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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

It's About Time: A WIP Wednesday Edition

So, I am finally blogging!  Between the holidays, traveling, a birthday, finishing three quilts (with deadlines), and the kids being out of school a couple of extra days it was pretty much impossible, but here I am now.  I actually have a few project finishes to blog about but that will have to come a little later.  I am pretty wiped tonight.  I just wanted to talk a little about what I want to finish up in 2014.  I have mentioned so many times before that I am notorious for having so many (too many) WIPs and I don't think I am the only one, right?!?!  This year I want to try and stay focused and make my WIP pile quite a bit smaller.  Last year I managed to accumulate a number of quilt tops, so I want to get those finished.  I have two half quilted quilts....ridiculous, and a bunch of other projects.  I want to not take on too much and get some of the things I have already started finished.

One of the projects is a super cute dress (Oliver and S Fairy Tale Dress) I started for the Goob probably around this time last year that I need to finish. 
I sort of got on a selfish sewing kick for a while there and haven't made anything for the kids!  Then again the only one who will wear anything I make now a days is the Goob and me, of course.  The older ones are are at a stage now where it isn't cool anymore...oh well, pajamas are still game though!  One thing that is going to make staying on track pretty difficult is all of the awesome books and patterns I got for Christmas.  I, of course, now have an even longer to go list, but I am not really complaining. (And thank you family!)

I did want to mention a little project I started the day before Christmas eve, because my sister's gift did not arrive in time.  I had some pretty bad luck with the USPS this year for the holidays.  I had my sister's gift not arrive, a few customers did not receive packages for WEEKS (with one missing items), I never received the Christmas cards I ordered, and we got one mangled and in pieces Christmas card from my husband's cousin in a plastic bag printed with an apology note from the USPS.....pretty crazy if you ask me.  I did however, receive my shipment of Charley Harper canvas from Birch fabric right before Christmas and immediately started cutting it up to make some little zippered pouches to replace the missing gift for my sister.  She is a big Charley Harper fan so it was perfect!  I managed to finish the bags in time, but forgot to take pictures...luckily I cut enough to make two bags of each size and print.  I only managed to finish one of them since then, however the other two are now on my WIP list.  I will hopefully knock those out soon since they are pretty darn fast and everything is cut and ready to sew.
Next, I will try and finish up the quilt I have been trying to finish for years.  I have it about 2/3 quilted and the binding is already cut...wish me luck.  That one will be a big finish and a load off.  Then I want to finish the mermaid penny patch I made for the quilt along at Stitched in Color
I ended up ordering fabric from Spoonflower of the back, because I realized that I had the book, Heather Ross Prints and it comes with a CD with jpegs of some of her prints.  The mermaid print that was the inspiration for the quilt top is one of those jpegs!  I was super excited but wanted to make sure I got it right because Spoonflower is not cheap, so I order a sample first, just to make sure.  I also ended up scaling up the size of the print which I think will look great on the back of the quilts since it will be a large area. 

It took a little while to wait for the sample and then order the fabric , but I have it now and my commissioned quilts are done and out of the way, so I can try and finish this one as well.  I ended up really liking the mermaid penny patch and I hope the Goob does as well....she loves mermaids and pink!

Well, I won't ramble any longer, but I will say that I hope 2014 brings a number of WIP finishes for me and perhaps some successes in my creative endeavors.  Here's to a good year....

This post is linked up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

11 comments:

  1. I love your projects! It is hard to stay focused when there are so many cool things to create! I think I like the sound of a WIP better than a UFO :)

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    1. I hear you! Thanks so much for the wonderful comment and for stopping by. Hope you stop by again in the future.

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  2. I can't wait to see your Penny Patch quilt finished, it is so very cute :o) I love that mermaid print you picked for the backing, how clever to get it printed at Spoonflower! I haven't tried using them yet but have been thinking about it. I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on their service. And I totally hear you on the problem with staying focused... I just wrote up a list of some of the projects I'd like to do this year. When I hit #30 I figured I might want to scale it back a bit :o/

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    1. I am glad it isn't just me with the crazy long list, and I really have no business adding more because I haven't finished what is already on the list! As for Spoonflower, I have ordered a couple things so far. They are really great as far as customer service and shipping, etc. The only thing I had trouble with was an image that I created, where the colors printed weird. I only ordered a small amount which was good, but everything else I have had printed, for example, the fabric printed using the Heather Ross jpegs from her book were fine. I did have to mess with the jpeg a little bit because the repeats were off. Perhaps I should do a post on it. Anyway, thanks so much for your awesome comment and I sure hope that I will have the Penny Patch finished soon!

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  3. Lucky sister, Charlie Harper is one of my favorites. The Penny patch is going to be really cute.

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    1. Thanks so much for checking out my post and the wonderful comment! The Charlie Harper fabric is pretty great, which is totally why I planned on making two sets...so I could keep one ;)

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  4. I love that HR print! I bought a great whack from Spoonflower a couple years ago and I'm hoping to make a quilt out of my precious HR scraps this year. And that Charley Harper fabric is darling!

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    1. I have to say, I definitely was holding off cutting into my HR mermaid print because I only had a fat quarter! Then when I discovered I could get some printed on Spoonflower it was a bit of a relief. I am just happy that I like how the quilt top turned out! And as for the scrappy HR quilt, that sounds wonderful! Thanks for stopping by.

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  5. Great projects and more to come with that lovely stack of inspiration!

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    1. Thank you so much! And like you said, I will definitely not be hurting for inspiration. Hope all is well and take care.

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