July Goal!

Finally, I feel like I can join "A Lovely Year of Finishes" with Melissa and Shanna! I have four table runners/toppers that I started in June, but I really need to finish them by July 20 (or maybe a few days afterwards!). 

My usual wedding present for friends/family is a patchwork Christmas Tree Skirt - the pictures above show a few that I've made, including the one I made for myself (it's so fun to see the skirts in use!). This tradition started because it has always been Mom's go-to-gift. Plus, most of my friends don't have a lot of holiday decorations to start their new life with, so a tree skirt helps them get started in that department!

Well, the friend who is getting married on this month knows how to sew (I helped re-introduce her to this amazing hobby last year), and I think she would have more fun making her own tree skirt. Thus, she gets table toppers/runners instead (still holiday inspired, of course!).

I pulled fabric and I started planning. You can see my scratchings above. Grizz's engineering paper is perfect for quilt planning - it's just glorified graph paper, but it makes me feel official :) The plans originally included embroidered borders, but having never embroidered words before, I decided that trying one new thing (hand-quilting) was enough for this project's deadline!

I kept my fabric choices limited to my stash. Other than the Christmas Fabric (Dear Mr. Claus by Moda), all fabrics are either JoAnns or thrift store purchases. Thankfully I kept some holiday fabrics when I sent most of my stash home with my parents when they visited after Peanut was born. Why did I send fabric home? We have tentative plans of moving back to SD this fall!! Whoop whoop! 

Anyways, enough chatter... the details:

St. Patrick's Day.
Reverse Applique (first time skill!).
Hand Quilted with Embroidery Floss.
Left to do? Binding.

Easter/Spring.
Easy Patchwork.
Hand-quilting started with DMC Floss.
Overcame some early cutting/measuring difficulties.
Left to do? Finish quilting and attach binding.

Fourth Of July
Wonky Star (first time try!).
Left to do? Take out the safety pins and re-baste it... I experimented and tried to pin-baste it without taping down the back fabric - yikes! Since then, Grizz has bought me more masking tape and I can try again! I'm still deciding if I want to hand-quilt this one or machine quilt it... I also need to cut the scrappy binding and attach it!

Christmas.
Neighbor (Bride-to-Be) loved this fabric, so I cut into my fat-quarter bundle just for her :)
Machine-Appliqued the Santa and gift tags.
Left to Do? Baste, Quilt (Embroidery Floss) and Bind.



So, I have a lot left to do, but I have three weeks of nap time and daddy-time-with-Peanut to do it! Wish me luck :)

Also linking up with Fabric Tuesday and WIP Wednesday...