4 X 7 Sewing Challenge Final Update

In my earlier post I said I would write about this tomorrow, but I changed my mind. Today is the last day of the 4 X 7 Sewing Challenge and I really want to thank Sarah of Berry Barn Designs for leading this challenge. At the beginning of the month I said I wanted to get at least 30 blocks done and I'm happy to say I completed 84. Wow that is a lot of blocks!!! With the blocks I received from my bee mates, those done in January and those done this month I am up to 147 completed blocks or just a smidgen over 50% done.

This week I did lots of purple and blue blocks, not sure why, but here are some of my favorites. In total I did 30 blocks this week. I've gotten much faster as the month has gone along. I have also cut a lot more backgrounds and even more crosses this week. Here are some of my favorites from this week.

Now I tried to sew, cut or iron at least 30 minutes every day. Some days I did more, but some days I did just the 30 minutes. I will be honest and say I know that two days I didn't do anything.  But overall it was a great experience and I am so glad to be half done. I started a spreadsheet to track my progress, but also to make sure that I didn't get too much of any one color. I was surprised to see that purple wasn't my highest amount, and neither was pink, which are probably my favorite colors. I have done more blue blocks than any color, but that is followed closely by pink then purple.  Here is a graph of how the colors layout.

I don't want a lot of brown/black blocks, but I think I need to add a few more and I really need to beef up my yellow, green, red and orange. So I have a ways to go, but overall I'm in good shape. Some blocks I had to pick a color, but they really could fall into several buckets. I just want to make sure it has a balanced feel.

It was fun to take some time for selfish sewing, but at the same time it was hard for me, because I wanted to work on projects for others as well.  So I think in March I'm going to try and focus on sewing at least 30 minutes a day, just not focusing on do so selfishly. I'm headed over to Sarah's blog to do my last link up for this challenge.  :)

4 X 7 Sewing Challenge Update

I have been a busy beaver this week, ok maybe that is stretching it but I did get things accomplished. I completed my 15 blocks early this week, partially because I spent a little extra time on Monday and Tuesday working on them, and partially because I've gotten into a groove and can do them easier now.

The cross blocks are coming along nicely.  At this point I 109 completed blocks or 37% of the blocks done. And I would guess I've done 45-50 blocks this month, which is really what I wanted to get done. Besides this I got other things done as well. I got the majority of my fat quarters, and large scraps sorted into bins. When I rearranged the sewing room last month I brought in another book case to hold these.

The picture sucks because most of my great work has been done late at night this week.  Besides organizing, I also completed all of my bee blocks for the month. No photos yet, because my rule is I can't show them off until they are in the mail. Which I hope happens on Monday or Tuesday, but that will depend on the weather.

I also completed all of the red blocks and goldfish blocks for Callie and Beau's signature quilt. Well I finished sewing them, I'm still trimming them. I also got started on the pomegranate blocks and am about 1/4 done with them, but have to cut some more white. That will just leave me the coral blocks. So I'm moving along well with those as well.

I'm hoping to get a quilt on to the long arm this week, most likely it will be Sharla's Box Trot quilt and I still have work on memory quilts. Sharla is busy finishing quilts to show me up, but she can only finish the tops, they don't get quilted without me (hehehe). I am hoping to finish Callie's blocks next week, but it will be a real push, but possible.

All in all I'm very happy with what I've accomplished this week. I had a nice mix of selfish sewing and getting projects for others done. I love working on my cross blocks, but once this month is over, I'm definitely going to slow down on them, I want to get other things off my list as well. For today, I'm linking up with Sarah at Berry Barn Designs.

Thankful Thursday #10

Happy Thursday everyone, I hope you are having a wonderful week. I will be honest and say I was hoping for a snow day on Monday or Tuesday. Not that I really wanted snow, I just wanted to sleep late. But unlike a lot of the US, we didn't get any bad weather.

As I sat down to write this post I wondered what I should be thankful for this week. Nothing extraordinary is happening in my life, good or bad. It is the same old stuff. And I realized that is what is wrong with too many of us, we aren't thankful for the little things in our life. We are always thankful for the big things like jobs, homes, cars, food, family and faith.  But if we were as thankful for the little things we would be happier in general.

So I picked five smaller things to be thankful about this week.

1.  Tucker...my dog.  I'm thankful for all three of my dogs, but I'm just a little more thankful for Tucker this week.  Towards the end of last year we had a scare with Tucker and it was a case of being very close to having to say goodbye to him.  But thankfully he got better and is doing better these days. He is old, blind and sometimes can't find his way to the backyard in time, but he is also faithful, loving and makes me smile.  He follows me from room to room and loves that I now work from home 85% of the time.

2.  No leftovers. Now my nephew might disagree that this is a good thing, but it seems like we have been throwing away too many leftover recently. But as of right now we finished all of them in the frig for dinner last night. So I'm thankful there are none because it means none will be thrown away.

3. Tools. Yes I admit I love tools that make things go faster, but sometimes you don't even realize how something so small/simple can really make things go faster. When I'm working on my cross blocks I always chain piece, and I had read about a little tool that lets you cut your chain piecing apart quickly. I found a version of it at my LQS and thought I would try it. I will admit I really do love it. It makes cutting the blocks apart very quick and easy. Can I do it with scissors or snips, yes, but this let me cut them, and stack them because both hands are free. There are a couple of different versions out on the market, and I've even seen some homemade versions. But what I really like about this one is that it is small (about 2 1/4 x 2), so it doesn't take up much space beside my machine.

4. Morning Coffee. I don't drink a lot of coffee, but I normally have a large coffee in the morning. Most of the time it is an iced coffee because I sip it while driving and not burn my tongue. I look forward to my morning coffee, and am thankful to have it everyday. I know that on the days I don't have one, I'm much grumpier. And every now and then an afternoon frappuccino doesn't hurt either. Hmmmm maybe I will need one of these today.

5.  Selfish Sewing. I've been trying to sew for at least 30 minutes a day as part of the #4X7SewingChallenge and have really liked the results. I decided to focus on my cross blocks for the month. I have already finished 15 for this week, so I will spend some time cutting more blocks and then some time organizing the sewing room. But it is nice getting things done just because I dedicate a small amount of time each day.

None of the items above are major life changing things, but I'm thankful for them because they bring joy to my life in one form or another. I'm linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl.

4 X 7 Sewing Challenge Update

If you follow me on Instagram you know that I had some success and some failure this week on my sewing challenge.  I did sew/prep at least 30 minutes every day on my cross blocks. I had planned on kicking off my sewing on Sunday during the Superbowl, but ended up cutting fabric, which was a great help for the week, because I pretty much had enough to keep me busy. Then the rest of the week I worked on sewing and ironing. First I completed the 20 from January that I started and then I went to work on a new batch of a little more than 20.

All went well until yesterday, when I had hoped to finish last weeks batch.  But alas I sewed the wrong side of the rows together in 2/3 of the blocks, which meant ripping and sewing again.  I did that last night and got the blocks sewn but not ironed.  This morning I ironed them and completed 25 blocks. Here are a few of the completed blocks.

This morning I counted and I have 80 blocks, which includes bee blocks I've received so far from the Compass Quilters, the 20ish for January, the sample blocks I made and the 26 I did this week.  That means I'm just over 25% done....yeah.  I also cut out more blocks this week at different times when I had a spare moment or two.  So I'm hoping to get another 25 blocks done this week, although I think I'm going to have to find a different container to hold my completed blocks.

I got the lid on, but just barely.  I also did a count of how many of each color I have.  I want the colors to be some what balanced. Not exactly the same number in every color but not 100 pink and 15 of each other color.  I am already seeing a trend...with 20 pink, 13 purple, 12 blue, 9 yellow, 7 green, 7 red, 7 brown/black and 5 orange. But I'm not concerned because most of the blocks I did last week were using scraps from my Looking Glass quilt which was pink and corals. I do need to get some more orange into the mix.

I'm excited about next weeks blocks because I got my Tula Pink Moonshine bundle and started cutting it.  I love those fabrics so much that I just had to add some to this quilt. Right now I count scraps from 11 quilts that are going into this quilt and there could be more before I'm done.

I am linking up with Sarah at Berry Barn Designs Week 1.  It is not too late to join in and do some selfish sewing this month.