Plaids

 Over Spring Break I visited the Fabric Carousel.  I didn't plan to buy anything but these plaids were together on the shelf and are just screaming to be a Sparkle Plenty quilt.  I'm looking for one more black plaid and the background of the quilt will be black. 

Big star

This is a project I started in November (I think).  I made a Sparkle Plenty quilt several years ago to hang on the wall behind my Christmas tree (the empty wall looked too desolate!).  Well, last year I washed that quilt with a yard of PFD fabric. Guess what happened?  All of the green fabric bled and permanently stained the muslin.  I tried for weeks to get it out but the quilt was ruined.

So this year I decided to make a new quilt.  I had seen a glimpse of a red, green and gold quilt that looked Christmas-y but not overtly so.  I think I saw it in an add for a Kim Diehl book.  It's all made of HSTs so I figured I could easily make one-plus I could mostly use fabric I already had.  So here you can see my HSTs laid out on my bed.  Last night I sewed the middle of the quilt together.  Looks good!

Last finish of 2012

So here is my finished Sparkle Plenty!  I had planned to finish this before Christmas but at least I finished it this year.  I'm claiming this as my third Thimble in the Craft Olympics.  I've got two other projects I would like to do, even though today is that last day of the challenge.  I still plan to try the needle felting and the punch needle.  Maybe even before I go back to work next week!

it's a top!

Quadrant 3

Finished quad 3 last night.  Only had to rip a couple of seams and I only stopped because I was tired and started making mistakes.  I really hope I can finish this top tonight!  I would love to have it quilted by Monday and finished so I can see it on the wall and see if it measures up to my  imagination.

quad 1 & 2

Halfway there!  I did rip out part of quad 1.  A couple of times actually as I kept sewing it the wrong way. I did much better following my layout on quad 2.  I only ripped out one seam that was really bugging me.

I'm pleased with how it is looking!  I really love this pattern.

Quadrant 1

Stitched this up on my Featherweight (!) last night.  I had to rip it out a couple times and darned if there isn't still a mistake in there!  When I put it away last night I said to myself -it's fine, you can live with it. 

 Well, no I can't.  See there are two places where identical squares are either adjacent or touching.  So tonight I rip it out again and hopefully the material can stand it one more time!