First assignment completed!

I managed to complete my first assignment of my online class w/ Lisa Call on time.
Sadly my goal was to try to have it quilted too lol Yup probably a little unrealistic yet one never knows.
If my memory had served me better this week I might have actually had it quilted but instead I spent quite a bit of my sewing time refreshing my memory of how to cut and piece a design from drawing to completed quilt top.
So I will share photos of my process but not written details of the assignment out of respect to Lisa and the hard work that is involved in her prep for (me) & her students.

My chosen sketch

Cutting, marking and then piecing

Make sure to pin when sewing curves

Completed assignment 41 x 34 inches

Now time to clean up my mess and get ready for next week's assignment.

Almost made the June goals... Rest of list will have to wait

I set a tough goal for myself to complete all unfinished projects I had either neglected and put to the bottom of my list while life sometime hit me with unexpected stuff (aka=Sh#%) lol or the list of requested projects from family that had deadlines looming, the goal was set because as I have explained to my family "no requests can be made on me during July, August and Sept while I try to focus on 'ME' and 'MY"art."

I intended to clear my head of 'others desires' and to try to focus on getting my voice back in my art work. I want to focus on Art quilting versus what I refer to as functional quilting, I want to do some drawing, designing and push myself to produce my own art while I get help via an online class that I am fortunate to be a part of via LisaCall.com [Abstraction].

I intend to try to blog a little during my art sabbatical about my class and my creations.

Until then I will share if I can get my IPad blogger program to cooperate some of the many projects I did manage to complete during June even with a two week vacation in MI.

I finally completed Claire and JB's guest bedroom bedspread quilt, made 30 hand dyed silk scarves for wedding shower take home gifts for my nieces shower in June, got the binding on a couple quilts that have sat in the pile for way too long, created wedding invites for nieces upcoming wedding, keeping up with my local quilt bee's projects, and finally got the 5 packages I needed to mail off to the post office $58.00 dollars postage but my reward: a nice clean dining room table :-).

We are headed to Chicago as I type away for another family celebration!

May the sun be shining where ever you are :-) Enjoy!

JB and Claire's guestroom quilt

A few of the 30 hand dyed silk scarves

close up of silk scarves

quilting done on a couple of the quilts completed while in Nancy Crow class long ago

Sister's quilt/one side her son's t-shirts

Other side quilt top completed by our mother

Playing catch-up with maybe too many things at once?

My goals of late have been #1.) Try to get my studio finally organized and set up with lighting for my HQ16 and design boards #2.) get to some of my unfinished projects completed and out of my thoughts so I am free to focus on my upcoming online class via LisaCall.Com.
Sad to admit I might be trying to play catch-up with too many projects at once, because even though I have managed to bind a few quilts, contacted the electrician, have my squares ready to swap with my bee, 2 squares completed for a quilt along I've decided to participate with I just don't feel like I have accomplished much. Oh well, got to keep trudging along and hope not to get distracted or discouraged.

So to keep with my goal to use my stash I am going focus on my blacks/whites and solid red for the Quilt  Along notice the button link on the side panel of my blog.
aiming-for-accuracy-quilt-along

Fabric chosen for first lesson

First block completed

Second block completed
 One block added weekly until Sept.

Fabric from stash that will be used for Bee Project 

One square of strip sewing completed

Each strip square then will become two
Each member of bee will complete two blocks of my quilt top.

Finally quilting the quilt tops I made during my Nancy Crow classes , While working on these old projects I can see how much growth I've made as a quilter, was sad to see how weak my sewing skills were back then, yet glad  to be able to state I have learned so much about my machines and sewing a straight seam. I would love to do a focus on ribbon quilts in the future.

Since this was just a design assignment I decided to try to quilt it on my HQ16 freehand lots of practice needed to accomplish straight lines and continuous quilting, but heck that's what assignments are good for after all. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

One of my NC black and white assignments that a buddy of mine threw in her  indigo dye bath.

Hoping now that I have posted about a few of the things I've been working on I will feel like I have actually stayed on task and have something to show for it. ;-) Ok so back to the list I go…..
Let's get some things checked off, one by one, little by little…..