Updated Calendar Quilt

Well, I decided to take an afternoon and bring my Calendar Quilt up to date yesterday (Yes Mary, seeing yours hanging on the wall inspired me!). I still have to go back and add my little month appliques that I started in the beginning, and I have a couple of special days that need to be embroidered on, but the blocks are done. Since I was getting tired of straight strip sets, I changed it up for the second four months of the year and went with diagonal cut squares. For the last four months I'll go with straight strip sets again.

Here is the May block up close. I'm still trying to use a strip of something I was working on at the time. This is the month I worked on Louisa and there are fabrics from June's Baltimore Album block and my Tisket a Tasket BOM. Luckily I was saving strips in a basket all along to remember what I was working on then. The bottom right has Maroon and Gold for Bobby's school colors since he graduated then.

In June we did Mountain Baby Blankets and this block has fabrics from some baby quilts I designed, the Thimbleberries extra project for the month, and some fabrics representative of our Sew In.

July has Popcorn fabric for the Fourth because Heather and I went to the movies instead of fireworks that day. There are batiks from the Jacket I was making (and still have on the pile to finish), and fabrics from a magazine quilt that I was working on.

This is August so far. This one has Civil War reproductions for the Underground Railroad block I did for Civil War Sunday, and some fabrics from the other magazine quilt I just finished.

It feels good to have this brought up to date. I still don't know how I will finish it. I'm thinking of some sashing between the long strip sets, but I haven't decided on a color. I think that will have to sing out to me at the end.

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

March Calendar Quilt Update

Well I have my March Calendar Quilt section all caught up, so I thought I'd do a little show and tell. There are only a few more days in March, so it's almost complete. I started off the month with a little green strip for St Patty's day and then a snow strip. A batik thrown in there for a batik project that I'll have bound soon to show (I hope to get to that this weekend to take to the guild meeting on Monday).

There are strips from my Charlotte project, our little Patriotic project that we're working on, Jo Morton Club, Thimbleberries Club, and Sloanies Club projects. I have a shamrock strip for St Patty's day on the 17th, and I've enclosed two selvage edges for the days that I was cutting out Christmas Magic fabric for the next magazine project that I'm doing for QUILT Magazine.

I even have a strip for a day when I was working on a little bit of everything ~ we all have days like that too, don't we :)

Wow, March is really flying by and soon it will be time to be outside in the yard more, so we'll see how well I keep up with this challenge in April!

Enjoy your day!
~ Dawn

Remembering February

I thought it was time for a Calendar Quilt update. This is my February section all finished. You can see strips in there from the Wizard of Oz projects, my Jo Morton, the "Orange Pile" Challenge weekend, and my "Lights, Camera, Action" quilt. Wow, it makes me realize what a busy month it really was! The strip that I started the month with is to represent the Super Bowl of course. Then there are strips in there that are for the warm Springy day we had as well as one for a the snowy day. I also have strips for my Dad's birthday and Ash Wednesday.

I'm really enjoying putting this scrappy thing together ~ and not purchasing a single fabric to make a whole quilt is a real plus!

I've started my March section and am currently up to date on it. I just have to draw out a shamrock to applique on the top, and I'll post about that one a little later this month. Send me pictures of your Calendar Quilt progress, and remember you can check out the Calendar Quilt blog through the button on my sidebar and see what a lot of other really creative folks are doing with theirs!

Enjoy the day!

~ Dawn

Calendar Quilt Finished through Orange Weekend

Another advantage of taking part in a sewing weekend virtual retreat is that you can get caught up on some other little projects. Here is my calendar quilt section for February caught up through the 22nd. Since the strip for Valentine's day I have added a strip for my dad's birthday, strips for the Wizard of Oz quilts I was working on last week, and of course three days of Orange :)

I still need to get working on my Bunny Hill Basket block for this month though. I have the fabrics all picked out and sitting here, I just need to get to appliqueing on it. I think I'll prepare that one for Friday morning when I'll be taking my son to get his wisdom teeth pulled. I'll need something to keep my hands busy while in the waiting room.

By the way, if you need a refresher on embroidery for the stitchery part of these blocks Anne Sutton has added a great tutorial to her Bunny Tales Blog that walks you through. Very well done.

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Calendar Quilt - January Finished!

Well, I got the chance to work on my Calendar Quilt Challenge! As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I got a surprise visit from my daughter and son-in-law and I "talked them into" leaving my 18 month old granddaughter with me while they went out for a while. So Elsie and I had fun picking strips to update my Calendar quilt. She is quite accomplished at picking fabric strips out of a basket and putting them back in ~ I see a little quilter in the making. Sometimes I just need this kind of surprise diversion to make me slow down and just enjoy ~ even though I got nothing done on my "to do" list, it was a great way to spend the afternoon! :)

I wasn't able to do anything but the planning while Elsie was here, but later I went back and did the stitching of the strips we had layed out together. This next picture is my January section finished with all 31 days. I'm randomly varying the width of my strips, so I'm not sure how long each monthly section will finish. I'll try to keep them all similar though. (I had appliqued the snowflake to represent January and I'm machine embroidering on special days throughout).

The next picture is my friend and coworker Mary Nielsen's January Calendar section all finished. Mary did little appliques on hers for significant days. She did little socks on days when she had finished knitting a sock, and a little snowman on a snow day we had ~ How cute is that!

This is the start of my February section. I had to start the month with some Football fabric for the Superbowl of course. I won Pat Sloan's drawing for the Sew Along block this month and she sent me an envelope of Arabella fabric, so I've included that in there! We had a beautiful weather weekend here in Maryland, so I got out and worked in the garden, thus the leafy flower fabric strip. And the rest of the fabric strips are projects that I was working on at the time like our Jo Morton Club project and my Baltimore Album block for the month, so it's a very eclectic grouping! This will be quite an interesting quilt when it's finished!

Thanks to Elsie's visit, I have strips all picked out through the 22nd of February. Why the 22nd you ask? Well I knew I'd be working with orange for Pat's OP Challenge that runs from Feb. 20 - 22 (see the button link on my sidebar for info and join us for that Virtual Retreat weekend). So Elsie helped me pick out some orange strips and and we worked back from there, now I'm all ready to sew more strips on as the days go by. Send me a picture of your Calendar Quilt, and also periodically check out the Calendar Quilt button on my sidebar to see how other very creative ladies are tackling this challenge!

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Calendar Quilt Update

Here is an update of my calendar quilt. I have 20 strips, one for each day of the year so far. I used this weekend to get that caught up. So far each strip does correlate with a project that I had been working on at the time ~ you can see some of my Cowboy fabrics, including one strip from the original "old" Cowboy quilt, some Thimbleberries fabrics for the January block of the 2009 Club quilt since I am leading that club at the shop, and several Pat Sloan fabrics from the Cafe project that I'm working on for the Sloanies Club that meets next week. The little white strips are for snowy days.

The first strip of the month will be a little larger each month and I'll applique a shape that is representative of that month. I plan to embroider on special days each month, like Bobby's birthday on January 3rd.

...And special days and holidays will be acknowledged. So far it's been an easy project to keep up with as there is always a strip left over when you are working on something. Let me know how you are doing on your Calendar Quilt!

Enjoy the day!

~ Dawn

Calendar Quilt Challenge

Join me in the Calendar Quilt Challenge for 2009!

Rachel Griffith has started the Calendar Quilt Challenge over on her blog, and I thought the Sloanies Group at our shop would like to join in since it's based on the Calendar Quilt Idea that Pat Sloan developed in her book Favorite Techniques. I joined Rachel's blog team and I'll be using the challenge to work on my Calendar Quilt this year, so work along with me! Check out the link (I'll keep it on my sidebar) to see all the particulars, but basically you make a no-rules quilt, a strip a day throughout the year using your stash. Add a strip for each day using a fabric from something that you're working on at the time, something seasonal, or maybe from your vast fat quarter collection (winking at you Heather). I'm going to leave spaces to journal and embroider on significant days, but other than that, I'm not thinking it through at all. It will become what it becomes ~ I think that will be the fun of it! I'll post some pictures as I get mine going. Pat Sloan's book is available at her website (also a link on my sidebar), and thanks to Rachel for organizing the whole project!

Enjoy!
~ Dawn