FO: Rain or Shine

I've learned a few things about my quilty personality. For instance? I'm not a sasher. When a quilt calls for sashing, I'm most likely to skip it. Don't get me wrong. I think a sashed quilt can look really lovely. I'm just not likely to finish it if there is sashing involved. Back in May of 2011, I started these blocks, from Elizabeth Hartman's first book. The pattern is Rain or Shine.

I chose happy prints in red, aqua, black and white.

But here's where I stalled out. I sashed the first row with this lovely aqua solid, and then, nothing. Two years of hibernation. After talking with Jeni when she visited last fall, she encouraged me to eliminate the sashing and stick with what works for me.

And so I did. No sashing. A smaller quilt, but I love it.

I used two favorites for the back (Lizzy House Jewels and Alison Glass Party Streamers). This is a wee baby quilt at 36" square.

WIPs to finish

Like most of you crafters, I want to make all of the things! I tweeted the other day that I feel directionally challenged when it comes to crafting.
I feel pulled to several projects and crafts. To find some direction, I first want to document my list of outstanding WIPs.

There are a few I'm not listing, but these are the items I most desire to finish.

Knitting

First up, the embarrassing 3.5-year-old Central Park Hoodie. I'm so painfully close to finishing. All it needs is for me to finish picking up the second side of stitches and knit that button band. Then, seaming.

Second, the Gray Skies Cardigan. This one is another nearly-finished sweater. I think I have one partial sleeve to finish and seaming.
COME ON.

I've also got two single socks that need buddies.

I'm also close to finishing my Stripe Study shawl.

Quilting

I have four quilts-in-progress at the moment.

There's Single Girl, which I haven't touched since April.

There's Bottled Rainbows. I've completed four of the sixteen blocks, and this is a long-term project. I like to do a block every now and then, but it would be rad to finish this before the end of the year. The bright side is that it's quilt as you go, so, once the top is complete, the rest should go really quickly.

There's Rain or Shine, which is probably the closest to being finished. I only have six more blocks to make for the top. I've actually been working on this one for the past few days. I'll have an updated progress photo to share soon.

And of course, there is Swoon.

I've made six out of nine blocks, which you can see in my Swoon flickr set. Lucky for me (and you!), Katy has assembled a group of (300+) quilters for a Swoon-along! Feel free to join in on the fun and make your own Swoon!

In the next few days, I'm going to share my additional goals for 2012. But you can surely expect to see progress on these nine projects in the upcoming months!

Progress: Rain or Shine

I guess I forgot to blog about this quilt. I started these blocks back in May, but didn't get much farther than cutting all of the squares. I spent a little time on it this past week, and I'm really excited to see a quilt starting to take shape.

Using fun fabrics like these makes me happy, especially after long work days like I've been experiencing this summer. I have many more blocks to make, but I'm happy to make a little bit of progress on it.

The pattern for this quilt is by Elizabeth Hartman, from her awesome book. Oh, and if you haven't already seen this, Kaelin's version of Rain or Shine is incredible!