Wednesday's progress....

Not any sewing today. I had appointments to keep and I went to see the movie Descendants. All I got done tonight was the cutting out of six stars. If I make twelve then I only have to cut out five more. I plan to finish sewing these blocks before I cut any more out. I think I need to see what colors I am missing.

New projects started in January 2012

I joined a fun group at Cat Patches called NewFO. We report once a month all the new projects that we have started and are put in a drawing for a prize. No pressure to have something done, just the fun of sharing what we are working on.

At the beginning of the Jan. I started a new BOM.

I played with my lil twister ruler and started this little wall hanging.

 And last but not least I started this challenging quilt from the Material obsession 2 book, "Jazz Hand"

Just another fun month at Eclectic Quilter's House.

Ready for a new project...

I got a copy of this book earlier this month and found an interesting quilt that I wanted to make.

 I fell in love with this star. I also fell in love with the cover quilt, but I don't have any taupe fabric for the background. For this quilt I have a collection of Kaffe Facet and other brights that I was going to use for an applique flower project. Since my heart is not really into doing applique, I decided to do this pieced star. 

  This is the other version of the star quilt from the book. I like both and can make the stars before deciding how to set them.

Here's the fabric and the bottom polka dot will be the background.

This is the layout for the Jazz Hand Star. I'm sure that you think I'm crazy about now, since it has 72 kite shaped pieces in each block. The book showed a plastic template, that was available from Australia. So I got to searching on the internet to find one closer to home.

Eureka! I found a suitable one at Baycreek Quilting Templates

It is slightly smaller, but close enough for me. I wonder if there are any other crazy quilters who would like to make these stars? I am going to try one, I'll let you know how it goes. 

 I finished one block. It takes a lot of fussy sewing, but the template makes assembly easier, since all the pieces are consistent. The Y seams kind of remind me of paper piecing. My sewing machine has a built-in knot tack and thread cutter, which help to make the construction more efficient and less messy. The hardest part was choosing the colors and cutting all the kites. I think that I will try to make at least one block a month.

Orca Bay Top is finished....

I finished adding the borders to my Orca Bay Mystery quilt. I like blue so I changed the inner border from white to blue and then added another wide blue border.

 Here's a close up of the borders.

And of course the Inspectors did their job right before I took the quilt top to remove the paper from the string blocks. This coming week I will be quilting. 

Little twister Heart...

I finished cutting and sewing the Twister blocks together today while I was waiting for the body shop to call for me to pick up our Nissan. It was dented a couple of weeks ago by a friend of the across the street neighbor. He backed out of the drive into our car that was parked on the street in front of our house. By the time the inspectors finished checking my quarter inch seams it was time to pickup the finished car.

 actually they both match the quilt pretty well. Since the seams checked out I was able to put the borders on after dinner.

 I have a few quilts in line to quilt before this one but I hope to get this done for 2012 Valentines Day.

UFO Bag DONE!

I finally made myself just get this bag done! It has been a UFO for almost exactly one year. I had promised to make it for my eldest Daughter's last semester. But now it is done and off my to do list and she is very happy. It is made like a 'Regan Bag' only much bigger and with more zippered pockets. I didn't write down the dimensions so it will be one of a kind.

Since the bag is done I can now play with some charm squares. These are going to be cut with the 'Little Twister' ruler and then sewn back together. I am hoping this will look like a heart for Valentines Day.

 They look like Angels here, but have been running around like crazy tonight. Scotty even knocked my iron to the floor. Broke the cord reel, but the iron seems to still be functioning. Needless to say they are in trouble.

I have one Customer quilt to get going tomorrow and lots of UFOs to try to get organized.