Abacus Quilt in Progress

It is Wednesday once again, and once again I am thankful that we are on the down slope of the week. I feel the Holiday pressure already. How about you? I had intended to have my Abacus quilt quilted and at least ready to be binded by this past weekend, but you know how life goes. This quilt design was created by Christa from Christa Quilts for her Fall Quilt-a-Long, and I enjoyed every moment of it! It isn’t ever too late to join in on a Quilt-a-Long and I think this can be done in really some fun ways for a baby quilt!

***WARNING***

Photos are horrible, as I am disliking the daylight savings time. By the time I get home it is already dark and I keep forgetting to bring my items to work to take during the day with the beautiful backgrounds.

I do at least have all of the ‘blank’ circles done through quilting as well as some of the exterior quilting. You can clearly tell my circles are by far perfect, but that is ok. I am quilting with my new sewing machine and well, I am just not a fan of free motion quilting on a domestic machine. I believe you need a long arm for it (at least for me). I can’t seam to ‘draw’ when I move the ‘paper’ (fabric/quilt)… I need to draw by moving the ‘pen’ (needle). I am only doing what I am calling a “stipple loop” on the exterior. I am loving the way it is turning out overall, I just need to get it done. The original design has it straight and not ’tilted’. I decided to do this as I always love ‘twisting’ things up and because I wanted it a little bit bigger (for no real reason). It was not as challenging to add the slanted parts as I thought it would be; however I am pretty sure I did it slightly the longer way than what a more experienced quilter would have done… either way, it got the job done! 

I intend to do the binding in the same teal color as I want it to give the effect on the front of a floating Abacus. Also, I think it would be fun for some people thinking the blanket is off kilter when in reality it is not. I may or may not have already had this happen to me a few times when I am holding it up. hehehe

I chose this practically hot pink with small white polka-dots in it (once again, no real reason). It was more laziness as I was going through my stash of fabric and when I pulled this out, it was literally the perfect over-size needed for the quilting. So… to save myself either piecing a back or cutting into another large bundle of fabric, I just went with it. I’m most certainly not a pink person by any means, but I still like it. It looks like I haven’t quilting all of the blank circles yet, but the circles now being created are the two shadow curved lines that I am quilting in between each circle, so up close they are almost boxy-type circles because of how it is creating it. I think the back will be almost just as fun as the front!

I am linking up today with WIP Wednesday w/ Freshly Pieced and Lets Bee Social w/Sew Fresh Quilts. Join in on the party and show your stuff off!

Sew Stitching Cute

Abacus: Finished Quilt Top

Man this weather has been lovely here in Kansas City! How is it everywhere else in the world? I am going to be soaking in as much of this weather as I can because I feel like the leaves are changing and on the ground already, and we aren’t done with October yet. Winter I feel is going to be here sooner this year. With that, I am taking advantage of the outdoor weather pictures until I must be huddled up inside.

I have finished my Abacus QAL Top from Christa Quilts and I am loving the way it turned out! So glad that I continued on with this and did not stick with a one color way for each row. I originally wanted to change it up without going out of the overall theme of the quilt top which is where I first decided to not use solids and to use prints.

I did play around with the idea of just having all of the prints randomly placed; however I wanted to still stick with the main ”theme” of the design which is still having colors gradually move into others… with that, came the use of using them in coordinating colors and to move through colors smoothly. While these are some bold colors to do that with, I think I pulled it off pretty well. I wish I had another pink or form of pink  to go for the 3rd row; however I still have no complaints overall on this top. You can’t go wrong with Cotton + Steel, let alone the Mustang line.

Is anyone else this neurotic when they are sewing and need to keep things in line? I mean, really… I would drive myself mad without those blank white cards! I’ve been without them prior but once I have started using them, I won’t be going back! It continually keeps me in check with what I was originally going for, and it still allows me to change things up if I wanted to… and easily! Because now I know exactly what was going where. #quilterproblems

Laying it out before I cut them all into circles. I really enjoyed making this quilt top and now it is off to quilt it! I have some ideas of the way I will be quilting it, but have not finalized it visually in my head yet. I am giving myself until this weekend to figure it out because then it will be quilted! It is going to be yet another twist to this quilt that I have taken outside of the solids already, but I will say that ‘twist’ is a key word!

I apparently don’t color inside the lines, but I follow directions well. hehe

Sew Stitching Cute

Playing Catch Up

So while I have not been so active on blogging, I have definitely been active outside of the blogging world. I have made some awesome progress finally on my Foothills Sew-a-Long from Meadow Mist Designs. Luckily she was nice and gave us an easy task for the month of October. Thanks Cheryl!

I finally was able to catch up all the way up to October’s directions… so now I am ready for November! I am now even more pleased that I chose the fabric I did and feel more confident. Since this is a mystery quilt, I had discussed prior about loving the colors (I am obsessed with GREEN) but since I was not sure of the design… I was stepping way outside my comfort zone. So far, I am so glad I did!

Septembers directions were to form 144 (yes, 144) Half Square Triangles (HST)… and here they are. We didn’t have to use them in October, so I was able to still catch up and use October a bit to catch up.

Little houses, too cute. Octobers direction were for making the 12 Square in a square (SiaS) blocks that I showed up above. After placing one triangle on, I noticed how cute these would look as little houses as well. It would almost look like a candy house. While also catching up on my Foothills Mystery Quilt Sew-a-Long, I caught up on my Abacus Quilt-a-Long with Christa. Hers was weekly and because of my delays with family and so forth, they are already at the quilting stage. That’s ok, I have until Nov. 12th for the final reveal! Everything is ready and layed out for me to put the rows together when I get home. 

Once again with this one, I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and try something different. I am certainly enjoying the fact that I did and I am certainly thrilled with how this is going. I am falling more in love with this bright teal and that Mustang line… oh that Mustang line from Cotton and Steal. If I could buy bolts beyond bolts of all of their lines, I would never leave my sewing machine or cutting table. 

The mix of both the Foothills Mystery Quilt and Abacus Quilt-a-Long are even pretty! What have you guys been up to and what is on your agenda to get done? Any deadlines? I have lots of them and it is making me keep going… that and this awesome Sewing room I have now… pictures to come Friday!

Sew Stitching Cute

Abacus Quilt Along with Christa Quilts

Happy Tuesday! Quick post today as I am super excited to be sharing with you my fabric selections for Christa Watson at Christa Quilts Quilt Along that she is doing! This is my first time doing a Quilt Along with her, as well as working with circles. Yet again, another project to push me outside of my boundaries and what is comfortable. This starts tomorrow, so it is still not too late to join in! Hop on over to her introductory of it and see the fabric requirements, I know many of us could end up pulling from our stash if we weren’t so protective of it. LoL Just as I did in the Foothills Mystery Quilt Sew-a-Long by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs which I spoke about here, I am going to go for something different than just “following along” and changing my fabric selection up as well as solids and prints.

Isn’t this an awesome teal… it is actually much better in person and it is from Bella Solids named Peacock. I am the type of person who likes to figure things out, but sometimes I prefer to be shown some awesome new things in order for me to have the confidence to go for it. I feel like I over analyze the way some things can be done which can halt my own creative mind. Anyone else have this dilemma or am I alone with the crickets here? In any case, the print are going to be the actual circles. I have been wanting to get my hands on some Cotton and Steal and figured this was the perfect chance. After reading the cutting instructions of what you needed for fabric and the dimensions of the quilts, I realized the circles will be 5”, therefore it was CHARM PACK usable! I decided to go with the Mustang Charm Pack from Cotton and Steal. The background fabric works well with any print in the Mustang line and I am excited about how this will be turning out!

Photo Courtesy: Missouri Star Quilt Co.

I hope you either join in or stick around every week on Wednesdays for how this turns out. Hopefully your week is still starting off well, mine sure has even though it has been busy.

Sew Stitching Cute