W.I.P Wednesday

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for this weeks W.I.P. Wednesday!

The past few weeks {here and here} I’ve been posting about the Heartland Heritage Block of the Month kit that I got from FatQuarterShop.com, eons ago {seriously I think I got it at least 5 years ago…I know it was before I was pregnant with Ave}. Well, today I am pleased to say that I have finished the top: YAY!!!!

Over the weekend I was working on the borders, sashing and cornerstone blocks. I spent most of Monday then piecing it all together. I was not going to NOT finish it before supper time. Fortunately, the kids were very agreeable and all 4 napped at the same time for 3 hours: WOOHOO!!!!!

Here it is…..

Yay! {It’s actually hanging upside down in the picture, but oh well} Yes, those are mini pinwheel blocks amidst the sashing; each of them finished at 3”, talk about tiny pieces. I woke up on Sunday, wondering why my wrists hurt so much, then I remembered.

I don’t love all the blocks, but it was a good challenge. Some of these blocks I would have looked at before and thought “No way…I can’t do that”, but I did. It was a good step out of my comfort zone in quilting. Plus, I now have some 12.5” sampler patterns that I could always use to make other quilts…there were a good 5 or 6 blocks here that I really liked and would do again…all of them a variation of stars or pinwheels.

This is the first quilt I’ve ever made for myself. I made Matt’s quilt and our Christmas bed quilt, but this is the first one that I will be saying “MINE!” I plan on sending it out to be quilted, but I need to enter negotiations with the lady who has done my quilts in the past. I want this to be very cuddly, warm and soft. I’m thinking a flannel backing {in a dark red or blue}, with a higher loft wool batting, and a quilt pattern that doesn’t have too much to it {I’ve noticed the more quilting the harder a quilt feels}.

Of course with this quilt finished, I now am jumping onto the next 2. I started the boys’ Sail Boat Quilts a long time ago and never got around to finishing them. The blocks are all done, but the putting together was, is, daunting. You see I’m not just making them a simple quilt with their names on it. Oh no. That would be too easy. I decided to make the Nautical Flags that spell out their names as part of the quilt. Yea.

I spent some time last night going over the different flags with Matt {since he did go to school for Marine Transportation and had to know all of these things} and figuring out how to go about this. Then I sat down with my EQ6 program and deciphered out how to do each of the blocks, in honest-to-goodness-stitched-together-quilt-blocks, that will measure 7” square.

Now to just figure out the rest of it. These quilts are so close to being done it’s ridiculous, but it will probably take me another month just to finish them.

What have you been working on? Whatever it is, I’d love to hear about it, whether it’s sewing, crafting, construction or a good book :-)