From A - The Gentle Art of GSD

I managed to finish my very long bike ride. It took almost 11 hours of riding over 2 days to get it done. The bad news was that at the end of day 1, I looked like this:

This didn't bode well for day 2. Although it was a bit of a rough start, the good news was that at the finish line I was able to pull it together enough to look like this:

It was such a fantastic and inspiring weekend. The ride was difficult and we really had to push ourselves to make it across that finish line. The rain held off and we were amazed at the kindness of the other participants and volunteers. We heard so many amazing and touching stories that I spent more than a few of the minutes on my bike in tears over the weekend.

For me, finishing one big goal usually generates enough momentum that I am able to finish another. This means that finishing usually begets more finishing. I have always called this interesting quirk the art of getting sh*#/stuff done or GSD.

In this case, the high of finishing my ride was somehow enough to spur me into heading to the storage locker across town where much of my fabric is being stored until the end of "the move" and digging out my long unfinished Smitten quilt.

I spent an afternoon squaring up the top and making a backing before boxing it up and sending it out to be quilted by a long arm quilter. Here's a little preview before it left.

It's the first quilt that I've sent to be quilted and I am pumped. This bad boy has been dragging towards finished for long enough that I am more than happy to pass the torch. Rarely has a trip to the post office been so satisfying.

Up next: that baby bonnet.

From A - That Last 20%

I've spent more time than I'd like to admit this past week thinking about the ol' 80/20 Rule. Basically the idea that 80% of your outcome requires 20% of your effort and that 80% of your effort is required to get that last 20%.

This theory has been once again been proven true when it comes to my Smitten quilt. I finally got the blocks pieced together last weekend. That took only part of Saturday. For sure I was going to have a finished quilt top by the end of the weekend. FOR SURE. Then I cut and attached the first border from the background fabric. When that was finished I cut a yellow border and sewed that on and then came the green border.

You can see from the top photo that attaching the green border is stalled at the halfway point. I have attached the long sides but now need to finish up the top and bottom. The end seems so close but so far.

Once I pull myself together to finish the green border, I am then faced with the red border. After that I have to make a backing, baste and quilt this bad boy. Totally an 80/20 situation. So close but it is going to take a lot more effort to get there. Sew on.

From A - Nearly Wordless Weekend

I spent the Saturday finishing up my Smitten blocks.

I spent most of today, laying them out on the floor and moving them around while playing with different layouts.

 

I'm still not 100% happy with the layout shown in these photos but I think I'm getting close. I'm hoping to settle on something later this afternoon so I can start sewing them all together.

From A - Nine Blocks a-Finished

Although it was yet another crazy weekend, I managed to find a few minutes to make some more progress on my Smitten quilt between Christmas shopping, Christmas eating and general pre-holiday to-do list type stuff.

I have started sewing my finished blocks together into units. I'm putting the units together one colour at a time to try and keep things organized and to ensure that I don't end up with units that have duplicate fabrics.

So far I've made it through all of the yellow and red units (also, I'm seriously loving the little people in canoes on that red block). To celebrate, I set up a makeshift design wall in order to get a senses of how the units will come together in the quilt top.

Not a ton of variety in there yet but I did start working on the teal blocks yesterday so it will start to look like a real quilt soon.

Back to the ironing board!

From A - Dust It Off

 

You may remember the Smitten quilt challenge that Kelsey and I were working on in October. Although Kelsey finished hers on schedule like a champ, I somehow lost my steam. You may recall that at my last update, I was working on blocks and block configurations. Funny thing is that after that post, I never really picked it up again and this project has been languishing.

Good news is that I finally seemed to have gotten a second wind and last night while working my way through my usual line-up of holiday viewing (Love Actually, Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street - amongst others).

Finally all of my blocks are finished. There are 5 main colours in my charm pack and I am grouping blocks one colour at a time. Last night I grouped them all by print and colour, moving blocks around between colour groups until each colour had a number divisible by four.

Hopefully by next week I'll have all of these sewn together and I'll be working on layout for my quilt top.

I'm glad to finally have some momentum back on this quilt!

From K - Finished: Smitten for each other

Today marks the final days of the Great Canadian Quilt Off 'eh! and I'm thrilled to finally show you my final product.

Week 1: Cut your fabric and start working on blocks

Week 2: Finish making blocks

Week 3: Attach borders and finish quilt top

Week 4: Baste and quilt

This quilt was so much fun to sew up, and I really like how it shows off the fabulous Cuzco prints. In total I made 20 stars (4 columns of 5 rows). In the end I'm really glad I followed Amanda's lead and added a fifth row, as I think this final quilt size will make for lots of couch time.

For the backing I chose a fun numerical text from Ikea that didn't fight with the top for attention. I especially love the timeless nature of this print, I mean when has numbered text ever gone out of style?

Choosing a binding for quilt was tougher than I had expected it to be. I knew I wanted a colored pattern but I couldn't decide immediately on which one. Once the quilt top was finished, I figured a tone on tone blue would do the trick. Here I've used a print from Tea Decadence by Mary Engelbreit.

Final Quilt Details:
- Quilt Name: Smitten for Each Other
- Finished Size: 56" x 70"
- Fabric: Cuzco by Kate Spain; Kona White; Britten Nummer from Ikea, Tea Decadence by Mary Engelbreit.
- Pattern: Smitten by Cluck Cluck Sew
- Quilting: various

Last week during my trip back home to Manitoba, I attended a good friend's wedding. As part of their wedding gift, I gave the couple this quilt and marked it with a custom label. I couldn't imagine this quilt going to a better home, and I hope they get years of enjoyment from it. 

From A - More and More Smitten

I've been working away on my Smitten blocks and think that there is a small chance I might actually get them finished this week, right on schedule.

Given the almost equal balance between light and dark prints in each colour of my fabric, I decided to aim to keep the dark and lights prints across/kitty corner from their counterparts.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what blocks I am going to group together but here's a preview of some of the configurations I like. I'll finalize these once I get my last few blocks finished up.

From A - GCQO Kick Off

It's October 1st which means that it is officially time to kick off the Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh!

To celebrate, Kelsey and I worked on redesigning the blog last weekend and even had our picture taken together since we were -gasp- in the same city at the same time! After having a lovely weekend together sewing, eating junk food and watching movies, we are both pumped and ready to get moving on our Smitten quilts.

Here's the schedule that we are working from in order to (hopefully) get our Smitten quilts finished before the snow flies

Week 1: Cut your fabric and start working on blocks

Week 2: Finish making blocks

Week 3: Attach borders and finish quilt top

Week 4: Baste and quilt

This week is all about cutting our fabric and starting to put those blocks together.

I'm planning to make my Smitten from Cosmo Cricket's Salt Air. I chose this line because most of the prints are pretty colourful (ie. not overly white) and the collection is centred around 4 main colours (red, blue, green, and yellow) which I'm hoping will mean that deciding on a block layout will be easy. I also just love the fabric and the soft weathered colours.

While I was planning this quilt, I decided that I wanted something a little bit bigger than the 64" x 64" finished quilt that this pattern makes. I also decided that I wanted to use up as many charm squares as I could AND that I wanted a rectangular quilt instead of a square one.

I will be adding another row of blocks so that the quilt has 5 rows of blocks instead of 4. I also decided to widen the borders a bit to better show off the three border fabrics I'd chosen (see the red, green and yellow prints in the top photo). With the help of some quilty math, I settled on a finished quilt size of 72" x 87". If you're interested in making the same modifications to your quilt, you'll need 3 yards of background fabric, 3/4 yards of the two inner border fabrics and 1.5 yards of the outer border/binding fabric in addition to the 3 charms packs called for in the pattern.

I've managed to cut out all of my charm squares and need to now get started on cutting the background fabric.

I've got a mug of hot cocoa and a fresh blade on my rotary cutter. Wish me luck!