distractions and progress

I hope you all had the chance to go check out some of the beautiful Winter and Christmas quilts over at SewCalGal's 2011 Christmas quilt show!  There are some fabulous distractions over there!


Warning - here follows a long post - that's what happens when I don't post regularly, but then blast you with it all at once!


First up, I need to report on some finishes!  Way back in October I actually finished this one, but because we weren't revealing them until our November VMQG meeting, I only gave you a sneak peek at my Habitat challenge.  Here's the full picture.

Sorry, I need to take a better picture!

I kept the quilting really simple on this one - some SID and then some simple echo quilting.

And, I am very happy to say that my African Collage quilt is done - this must be a record for me - taking a workshop and within a month of finishing said workshop actually having finished the project!  I am thrilled with how it has turned out, especially since it was such a stretch for me.

Unfortunately, it was my only finish in the entire month of November - I can not believe how November has already flown past  Sheeesh!  I do think that December will be picking up the pace a little - I still have a ton of ideas of things I want to make as gifts. Ha!


Now for some of my in progress projects - we had our sew-in day at VMQG, and I wanted to work on something different - I mentioned it back here, but I never showed it to you.  Last year I finished up my "Figgy Duff" quilt made from a charm pack of Figgy Pudding, and I had a few of the brown and blue charms left.  I thought they would make a nice table runner - possibly as a Christmas present.  I decided to border and then place the squares on point, and started with this

Then it grew to this

and it will finish off like this!  Who would have thought that 9 - 5" charms would grow to a runner that is 84" long!  That's right, it will be 7' long!  Know anyone with a Harvest table than needs a long runner for it???

At work, I share an office with another lady, and I always have a quilt up between our desks.  It is time to put a Christmas quilt up, and I didn't want to put the same one up as last year, my Cranberry Salsa.  This summer, while on vacation we stopped into the Quilt Patch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.  Fun fun fun!  I didn't have a lot of time as my DH was itching to hit the road again, but I did manage to pick up a bit of fabric and this book



What a fabulous book full of all kinds of wonderful projects - and did you know the authors of the book, Jeanne Large and Shelley Wicks are the owners of the Quilt Patch and are just the nicest folks, and they are fabric designers to boot?


I love the cover quilt on this book, but didn't have room for the full size version, so I scaled it down a bit and came up with this.

I am doing some really simple quilting on this one, and hope to be able to take it to work with me tomorrow and get it up on the wall.

But, what is keeping me from a lot of quilting this weekend is this:

We replaced our old fireplace - oh about a year ago, and I've decided that that wall has to be patched and all painted before Christmas this year. (see my WIP list is much bigger than just my quilting!)  We replaced some window trim as well, and in the spirit of keeping things fresh, I've also decided that I am changing the wall colour, so that means I have the living room, dining room and front entry to paint, oh my.  I may get a little sewing in while waiting for paint to dry?!  Wish me luck!


 Happy quilting!