Triangle Quilt Finished!

Merry Christmas everyone (and wow, this is my 100th post)! I didn't have time to post yesterday, but I actually got the gray and yellow triangle quilt finished up in time to give away yesterday afternoon. It was a big hit, and means I finished another December goal! :)

All Pinned and Ready to be Quilted

Here it is all pinned and ready to be quilted. I had to move my living room furniture around in order to get it on a flat, non-carpeted surface. I decided to just do straight line quilting on this one in a diamond pattern. Here's what my timeline looked like:

• Monday, December 17th: cut out all of the pieces after work
• Tuesday, December 18th: divided out the triangles into rows and started sewing the rows together after work
• Wednesday, December 19th: more row sewing after work
• Thursday, December 20th: we had a snow day, so I was able to finish putting all of the rows together!
• Friday, December 21st: started sewing the rows into the top and completed the first 1/2 of the top after work
• Saturday, December 22nd: after practicing for our church Christmas program and finishing up some last minute shopping, I sewed together the rest of the top
• Sunday, December 23rd: ironed the top, sewed up the back (all one gray printed fabric), pinned everything together and quilted the top (that was a looooong night!)
• Monday, December 24th: cut, sewed and ironed the binding before working for a half-day, then came home at 1:00pm and sewed on the binding before heading to my Dad's house for Christmas eve celebrations. I took my needle and thread along and hand stitched on one side of the binding while I was there
• Tuesday, December 25th: finished hand stitching on the binding, threw the quilt in the washer and then the dryer and pulled it out at 1:30 which is when we needed to leave for Christmas at my husband's grandmother's house. No time for wrapping, so I tied it up with a piece of yarn. Gave it away at 6:30pm that night. 

Finished Quilt Laid Out on Our Bed - Queen Size

What a quilting whirlwind!!! Now I don't have anything on my plate that really needs to get done in the next few days. Unfortunately I've come down with a Christmas cold, so I'll spend the next couple of days recuperating and drinking tea. Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that you enter the new year with lots of joy! Happy crafting everyone!!!

A Very Productive Snow Day

Hello everyone! I don't know about where you're at, but we had some crazy weather here in Wisconsin today. I live in Madison and we got about 18 inches of snow today! That's right... eighteen inches!! They even shut down the university - and this is finals week. That just doesn't happen.

This picture is from the morning snow. By the end of the night it reached the top of the arm of the chair! And to think - we didn't have any snow accumulation on our little balcony before today! We're definitely having a white Christmas this year.

So... I was gifted an extra sewing day that I hadn't planned on, and I so desperately needed it! As of last night I had 12 out of 30 strips for the gray and yellow triangle quilt put together.

Today, I finished sewing up all of the strips, ironed them all, and laid them out to see what it will look like. I had to do the layout in 2 groupings since the quilt is so big. :)

So, here's my timeline for the rest of the quilt, and I sure hope I can stick to this!


Friday night after work: sew all of the rows together into the quilt top. Possibly start basting if I'm not completely drained.

Saturday afternoon after church practice: Start/finish basting. Start quilting - I am going to do straight lines mirroring the triangles on probably every other triangle. I have no idea how long that will take with such a large quilt, but it means I won't have to move the fabric as much as when I'm doing a swirly FMQ pattern.

Sunday afternoon after our church Christmas services (and lunch with Mom): Finish quilting everything. Make the binding and sew that onto the front. Trim off excess backing/batting.

Monday afternoon (I have to work until 12pm): start hand stitching the binding onto the back of the quilt. We are celebrating at my dad's house on Monday night and the quilt will be given away on Tuesday night. So, if I need to I can finish it up on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday: Wash, dry, wrap and give it away!

Phew! This looks tiresome, but I hope I can get it done. The end is definitely in sight!!! Happy holidays and happy crafting everybody!

Progress...

Well, the gray and yellow triangle quilt is coming along! It is actually sewing together faster than I thought it would, so I am hopeful that I'll be finished with this by noon on Christmas Day.

I have all of my rows counted out (30 rows of 43 triangles) and have 4 of them sewn together. I've been chain stitching them together in pairs, ironing the pairs open and then stitching the pairs together. It means less pressing than sewing them together one by one and less starting and stopping on the machine.

Divvying up the fabrics into the 30 stacks for the rows took the longest time tonight. I wanted to make sure I had enough to go around rather than just winging it through the piecing. All in all there are 1, 290 triangles that will make it into the quilt - and I have a few left over. That was a lot of cutting! They are 4 inches tall and about 4.5 inches wide at the base.

Here's hoping I have the binding sewn on by Christmas Eve! More progress reports to come... Happy crafting!