Wednesday, April 4, 2012

W.I.P. Wednesday: A Week of Firsts

So this week I've put my daring pants on and have jumped into a few new things:

Firstly, Rebecca at Sew Festive Handmade has been trying to convince me of the fun-ness of swaps...I am a bit hesitant to join one, so I've been picking her brain on these, asking her all kinds of crazy questions to try to make up my mind.  Well, she is super, and not only answered all my questions, but also offered to do a mini swap with just to two of us so I could get a feel for swapping! With a bit of trepidation, I agreed, and made my first inspiration mosaic. I am going to make her a pouch, and she is going to make me a mini. I've already started playing with a few ideas, one is a new-to-me technique and I am really digging it so far but it needs some adjustments before I settle on it. I cannot preview it since I don't want to ruin the surprise for her, but I think it's going to turn out pretty fun!

I was going to see how our mini-swap went before joining a regular swap, but then I saw this: Modern She Made Swap.  I told my self I better not, since I have a few projects on the horizon that I'd actually like to get done, but then decided to just jump in...because by the time I finish all this other stuff, I probably will be about to pop and will not want to join one then.  So now's as good a time as any....right?! I'm still a little nervous, but hopefully it will be fun and I will not totally suck at it. If you are interested, I believe there is still space!

Ok, so on to the actual sewing...I've been talking about my Retro Flowers quilt for a while now (which is my FIRST quilt!), and wouldn't you know it, Bianca at Sweet Diesel Designs and Megan of City Stitches went and decided to start a Quilt-A-Long for Retro Flowers! This was obviously a sign, so I've joined in on that too...my first QAL!! I've gotten started with just my first block this week to see how I could manage the curves.  Turns out, not too shabby!

First Block

Oopsie....

I did mess this one up a little...apparently I cut wrong when squaring so this did not line up. I do not know why I still pieced the two halves together, because now that's just even more seam ripping for me if I want to fix it...ugh.  Oh well, happy to say the rest went fairly well and I'm ready to move forward with the rest of them. I'm only doing 9 blocks, so hopefully it won't take me too long...

Chain piecing curves
Check this out, I'm even chain piecing the curves like a pro!! Haha

I've also started on my FIRST baby quilt!! I bought a bunch of fabric with no real plan in mind to make just a small quilt that can be used to play with on the floor or cuddle with in the rocking chair...my friend Sarah at Habibti At Home has also just made her baby it's first quilt, and I was really inspired by it and knew I wanted to do something fun and simple like she did.  I almost flat out stole her design, but settled on something a little different.  I've got two layouts I need to choose from:

Layout A\
Layout A

Layout B
Layout B

Yeah I know, not much difference...Layout A would have sashing in between each of the 6 inch blocks, while Layout B would have sashing only at the ends of the rows of 6 inch blocks.  I was not planning on any sashing on those rows originally, but due to some measuring errors I'm having to adjust a bit (the long strip of the owls should have been cut to be 42" long, but I cut in the wrong direction and they wound be being about 34"...ugh). I think I'm leaning towards B just to keep it simple...thoughts or other ideas??? Another thought I had was to just add in the 6th 6 inch block on each row as originally planned, and it will just be cut off a bit...hm. 

Anyway, I'm really excited about all these firsts! I'm just hoping I can stick with it all and get everything done. So what have you all got going on this week? Anyone else joining this swap or QAL??

Today I'm linking up with W.I.P Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

6 comments:

  1. Yay! Swaps! Yay! Peer pressure ;)
    And you did great on your Retro Flowers blocks. I think that the print is so busy and big, and with the little bits of cream, that you don't even notice the little parts where it might not match up. I certainly didn't until the zoomed in picture.
    I'm hoping to post some sneaky-peeks for you soon, because that helps rev up the excitement :)

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  2. Your Retro Flower looks great! I'm in the QAL too but I'm on spring break so I haven't started yet! www.paperstarfish.prettyposies.com

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    1. Awesome! Can't wait to see how yours goes, enjoy your spring break!! (Totally jealous that you are on one, BTW...)

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  3. Woohoo for retro flowers! It's looking good girl...this first block will be the hardest. :) Can't wait to see the other blocks. You did a nice job. About your baby quilt...I'd totally keep it simple and do layout B...

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  4. YAY!!! I am trying to catch up on my blog reading today, and when I started reading about how you didn't want to join any swaps I was going to RUSH over and tell you to join the Modern She Made Swap! BUT you already did!! Wahoo!! :) I just added you as a contact on flickr too! So now we can enjoy it together. :) Swaps are always better with friends. :) (can you tell I'm excited?! haha)

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