Tag Archives: alison glass

Weekend Recap

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you may have seen the pictures I posted over the weekend. Julia and I took a road trip and visited Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. This college is a favorite in our family – I graduated (class of ’82) and two of my sons plus one daughter-in-law also graduated from there. Julia is planning to apply there next fall. We thought it would be fun to do the college tours and see the campus as it has been several years since we have been there. Plus she was pretty young when we last visited and I thought she needed to see it with a more mature viewpoint.

It was a beautiful day of tours and walking… oh, so much walking. Julia is deciding between Biology or Animal Science as her major. It is so hard to know what you want to do at this age but Cal Poly is a university that requires the applicants to declare their major right away.

She was thrilled to be able to visit the Swine Unit. The manager of that unit, a senior at the university, was incredibly friendly and let Julia hang out for quite a while. It was helpful to find out Julia can volunteer at the animal units even if she chooses Biology over Animal Science as a major. Either way, she can work with the animals..

It was a quick trip but well worth the drive (which is a bit of a pain because we live 350 miles from campus).

When I got home I had a package waiting for me! A couple of weeks ago I entered a giveaway on Instagram. Kim over at Leland Ave Studios was celebrating the launch of her 52 Week Creativity Project where she will be posting discussions with various artists each week in 2018. I read the first one which was really good. I am looking forward to this series.

Kim generously gave a fat eighth bundle of Alison Glass’ new line, Diving Board- to me! What a treat.

Oh my gosh! I was so tickled to win this bundle. The colors fall in line with the shades of blue, pink, greens, yellows and oranges that Alison often uses. This is nice because her older lines work so well with the newer pieces. Oh the colors are gorgeous !!

This bundle is a big one at 24 pieces. I will surely let it sit for a while – until I think of the perfect use for it. I have several projects on-going at the moment so I am in no hurry to start another one. Thank you Kim for this gorgeous addition to my stash.

Linking to Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash link up. I haven’t written a Stash post in such a long time. Receiving this bundle was such a fun surprise! Now I am going to go pack orders. The shop was busy over the weekend and I need to get caught up,

May Goals

12 Replies

Setting goals on a monthly basis, as I have been doing this year, seems to make the time buzz by even faster. I am not sure this is a good thing. My goals for this month were to finish my Alison Glass Mini Quilt for my first swap, make the row of green blocks for the RSC15 project that I am doing, and to finish two bunk bed bags (a custom order for a friend). Here we are with four days to spare and it is all completed!

It was kind of one of those silver lining deals. I finished the bunk bed bags first (posted about them here). After that I completed the mini quilt. I didn’t think I would get to the Classic Stitches Row Quilt (my RSC15 project) but things are always changing, right? I was supposed to go visit some family in Houston last week but I was knocked flat with a succession of migraines. I ended up not going at the last minute. This was a huge disappointment for me, but certainly wasn’t the first (and won’t be the last) time that I have had to cancel plans due to migraines. Once I was past the worst of it, I was left with a couple of unexpected days to sew (that is the silver lining!) I cut into a pile of green scrap and came up with a row of Losses and Crosses blocks which were the Classic Stitches BOM for May.

I made the simpler version of the blocks that Mari offered up for this month. These blocks are a bit fussy and I decided I could only make so many 2″ HST’s without going crazy. I like the blocks though I think they are better suited to a larger layout so that the secondary patterns show up. You don’t get the full effect in one row of six inch blocks. If they are clustered together, the effect is very nice.

This row quilt is growing and growing. I am trying to decide if I want to keep making all of the rows with six inch blocks or if I should make some rows with larger blocks to add variation. I need to decide this soon since I am nearly half done.

The mini quilt turned out great. Very glad to have this finished and also that I am able to link up with ALYOF since I missed that boat in April! I just packed it up to ship it off to my partner in Michigan. Kind of hard to gIve it up so I really hope she love it! I am excited to see what sort of mini I will receive.

I have quite a bit of Alison Glass fabric so I made a pieced back for it.

I love the dense quilting.

My points match up well which I am quite proud of. I have been working on precision and it is finally improving.

Looks like it is time to think about what to work on in June! I have several things in process so it will help to block it out and make a plan.

Linking up with Lorna at Let’s Bee Social and Amanda Jean at Finish It Up Friday, as well as ALYOF at Sew Bittersweet Designs and Angela at So Scrappy.

WIP Wednesday

3 Replies

I mentioned in my last post that Julia and I were going to attend a “Hearts” party (so named by my three year old great-niece) on Valentine’s Day. It was a blast! The cousins loved having some time together as did all of the adults. On the drive down to the Bay Area I made a stop at Intrepid Thread in Milpitas, CA. I have looked at their on-line store and wanted to check out the brick and mortar version. I wasn’t disappointed. It was smaller than I expected (based on the selection they have on-line) but the fabrics they carry are lovely. My goal was to get some Alison Glass prints for the miniswap I joined over on Instagram. They had loads to choose from and I ended up several prints from the Sunprints collection. I ended up with a nice selection and look forward to cutting into them.

Before doing that though, I need to finish quilting my donation quilt. It is due to be turned in by the end of February and it is my goal for this month on ALOYF. It’s going well. I am about 1/2 way done. Right now I am trying to decide on a pattern to quilt in the sashing between the blocks.

I am using a variegated thread by YLI that has shades of purple, blue and gray in it. It looks great. I love the texture that YLI provides when I quilt with it. Hoping to get the quilting done this week and then next week all I have to do is bind it.

We got back from the Hearts party on Sunday, late in the afternoon. That night my son spent the night. While he was here he helped me cut a bundle of 3 1/2″ squares. I want to do a simple patchwork quilt using only neutral fabrics. I mentioned my neck issues in my last post and cutting for any length of time is a big stress on those muscles. He was great and probably cut over half of these 500 squares for me. What a nice guy!

Somehow that doesn’t look like 500 squares, but it is. I am really excited to get started on this. I’ve wanted to do a neutrals quilt for quite a while – I have many of them pinned on a board on Pinterest for inspiration but decided to keep it simple and do a patchwork quilt.

Finally – while at Intrepid Thread I was browsing their scrap packs. I know, I know. I have no control. I formally rescind item number two on my list of 2015 goals. I will not speak of it again. Don’t judge me. The scrap packs were so tempting and I did buy one. At $10.00 each these packs are a good deal. This one includes two pieces that I just love (the two prints in front on the right). They are from Kate and Birdie’s Bluebird Park line. One of the pieces is a 1/2 yard and the other is 1/3 yard. There are four coordinating pieces that each measure about 1/8 yard. I have a great project in mind for this so stay tuned….

Better get busy and quilt the rest of the donation quilt. Enjoy your day!

Linking to Sew Fresh Quilts and Molli Sparkles today!