And another!

Still feeling determined to use up the dreaded roll o' fabric, I jumped into another project last weekend. Today I have another completed top:

This is another design from Skip the Borders by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. It is called "Boxed In." Putting it together took me a little longer than I expected (I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that sewing 384 little squares together would not take time... but it didn't. Ha!), but it was worth it. I'm really pleased with the result. Just look at how crazy bright and happy it is!!! It still needs to be trimmed to square-off the edges, but I plan to do that after quilting it.

I've got to say, I am really diggin' Ms. Herman's book! There are so many appealing designs with very clear, easy-to-follow instructions. There is actually another design in there that I've already pulled fabrics from the stash to make-- but that one will have to wait a bit. I'm still feeling the drive to use up this roll. I have a plan in mind and a fresh pile of fabric to make it happen:

I picked up these lovely Kona solids from Pink Chalk Fabrics last week. So happy!!!

Weekend warrior!

I'm not sure what got into me, but last weekend was an epic quilty extravaganza! After finally getting around to completing my True Blue top (woo! but I don't have a picture of the top yet... hopefully soon!), I was feeling the need to start something new.

Knowing I wanted to start something fresh and small (i.e., something I can finish in a relatively quick manner), I wandered aimlessly through my stash of patterns and fabrics. Then I stumbled across a roll o' fabric. I acquired the roll in 2009 from a Project Linus work party. There were actually two rolls, and my friend Evelyn threw down the gauntlet and issued a challenge: whoever can get through the roll first wins! I have no idea how much fabric is actually on this roll-- only that it is one, very long, continuous cut, approximately 5.5" wide from selvedge to cut edge. Shortly thereafter, I finished up three quilts (one, two, three) using the fabric and it felt like I hadn't even put a dent in the roll. The roll has been sitting on my floor (buried and out of sight) since that time.

So I spot this roll just sitting there on my floor and inspiration strikes. I immediately started pulling fabrics from my stash and put together this first top:

The design is from the book Simple Quilts from Me and My Sister Designs: Easy as 1, 2, 3 by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me and My Sister Designs. This is the "Easy as 10" design. It only took a few hours to cut it out and put it all together.

Feeling motivated at this point, I decided to make another. I took a few more brights out of my stash (27 in all) and made another:

This design, "Floating Triangles," is from Skip the Borders: Easy Patterns for Modern Quilts by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. It was definitely more involved than the first top, but overall, it too went together pretty quickly. In making the half-square triangles for this design, there was lots of trimming. So I decided to sew the trimmed corners together resulting in a pile of smaller (2.5") half-square triangles.

Now that I had this pile of 2.5" half-square triangles, clearly I needed to do something with them. So this time I created my own design to use them up:

And by the end of the weekend, I had finished up this top as well.

And check out the giant roll o' fabric now:

Woo! It finally looks like I'm making a dent!

Three tops! And I'm still feelin' the itch to make that roll disappear. I wonder how many more projects it's going to take?