A Year (well, Month) of Schnibbles AND the Spring to Finish Challenge!

I did it!!!!!!!!!!!

I finished all three of my goals that I set as part of Tallgrass Prairie Studio's Spring to Finish Challenge 2010 - here.

First up, my Schnibble... since I joined the party late, I feel like it is only fair to call it a  "Month of Schnibbles."  The pattern is Houseboat, and the fabric is Boutique by Chez Moi.

I was really hoping to get it quilted before the end of the month, but some unforeseen events managed to work their way into my schedule, which put me behind.  But I am okay with this, because

THIS IS THE FIRST QUILT TOP THAT I HAVE EVER COMPLETELY FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!

Next up is the Testosterone Quilt.  It doesn't have borders because I need more fabric, and my LQS isn't getting it in until tomorrow.

 (Don't you like the far-away view?  It makes it much harder to spot all of the errors.)  I still can't believe that I made it work.  I'm so proud of myself!!!  (Tim Gunn would be proud too!)

And finally, the hexagons for the Hexagon Quilt-Along...

Not only do I have them all cut out, but I have more than half of them sewn together!!  (This is just a few of them.) 

This post is full of exclamation points.  Sorry about that -- I'm just excited that I am finally getting somewhere.  :-)

Spring To Finish!

The incredibly talented Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio is the brains behind the Spring To Finish Challenge of 2010.  Each participant chooses the task or tasks that they want to finish before May 31.

I have been working on mine since the start date (April 19), but I realized that I never officially listed what I plan to finish.  So here it is:

My Goals...
1.) The Testosterone Quilt
I am going to either a) finish the entire quilt top, or b) finish as much of the quilt top as I am financially able to do.

2.)  The Houseboat Schnibble
I will finish the top. and piece together the backing.

3.)  The Hexagon Quilt-a-Long
It took awhile for me to be able to get my fabric, so I am a bit behind.  I want to have all of the cutting done.

My Reward!
Per Jacquie's orders, we should reward ourselves for finishing our goals, and who am I to argue? :)
I was killing time at B&N last night and came across this book... I have seen it before but it didn't jump out at me and I never opened it.  But the quilting section at this store was woefully small, so I took what I could find.  And of course, since that's the way life goes, I fell in love immediately.  I think I want to make 95% of the projects in here, which is unusual for me -- usually I just want to make one or two out of a book.

And I will even offer myself a bonus...

Bonus A = Testosterone Quilt --> quilt sandwich
Bonus B = Houseboat Schnibble --> quilt sandwich
Bonus C = More than 50% of my triangles --> hexagon halves

The rewards for those are TBD.

Wish me luck!!

WIP Wednesday

These are two of the four things I'm working on.  I couldn't get to the other two, due to the temporary dismantling of my sewing dungeon.

This is the almost-halfway-finished Schnibble that I'm working on... the Schnibble is  Houseboat, and I am attempting to make it out of Boutique by Chez Moi for Moda.  (The black thing underneath is a piece of plastic that these have been resting on -- they are all ironed and ready for another round for the sewing machine, so I didn't want to mess them up too much.)

The second WIP has a bit of a story behind it.  See, I bought the fabric to make this quilt in 2004 -- yes, this has been quite the ongoing project. Around that time, I got as far as cutting the fabric into strips, sewing them together, and then cutting about half of the pieced strips.  I had planned on doing a very simple quilt with 5 inch (finished) squares, in a downward diagonal.

The fabrics consist of prints of: construction scenes, power tools, police cars, fire engines, trains, and yellow construction vehicles (like backhoes and bulldozers).  I have no idea who any of the designers are/were.  I might try to find some tractors for the border.   This quilt is PERFECT for its recipient.  I have nicknamed it The Testosterone Quilt.

Well, whatever I was using as my instruction manual didn't mention that part about making sure that your fabric is square.  Between that, my nonexistent quarter inch seam (I tried, I really did!) and my uber-beginner-ness, I have some of the most bizarre 5.5 inch squares that you have ever seen.  They look like they were cut with one of the tools in the quilt.  I have been putting off finishing this because I will have to figure out a way around all of the craziness.  Starting over is not an option, because I don't think that I could find a better group of fabrics for the recipient, and I think only one of these fabrics is still being made.

When I have thought about tackling this monstrosity over the past few weeks, I could only think of two options -- either take the strips apart and try to sew them together a little bit better, or take the strips apart, cut them into 4.5 inch blocks and sew each block together individually. 

I showed my mom an example of the problem and asked her what she thought I should do.  She looked at me like I was completely out of my mind (I get this look a lot though).  "So the seams don't match up perfectly -- HE WILL NEVER NOTICE.  He just wants his quilt."  Letting the quilt go with less than perfect squares with less than perfect quarter inch seams didn't even OCCUR to me.  At all.   But the more I thought about it, the more I think my mom is right, and that my dad would be upset if I wasted all that fabric and time.  

The photo above is of two rolls of two columns each.  I have a third group, so that is six finished columns altogether.  I think there will be four more, but those four are going to take a lot more work than these did.  My goal is to finish the entire quilt top by the end of April.  This sounds reasonable enough, considering that I have no job and there is no employment in sight.  But sewing these together... there is only so much I can handle at one time, so we will see what happens.

Oh -- and the (eventual) recipient of The Testosterone Quilt?

My dad!