered clutch, placemats)
Currently in progress - 3