You could say I'm working hard these days to keep being productive on the crafting front. Despite the declaration of my new goal of keeping realistic and manageable goals, somehow I've managed to, how do you say, feel like I've buried myself in 23985 projects. The good part about this, if you'd consider this good, is that I'm finally working on quilts for myself. Proof here.

Behold, the modest beginnings of my Grellow Quilt. Originally intended as a whole cloth quilt to practice free motion, I decided to deviate a little and incorporate a teentsy bit of piecing. But don't get your hopes up yet. These strips are just a test mock up to see if I've got enough fabric to pull it off.

This crazy pile of madness is my Mod Sampler Quilt for the Mod Sampler Quilt-along. I decided to join for the sake of learning something new by following someone else's quilting process and to create something without having to put a lot of thought into it. I must say, though, that even though I'm following a pattern for this quilt, just the fabric picking process alone was enough to drive me batty. The crazy selection of fabrics here was mostly an exercise in stash busting (Let's just tentatively nickname this quilt the "Funky Floral Freak-out"). Eight of the twelve fabrics here are all stash. I caved and purchased four pieces to make the quilt cohesive without looking too schizophrenic. Not sure that I did such a great job on avoiding schizophrenia, but we'll see how this turns out in the end.

Now onto the sneak peaks.. I've been knitting!

More soon.. have a great week!

In a effort to break away from the Grellow Quilt, I do believe in multi-tasking for one's own sanity, I started up on the Mod Sampler Quilt again, aka "Funky Floral Freak-out." I mistakingly started out by sewing up all the easy squares first. So of course, I left myself with the more labor intensive, time consuming piecing.

But I'm happy to report that as of last night, all the pieces are done and I started attaching the sashing. The sashing, oh the sashing. I'm really excited and also anxious to see how this will all come together. One of my first dilemmas when choosing the fabrics for the quilt was how I could get the sashing to tie it all together, especially since the colors are all over the place. I originally intended to do cream or off white, but once I picked that as one of the coordinating colors in the quilt, I felt like I painted myself into a corner. So naturally, instead of figuring it out right then and there, I decided to deal with it once the squares were done (also realizing that I still hadn't chosen the fabrics for the quilt back).

And here I am (or was) at the point where I have to start thinking about the sashing. A couple things came to mind, I either go neutral and do a "burlap-ie" linen, or totally go totally funky and use an outrageous color not present in the quilt yet, red and purple. What do I have to lose by going funky right? So the neutral linen option when out the door fast. At this point, I also decided to use stash fabric for the back, it just so happened to also be a funky floral print (a reject for the top) and a coordinating solid. So off I went to the store with my pieces in hand. I grabbed all the shades of reds and purples from the Kona Cotton section and my heart just sank. Nothing was working. There were a few possibilities, but nothing that came out just right. The purples were either too dark or too cheery and the reds just made it look evil and angry. And who came to the rescue, B of course. He grabbed a light green and it worked out, it totally worked. Now it's not perfect, because one of the color combos doesn't quite fit well, but I'm hoping and praying that in the grand scheme of things it all works out. And the other bonus, it matches the quilt back, too!

Hmmm and of course, I left the store without even thinking about the binding. I'm leaning toward that mustard yellow on the quilt back. Man, my carbon footprint for this quilt is going to be big.

Nothing much to say over here except that I've finished all the piecing for the Mod Sampler Quilt! Behold, a funky front..

and a funky back..

I may or may not sandwich this immediately, depends on how I'm feeling. But in either case, the quilting is off until my blogless quilt-along friend catches up, no pressure or anything ;).