Plan C finished! Renamed Plan Copenhagen

Plan Copenhagen
71.5 x 71.5 inches

Finished June 2011

I started this quilt in July 2010. The fabric had been a Christmas Gift from Santa in my stocking, but it took a few months until I figured out what I wanted to make with it. This quilt is made from a pattern in the Schnibbles book by Carrie Nelson. Love that book! The pattern went together fairly quickly. I loved the way the stars started to pop out, even before the white was added.

Here you can see the quilt beginning to come together -- this is only one or two days worth of sewing.

After piecing together the top, I took a break for a few weeks. That always seems to happen to me -- borders must get me down! But, in mid-August, I finally pieced together the piano key border and the top was finished.

It was so large, my living room floor wasn't quite big enough to get a clear picture. The quilt sat in my storage room for months! I couldn't figure out how I wanted to quilt it, so I just left it alone. Then, I had grand ideas that I would finish all my quilts that are just sitting waiting to be quilted while I recovered from foot surgery. That didn't happen! They're still downstairs waiting to be quilted.

But, in May my husband was asked to go to Denmark to take a class. A wonderful family offered up their home as a place for my husband and his colleagues to stay for a month while they took their class. I am amazed at their generosity! This quilt came to mind -- to me it just says 'Denmark'. That's also why I changed it's name to Plan Copenhagen -- just seemed to fit. :)

So, I finally had a reason to push myself to finish it. I quilted it in the first two weeks of June and it was ready to fly to Copenhagen.

I stippled it with really tiny flowers and leaves. I have to admit, the quilting was not exactly as I like it. I did it really tight together, which makes it difficult to see the design. Oh well. Live and learn.

The quilt flew in my suitcase to Denmark and now resides in this adorable little house outside of Copenhagen:

This is a picture of the summer guest house out back. We actually stayed in the basement of the big house, but the guest house just looks so Danish I had to include it here. :)

Thanks Annie & Jens -- we had an absolutely lovely time! We loved every minute in your home and in your country. Thank you for being so kind to share it with us. Hopefully this quilt will help you to remember over time how much we truly loved it! Thanks!

Christmas projects finished!

All the Christmas gifts are in the mail. This was my final gift project. After it has been delivered, I'll show the entire quilt. I'm pretty jazzed about this one -- I made up the pattern and finished it all in about 6 weeks. Compared to some people, that's a quilter's lifetime. For me, that's pretty speedy!

Now I'm off to make my kids Christmas pajamas! Yahoo! It's almost here!

Quilt-A-Long Number Two

Since I'm getting back in the sewing grove, I thought I'd try another quilt-a-long at the same time as the nine-patch. I'm using up stash fabric and it feels wonderful! I'm shocked at how much fabric I have. I thought I knew what was there, but more and more keeps appearing!

I haven't bought a single piece of fabric for the two quilt-a-longs, it was all in bins in my 'dirty room.' I'm so proud of myself restraint!

I'm a week behind in this quilt-a-long, but I'm catching up quickly. I finally chose all my fabrics. Now I need to cut the 2.5 inch strips and sew them together. Many of my fabrics are fat quarters, but I think I'll make long strips out of them so that it works better for piecing.

My Squares

I've been slowly working on the quilt-a-long to make my nine patch squares. We're supposed to have about 40, I only have 8. But, I've got fabric cut to make about 50 more, so the rest should fly when I get a chance to sew them among all my other projects. At first I was really hesitant about the many colors included in the quilt, the more I sew the blocks together, the more I like it.

Nine-Patch quilt-a-long

So, I joined a quilt-a-long to make a beautiful nine-patch scrappy quilt. I love the idea. I have tons of fabric scraps. Yet, I found I couldn't motivate myself to get started. It was going to take a quilting therapist to figure out what the road-block was.

My therapist(a bowl of ice cream) and I sat down to talk. Together we figured it out. It was the scraps. I'm held back by the scraps. I love going to the store to pick out and match fabric. I love an organized, color-coordinated quilt. The adage to pick one or two fabrics that 'pop' isn't really my style. This quilt is really pushing me out of my comfort zone --- the colors don't match!!!! I recognize that's the beautiful thing about this quilt. But it's still a really large mental hurdle for me to conquer.

But, I decided that was exactly why I needed to buckle down and get going -- I'm about 20 squares behind right now. So, last night I went through my scraps and ironed them to see what was going to work for the 2.5" starting squares I need. Today I started cutting squares and 2.5" strips from the fabric. Before you know it, I'll have put together a scrappy quilt. Will I love it???? That's the question.