WIP Wednesday

Time for another WIP Wednesday post. Once again I will link this up with Lee from Freshly Pieced.

February was a hard month. It was bone chilling cold for so much of the month that, while I didn't actually count, it at least seemed that the children had Green Dot Days about two-thirds of the time if not more. On top of that, there were three short school weeks in a row. First there was a PD Day, then there was the Family Day holiday and then there was Teacher's Convention. Of course with it so cold, the lovelies were stuck inside even during their days off, getting cabin fever, squawking with and at each other, running circles and generally driving everyone nuts. With all that, I didn't get nearly as much quilting done as I would have liked.

On the flip side, we did manage a few fun activities so it wasn't a total loss. Now it's March, the kids have full school weeks until Spring Break at the end of the month and the temperatures suddenly jumped above zero. In about three days we went from -25 to +6 and we are loving it even if it does make for quite the mess as a lot of snow starts to melt.

For my first WIP, I am posting my Storm at Sea quilt. I finally got the borders on it having decided to go with a small border of the same red as the heart and then a larger border of a blue with random white dots. Still not sure about the blue but it is on there and done so I am going with it. I worried that piano keys would just be too busy with the interior. I have a complimentary red for the binding that I am happy with since I had about three inches of the original red after the border was done. I had measured so I knew that I didn't have enough of it to bind with it so I used it up this way.

I got a blue minke with dots for the back but I goofed there too since I bought the yardage with the measurements of the top without the borders so now I have to get the final measurements and lay out the minke and figure out what else I have to get to add to what I have in order to actually have a full back. Math with stretch considerations. *Sigh*

My second WIP is the continuation of all those HSTs. I am piecing 16 HSTs into a patch that finishes at eight inches. I will be sashing them with squares that will finish at two inches. In order to have enough patches to finish two twin quilts I ended up needing 140 patches. I haven't actually counted what I have but my rough count says I have 84 done so if I am right I need 56 more. Some are organized but not yet sewn together and if that rough count is accurate then I have 32 more to organize and there are 24 organized on the tray. We'll see if my count is accurate later.

After I have all the patches sewn together I will sort and organize and figure out how I want the sashing to go. I can't remember if the finish has borders or not. We'll see later.

My third WIP is ME! A couple of weeks ago my husband encouraged me to take my first learn to Longarm course. I learned to panto and quilted a crib sized Yellow Brick Road quilt. I was so happy with the finish and have been slowly hand stitching the binding on. I haven't rushed at it or even focused that hard on it but just enjoying the process. The baby isn't due till May so I'm not worried.

I wrote this post yesterday so that I could get it up early because I am taking my second Longarm course today where I will learn to Freehand with the Longarm. I am so excited! Where I used to think that I must just be a topper, I found that I loved the process of longarming while I never enjoyed the quilting process on my domestic machine.

More than that, my incredible husband has encouraged me to take another course too. Judi Madsen of Green Fairy Quilts is coming here to teach three two-day quilt retreats. I dithered too long to get into the first two but within moments of finding out that she had been convinced to add a third I was on the phone to my Mother-in-Law who is going to drive up and stay to help with the kids so that I can take this course. As soon as I hung up with her I called and got registered into the retreat. SO excited! That will be April 14/15 so I will have to try to remember my camera so I have pictures to post even though I have no doubt that Judi will post about it too.

Hopefully I will remember my camera tomorrow too so that I can post about it. I forgot it last time so I didn't have photo evidence of my first class