February Sewing Goals: Accomplishments (and my cats!)

Wow, February went fast.

So, time to round up some of my sewing/quilting goals for the month.

(oh and warning, I'm bombing my blog today, lots of posts).

First up are a few things that were technically for swaps but since they are quilting related I'm filing them under "quilting goals" as well as swaps.

There was a run of basic 9 patch swaps. You made two blocks per swap and they had to be opposite patterns.  So these count as generic quilty practice.  (I also learned I need to get a bit more white/white fabrics, most of my white based fabrics were a bit strong in color for this swap and we couldn't use solid white).

Next up is an actual goal completion.

For February I wanted to complete another flimsy.  I wanted to use the fabric I won from the Pets on Quilts contest (over at Lilly Pad Quilting) last year to make a kind of in memorium quilt for Olive (she was featured on the mini quilt I used for my submission and sadly she died only one year after we adopted her and I miss the hell out her rat tailed ass. . .but I digress).

I won a jelly roll of Bali Pops batiks in the Lorikeet color variety.  Which was perfect to do a jelly roll race quilt top.  It seemed super easy and fast which is what I need since I'm still a beginner (and February was coming to a close so I needed to get my butt in gear).

I give you the Olive Green jelly roll race in memorium quilt top!

It's actually really pretty.  As I was stitching it up I was worried I was creating the world's fugliest flimsy but the colors really do go well with one another (it's a big brighter than the pic shows--it looks kind of pastel there but it's bright batiks).

Of course, the minute I stretched it over the couch. . .

Aww, Gene, sitting on you sissy's memorial quilt top.  *sigh*

But that beautiful moment was short lived when THIS happened.

THIS meaning Murray (the white blur in the foreground).  He burrowed up under the fabric and was proceeding to grab at it with his claws.  No, thou shall not claw the quilt top.  Hell, I almost destroyed a few of the strips when I was making it because I was having a mental breakdown and just COULD NOT figure out how to properly join the strips so the made the angle.  I kept getting a mitered style corner to my join and I had to go back and check the tutorial (Missouri Quilt youtube for the win!).  That was after I had a not so dignified hissy fit that was *this close* to ending in tears.  I blame it on the shitty weather lately (and my not wanting to fail at such an easy project).

I let the cats enjoy the quilt top (no claw!) for a bit before folding it up to store in the craft room.  One of my yearly goals is to complete a full quilt and this top is going to be my sacrificial lamb.  Since it's so basic in design, I should be able to do some basic free motion quilting (I'm thinking squiggly lines in the middle of each strip) and have it look ok.  But for now I'm sitting it aside.  I need to measure it and trim it up a bit then decide what fabric to use for the back.  But I have time to get that done.

For the record, the jelly roll race quilt top is easy if you're not being dumb as a rock and get the angled join figured out immediately (it was easy once I got it right, it was just figuring out what I was doing wrong that about made me crazy).  Just make sure to wind a few bobbins before hand.  I went through two full ones (almost three).