Swooning Along

     I've made some progress on my Swoon Quilt and I'm really happy that I picked this project for my December finish.

     You can see that I've got the short sashing done between the blocks and one long sashing strip attached to the bottom of the top row.  This of course was the easy part.  Now I have to mark the seams on the back of the sashing to match them up with row two.  I'm waiting till I have time during the day later in the week for this.  I don't like having to think too hard when I sew in the evenings.  I was reading an article about the Pantone colour for 2015 and the article mentioned the colours for the last three years.  You can see by the tangerine in my blocks that I started this quilt in 2012.

     For evening sewing I've got this little project.  My larger traditional guild is having a show this Spring, and the small Modern Group which is a part of this guild is putting in a collection.  We are each making a "modern"  mini or wall hanging .  To have the collection fit together we decided to have everyone use a grey solid somewhere in their quilt.  I've been playing around with these improv pentagon blocks.

        I got the idea from a pillow top Susan posted on the Canadian Abroad blog.  Then I found the general directions in 15 minutes of play by Victoria Findley Wolfe. The blocks measure up at 6 1/2 inches and I've only got the two done so far. Not sure if I'll use them both in the quilt but I'm having lots of fun playing with my grey scraps!  I'm linking up with Lets Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, to W.I.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, and one day late to Scraptastic Tuesday at She Can Quilt where Leanne is working on similar blocks.

Seeing hers I can see how I can make mine better.  I think mine are a bit too square.

Giant Chevron Free Motion Quilt Along Progress

     I've fallen hopelessly behind in the Giant Chevron FMQ Along over with Jess at Elven Garden Qults but  she's holding the final link up party at the end of January so I'm thinking positive thoughts about my abilities to catch up and finish the quilt by then..  Here's my attempt at the second pattern.  I'm not sure how well you can see this.

     I found the straight lines of the maze quilting difficult to do....but that's why I joined the quilt along in the first place...to encourage myself to try these kind of patterns.   

     When I got to the edge of my quilt sewing this pattern ,I discovered a mistake I made in the first row.   I managed to fold the edge of the backing underneath the quilt and sew it down with my quilting.  Yikes!  So now I get to unpick a lot of quilting and practise fixing it.

December Goal for a Year of Lovely Finishes

     I had great success with November's goal so I decided to go big in December and list finishing my Swoon Quilt as my goal.  It is the oldest unfinished project on my current list (definitely not my oldest unfinished project).  This may be crazy, given how busy December can be but I might squeeze in some sewing time just to keep myself sane.

     Here are two of the blocks.  All of the blocks have been finished for probably close to a year so I think it's time I figure out how to do the sashing.  I always balk when I have to learn something new.

     I'm looking forward to having this one done .  Done is better than perfect!

     I'm joining the goal setting party at  fibre of all sorts and as it's December 1st and I'm remembering it I'll link up at the small blog meet at lilysquilts.