Duck, Duck, Goose and Finished Heartstrings

Yee, gads!  I was amazed to see that it has been three weeks since I posted.  We were in Disneyland and Legoland from Thursday May 3rd through Tuesday May 8th so I guess my excuses for the Wednesday before and the Wednesday after is packing for and recovering from the trip. Disneyland and Legoland were fun.  It was particularly rewarding to see my son get into the Duplo building.  He is a special needs adult who turns 26 this month and this was his birthday trip.

Immediately after returning, I placed the binding on the heartstrings quilt for my grand-niece and mailed it off.  Again Mary Ann did an awesome job with the quilting of it- my photos do not do her quilting skills justice.  Be sure to check out her blog for some other photos.  She put in extra effort to get it to me soon so I could bind it for the baby due May 6th so "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mary Ann".  Carmen  thanks you, too. You can see it in her wee smile here, just one day old. 

I love the curliques in the swirly pink fabric and the loopy hearts within the peeled back hearts.

I did get to do some sewing on Mothers' Day.  I have had the fabric in a kit for a strip quilt that I bought 2-3 years ago in Oklahoma.  Here are the fabrics.

The strips were pre-cut in the kit and all I needed to do was decide on a pleasing arrangement and sew them together, which I have did in less than two hours- the sewing part, that is.  The "arranging in a pleasing order" took a few days of trial and indecision and gazing upon my design wall before committing.  I have found a great use for my iPad.  I snap a picture on the design wall and then display the iPad in its stand on my sewing machine counter top surface to remind of the order, lest a hefty breeze whisk my hard thought-out option off the design wall.  I plan to quilt this one myself and am considering a different stitching pattern for each strip. Maybe I will use a diamond shaped grid on the orange fabric with the egg yolks, maybe a square grid on the blue dotted fabric.  I think I will just put some squiggles quasi-echoing the blue background ducks and geese, both the big and small versions.  Perhaps the yellow Duck, Duck, Goose will just be channel quilted horizontally and perhaps some stippling on the white close-packed ducks fabric.  I hope all this is not too ambitious for me since I am just beginning to free motion quilt. The binding will be a mini-stripe of white, yellow, blue and orange and the backing will be a  white/orange small (but not mini) print.  I have no pix of those yet but will show them with the assembled quilt in a later post.

Completed projects:

1. Pink/lilac/green heartstrings baby quilt - bound, signed and mailed
2. Second IKEA cabinet assembled and ready to be loaded with fat quarters

Ongoing projects:

1. Duck, duck, goose, strip pieced
2. Doll quilt - with free-motion quilter
3. Chicken quilt -  spray baste 505 purchased online from Amazon arrived, will try myself to do free-motion quilting on this quilt

No progress (but re-listed here so I do not forget and leave buried in closet):

• Hexagon Mask Quilt - layout begun but overwhelming
• Fire and Ice Quilt- sitting in closet awaiting decision on backing
• Grinch Quilt - ripening on the design wall
• Pumpkin/Iris/Blossom square wall hanging- needs backing and binding

I want to start:

• Bug baby quilt- more on this later
• Presents with Bows quilt kit
• The Ghastlies- strip quilt

This week's stats:

     Completed  projects - 2 

     New projects - 1 

     Currently in progress - 3