Wrapping up Q1

The first quarter of 2016 is behind us, and it was a productive few months here. I had nine specific goals for the 2016 Finish-Along, and I worked through six of them (so so close on the seventh!). 

1. Junk drawer challenge (Poseidon) -- DONE
2. Hexagon suns quilt -- DONE (but not blogged yet -- I'll take some photos and do that tomorrow)
3. Best. Day. Ever. herringbone quilt -- nope. I'll probably finish the quilting tomorrow, and the binding is all ready to attach, so I'll just slide this one into the Q2 goal list.
4. Triangle Tiles pattern finalization -- nope. But I'll be teaching this as a class in July at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts in July, so that will be done in Q2 as well.
5. Allure hexagon placemats -- DONE
6. Skinny Mini quilt swap -- DONE, although I never received one from whoever my partner was. Sad face emoji. I posted a photo on Instagram, but I can't seem to get the link to work from the laptop and my iPad screen shattered today. Weeping face emoji. How sad is that -- I have to type out my emotions instead of using the handy options that the good people at Apple (apple fruit emoji) have pre-coded for me.
7. Zombie shirt for my 12-year-old -- nope, he asked me to wait until the weather warmed up so it would be the right size for him to wear all summer. I like his optimism that he could grow through an entire (oversized) size in three months. The zombie fabric still awaits my attention. Zombie emoji.
8. Two beer shirts for my extra-tall and hard-to-fit brother-in-law -- DONE, although I didn't blog them earlier because he wants to keep them secret until his big festival sometime this month. I won't tag him or put the photos on instagram with a million beer hashtags until I get the go-ahead, but I suppose his tribe isn't creeping my blog too often. Winky face emoji. I think (I hope) I finally have the pattern sized correctly for him, which means before too many more holidays he will have a closet full of custom barbecue shirts of the zaniest fabrics on the market. My husband has over twenty of these, I think -- I'll have to compile a photo collage sometime because his closet is an absolute hoot. Photos of the new beer shirts are below.
9. Rocky Horror challenge quilt -- DONE. Thanks to my Loyal Readers I got over 100 votes!

Shirt #1

For scale, this guy is 5'6" now.

Shirt #2, a little extra length in the sleeves. I think I got the pattern right this time.

Color book

I just found some photos on my boy's computer, accidentally downloaded there from my camera card. These are from a little color book I made for a sweet little girl's birthday. The pattern was in the 101 Patchwork Projects magazine that I've gotten a whole lot of mileage from. For such a simple concept though, this project made a grand mess, since I needed to get out every. single. color. bin of fabric in my closet.

I started with a strip of gray gridlines from my Best. Day. Ever! jelly roll to cross stitch a simple title. I didn't want to use a lot of words, though, so this was the only one.

Colors birthday book

I didn't have any trouble with the first few pages:

Colors birthday book: PINK

Orange is particularly a snap for me:

Colors birthday book: RED and ORANGE

This is my favorite 2-page spread, so citrusy and cheerful:

Colors birthday book: YELLOW and GREEN 

I had to really dig for these ones. I have a lot of blue fabrics, because I never use them, and they just don't all seem to go together. (I think it's time for a major purge of this bin.) Tardis courtesy of my husband's shirt scraps (a Spoonflower splurge); swan courtesy of my mom's birthday purse scraps.

Colors birthday book: AQUA and BLUE 

The purples are fun; I tend to use these up as soon as I find them, but I have lots of little treasured scraps around. I especially love the chair!

Colors birthday book: PURPLE

Shirts everywhere

This week's sewing has been a whirlwind of making favor bags for my boy's tenth birthday party (including multisided geek dice, candy, and a dime, because he's ten..."dime bags"...get it?), as well as his quirky birthday shirt, which has apparently become a tradition in this house:

Pink Panther barbecue shirt

In the spare moments, I finished all the pieces for the t-shirt quilt. Now I'm left to choose from a fairly evenly-spaced layout...

Blur One...

...or a more composed central star arrangement:

...or Blur Two?

Perhaps I'll let the quilt's owner decide. Either way, I'll get the pieces sewn together tomorrow so I can baste next weekend and start the quilting.

Last-minute birthday prep

Tomorrow is the big day for Mr. Nearly-Nine!! His pumpkin cake with bacon bits is cooling in the kitchen and his stack of Lego-centric gifts are waiting on the table. (I'm sure he'll be up in five hours, too excited to get back to sleep.) In addition to his gearhead shirt, here's a little sketchbook that I covered for his steampunk artwork, using the Urban Threads dirigible embroidery that I stitched out a while back. I can't wait to see what he fills this up with!!

Bacon...Lego...steampunk...let the day of Joyful Geekery begin!!