WIP Wednesday

I feel like I've gone and overwhelmed myself again. As predicted, I put my goals out there and then get crazy and feel like I "must" complete everything I assigned myself. So when I start working on random projects that strike my fancy I feel bad, as if I'm not accomplishing the correct things. Sewing is my outlet, it's my fun thing, it's not supposed to feel like work!

I do have a couple of projects that I've been working on:

The most recent in my Sugar BOM Club (stitched on a lovely snowy day while listening to She & Him on Pandora... very relaxing!):
 

Center diamonds for the Maple Rag Quilt from Material Obsession. These are the perfect project for those times when I just want to sew and not think about it. I need 128 of them to make the size in the book so I figure it's a good small project to pick up here and there to keep me from getting overwhelmed.
 

The beginning of a Gardening Busy Book page for Goose:

Recovering bolster pillows and making a slip cover for the nursery rocker (no photos, it's not particularly fun to look at!)


But then there's my major distractions...

-I just found Threadbias and have spent an inordinate amount of time there. What a wonderful group of supportive sewists! And of course now I have a million more ideas in the vault.

-Discovering pictoral paper piecing. Of course I've seen it around, but for some reason it just recently sank in and I may have spent a good hour on Flickr this morning oohing and aahing over the talent of these artists. And of course all wouldn't be right in the world unless I jumped in with a ridiculous difficult (and probably impossible) design of my own. Now just to get some quiet time to test some scraps on it.

-Waiting, most impatiently, for some very special fabric that is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I'm going to use it for my project bag and have been trying to plan every detail before it comes so I can cut right in. Of course, I'm just realizing that I'm supposed to be hosting book club here tomorrow so that will seriously cut into my sewing time. Blah!

I've been putting off...

-My cousins' Sunshine Half-hexagon quilt... For some reason I'm wishing I could just jump to the hand-quilting part. I need another dose of spring like weather to tackle that.

-The squirrel embroidery for my woodland quilt. It's all traced on to the fabric and in the hoop, I just can't seem to pick up the thread.

-Lucky stars BOMs. I'm no longer in the groove with the fabrics I started with so it's feeling a little "off". The colors are so rich and jewel like which was totally the mindset I was in at the beginning of the year (in the dead of winter) but now I'm drawn to lighter fabrics as I obsess over nicer weather.

Hopefully next week will show some work on the "Putting offs" just so I keep moving on them!

Sugar Block Club: January BOM

Before I found the Lucky Stars BOM, I joined the Sugar Block Club BOM. I was hesitant at first since it promised lots of pinwheels and I always associate pinwheels with more traditional quilts. But I loved the Flickr photos from the 2013 BOM club and thought I'd give it a try. To avoid the flying geese colorway fiasco I went to one of my favorite color palette design sources, Design Seed, to find inspiration. Looove me some Design Seeds. Nothing does more to start me planning an excessive number of projects than those palettes! 

I went with this one:

Color Celebration by Design Seeds

And naturally had to buy some fabric to support this.... which, on the first weekend of the New Years, made it my second purchase of the year. And I have since put myself on a fabric diet (kind of, sort of).

My current favorite source is Quilt Home. I've window shopped for a couple of months but this was my first purchase and they didn't disappoint!

Fabric (top to bottom): Kaffe Fasset Shot Cotton Latte, Heirloom Dandelion by Joel Dewberry, Midwest Modern Rust by Amy Butler, Kaffe Fasset PWGP140 Gold, Dowry Jade by Anna Maria Horner, Ocean by Kaffe Fassett, Aviary Granite by Joel Dewberry, Aviary Vintage Yellow by Joel Dewberry, Kaffe Fasset PWGPP135 Grey, Kaffe Fasset PWGP129 Brown

 

 I also had a chance to organize all these quilts I'm working on. I knew those gift boxes would come in handy a some point!