Ello? Can you hear me? (and a link party)

My "ten days of finishing project" is working great!
I had a lot of progress in project that went untouched for too long.

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Play with Me QAL - 100% done with board 4 and 5, 80% done with board 7.
   Cannot share those, but I released the third block of the QAL, the Backgammon board!
2. WGACA projects
1. Jane T - no progress
2. The SK project - no progress
3. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - finished bargello assembly (see below)
3. Mirror Mirror Afghan - no progress
4. Block Swap Adventure -  paused until April
5. American Quilt (previous known as Americana QAL) - no progress
6. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - no progress
7. Splendid Sampler - no progress
8. SECRET quilt 1 for exhibit - (FDJ) no progress
9. SECRET quilt 2 for exhibit - (Processing) no progress
10. Tablet tote - cut all the pieces, need start assembling
11. Road Home Row-A-Long - planned what to make
12. 70273 Project - decided to join

The EverythingElse List:

1. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
2. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
3. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
4. As You Wish -  no progress
5. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
6. Memory quilt 2 - no progress

----
My plan was is that that until the end of the month I WON'T make a single new block, a single new crochet block, nothing "new".
I am only allowed to make "finishing" steps: either joining blocks I already have, basting quilt tops I have, finishing backings, etc. I will pause my Splendid Sampler, my Mirror Mirror Afghan, Jane T, SK, everything that is far away from being finished and I will focus on project that I can complete or move to completion by the end of the month.

Because of this, I finished 2 future boards for my Play with Me QAL and almost completed a third one! I cannot share those, but I can share the beautiful backgammon board everyone else is sharing!

We have about 50 people playing along, it is so fun!!

If you didn't join, it's not too late!

Visit the QAL page for more details.

--

And last, but not least, I want to remind you that I am working on charity quilts,
and I would love your help!! 

Quilts are for a quilt drive to help the kids in the DC General Homeless Shelter. 

And you can help me by donating orphan blocks, partial blocks, or fabric (scraps, strips, leftover, uglies, whatever). 

If you are willing to mail them to me, I could use them to make more quilts for these kids!!! 

If you are up for a loving donation, please send me an email at tweloq[_at_]gmail[dot_com] or leave a comment here with your email address so I could give you my mailing address. I promise that your donation will be used to make some kids happy and feel more loved!! 

I had a lot of strips from an early donation and while I knew I wanted to use it to make a back (because I already have 3 or 4 tops done, so I need backs) I wanted something fun that was not just put them together as strips! Then I saw this super fun (and easy) QAL at Elm Street Quilts so I decided to join!

Piecing done! I added some strips on the left because I didn't want any fabric to get wasted!

Size (for now) 36''x45'' 

I need to pull out the ready tops and see which one is the best fit to have this bargello as the back.

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Have you heard about Ello? It is basically Instagram without ads, no weird algorithm to show you only what they want you to see, no selling data, and it is for creative artists! :)

I never joined IG because I felt the goal was more about "showing off" than focusing on creativity, so even if I know there is a good quilting community there (which is creative and inspiring) I never felt it was the right place for me. Ello sounds much more fun!

It is a relatively new platform, so it has some issues (not too fast because it is still in beta but it's getting better, the signup is easy but if you don't pay attention the default groups that you are "following" may not be the ones you want, etc). If you want to join, it is free and there is a fast-growing quilting community. For helpful tips and finding your quilting tribe, you can read what the coordinator of the account @elloquilt says!

My handle is @alida-tweloq and to bring the community together I decided to coordinate a Block Swap!

You don't need to have an Ello account to join! Just fill this form http://goo.gl/forms/upr4FSDW6x to leave me your contact if you are interested. I am still collecting general info to see who is interested in what. I highly recommend to have an account, as I plan to post reminders, pictures of blocks, etc over there!

--

How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Ten days of finishing (and a link party)

I have too many new projects going on and I let old projects go untouched for too long!
So I decided to start a "ten days of finishing project"

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Play with Me QAL - working on future blocks (cannot share details)
   but I released the third block of the QAL, the Backgammon board!
2. WGACA projects
1. Jane T - no progress
2. The SK project - no progress
3. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - assembled bargello base for backing
3. Mirror Mirror Afghan - 2 blocks done! (see below)
4. Block Swap Adventure -  paused until April
5. American Quilt (previous known as Americana QAL) - no progress
6. Project Quilting (#6) - "Strings of Pi" done (see below)
7. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - paused, not liking where this is going :(
8. Splendid Sampler - Block 9 done (see below)
9. SECRET quilt 1 for exhibit - (FDJ) no progress
10. SECRET quilt 2 for exhibit - (Processing) no progress
11. Tablet tote - planned
12. Road Home Row-A-Long - planned what to make
13. 70273 Project - decided to join

The EverythingElse List:

1. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
2. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
3. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
4. As You Wish -  no progress
5. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
6. Memory quilt 2 - no progress

----
Before talking about the specific projects I worked on this week, I want to stop and look at my list of projects: it is growing too fast and my enthusiasm for new projects and blocks is taking away energy to finish old ones!

That's why I decided to start a "10 days of finishing" :)
Until the end of the month I WON'T make a single new block, a single new crochet block, nothing "new".
I am only allowed to make "finishing" steps: either joining blocks I already have, basting quilt tops I have, finishing backings, etc. I will pause my Splendid Sampler, my Mirror Mirror Afghan, Jane T, SK, everything that is far away from being finished and I will focus on project that I can complete or move to completion by the end of the month.

--

These are my latest blocks for Pat's and Jane's Splendid Sampler 

Block 8 (crochet version)

Block 9 (no crochet version)

To see all my blocks, check out My Sampler Journey page

This week I also received 2 wonderful donations from 2 generous people! Antoinette and Jeanne sent me a total of FIVE big ziplock bags FULL of selvages!!! Sooo much to play with! I need to find a better system to store and divide my selvages because now a generic box is not good enough :)

--

Early in the week I completed the last piece for the Project Quilting challenge (String of Pi).

You can read the full story of the piece as well as my thoughts about the PQ experience in this previous post.

--

Early this month I shared the third block for my Play with Me QAL

I am looking forward to see more boards shared by the people in the group! 

We have about 50 people playing along, it is so fun!!

If you didn't join, it's not too late!

Visit the QAL page for more details.

--

And last, but not least, I want to remind you that I am working on charity quilts,
and I would love your help!! 

Quilts are for a quilt drive to help the kids in the DC General Homeless Shelter. 

And you can help me by donating orphan blocks, partial blocks, or fabric (scraps, strips, leftover, uglies, whatever). 

If you are willing to mail them to me, I could use them to make more quilts for these kids!!! 

If you are up for a loving donation, please send me an email at tweloq[_at_]gmail[dot_com] or leave a comment here with your email address so I could give you my mailing address. I promise that your donation will be used to make some kids happy and feel more loved!! 

I finally have something to show you!

Well... this was an early phase picture :)

Bargello with a cat

I had a lot of strips from an early donation and while I knew I wanted to use it to make a back (because I already have 3 or 4 tops done, so I need backs) I wanted something fun that was not just put them together as strips! Then I saw this super fun (and easy) QAL at Elm Street Quilts so I decided to join!

Ready for the next step!

I am going to make the "Queen" version (36'') and I will need to make it bigger with some kind of border, but I really like when others are putting together an easy design and I just need to follow along! :)

--

How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

It's never too late for some Pi (and my thoughts on Project Quilting)

Before presenting you the latest piece for the Project Quilting challenge, let me start by saying that I enjoyed these PQ challenges but I am also a little disappointed by the overall experience. If you want to know why you have to read below :)

So let's start with my entry for the last Challenge of Project Quilting

"Strings of Pi"

(inspired by the work of Martin Krzywinski)

size: 20'' x 20''

VOTE here: I am number 2 :)

(Project 6: 2016 Finish-Along, from the list in this post)

For this challenge we had to include one monkey wrench block and one flying geese block.
As usual I decided to make this challenge more personal and I decided to honor Pi as 3/14 was Pi day. I was planning to release it that day, but it took me longer than planned to make... oh well, it's never too late to celebrate Pi!! :)

So I built the entire piece as a monkey wrench in black with white accents, I wrote the first 220 digits of Pi on the white sections and I put a rainbow colored circle of geese in the center.
Inside of this circle is where the fun started!!! :)
I wrote the same 220 digits with thread lines connecting 10 sections (representing the digits from 0 to 9). So I started on the section for the 3 (underlined) and then I stitched an arch to go to the section of the 1, then a second arch to go to the section for the 4 and so on until I stitched all the written digits!
I used a fun Aurifil variegated 50 wt thread, and that creates a beautiful movement!
I will take better pictures of this piece when I have time, but for now this will have to do! :)

--

And now some reflections...
These are just my personal thoughts, and I am sharing them with the hope of finding what you, my dearest reader, think about it! Sharing is very important to me and I really like to hear what others think!

So Project Quilting is a series of challenges that are meant to be inspirational and fun!  After they release the theme of the challenge, we have just a week to make a finished project (from inception to finishing). Every week that we enter a piece for the challenge we are entered into a hat to win one of the amazing prizes from sponsors.

In addition to the theme chosen by them, I decided to add an extra "theme" for myself: the piece should be inspired by a "traditional" art piece (painting, drawing, etc) AND I cannot buy new fabric for these projects.

After 6 challenges this is my collection!

Quilted art pieces inspired by the work of 

Kandinsky, Matisse, Ancient Egypt, 

Walt Disney, Dali and Krzywinski

Now... let me split my thoughts in Good and Sad :)

The Good:

• Having one single week and one specific theme may seem intimidating and stressful, but it's actually very liberating because it made me much more focused and I completed several projects, which is always a great boost for my creativity
• Sponsors and prizes are great! I won more than one random prize! So goodies are always a good incentive
• Having small projects and no particular rules to make them allowed me to try things I never tried before! And I fell in love with several of them (if you want links for tutorials on these techniques, just comment below... I saved them somewhere and I can find them for you)!
• facing instead of binding (for art pieces): done in my Dali inspired piece (looooove this)
• binding with same color as last border: done in Matisse inspired piece (don't like this look)
• binding by folding under: done on my Kandinsky inspired piece (this is ok, but it's cumbersome and not too clean)
• envelope turn: done on my Egyptian inspired piece (this is ok, but not my favorite)
• elmer's glue as basting glue: done on my Pi piece, just on the back (loooove this)
• use facing as hanging sleeve: done on my Dali inspired piece (looove this)
• regular hanging sleeve: done on my Matisse inspired piece (it's ok, now I know how to do it)
• squares pointing down and not on the corners (loooove this, as it takes 2 hand stitches and it accommodates rods longer or shorter than the actual piece)
• raw edge applique: done on several pieces (really like, because I can use any shape)
• thread painting: done on my Disney inspired piece (challenging but fun for small pieces)

The Sad:

• my pieces received consistently very very few votes... several times way less than pieces done by the hostesses and marked as "DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS" :) It's not that I think my pieces are wonderful, but in early challenges we had the chance to vote for six or seven projects... and some of them looked good but way less elaborate than mine... however I felt that people didn't really got my piece nor they were interested in reading their story... which brings me to the next point
• even if I was not expecting  to win viewer’s choice, I was expecting to make new connections with people! I was expecting people to comment and interact with me, read the story of the piece, the inspiration, etc. Instead I very very rarely got any comment... not even by the people hosting the event. While I understand that life is busy for everyone, I posted both on my blog, on their FlickR group and in their FB group... these platforms allow for very quick comments, so not receiving those, and not getting click though their own linky made me very sad.

Reflecting on the sad and the good, I can conclude that probably the community around this event is just not "my tribe". I think it's very important to realize that everybody have their own aesthetic and no one can like everything or please everyone. So the disappointing may just be of me trying to fit in a collective where I am not meant to fit... nothing bad here, just life!

Do I regret to have participated this year? Absolutely NOT!
Did I learned a lot from the experience? YES!!
Will I participate next year? I don't know... I will evaluate this next year!

Two quotes that summarize this experience:

1. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take (Wayne Gretzky)
2. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid (Albert Einstein)

Edited To Add: I received many comments on this post (THANKS) however many of them are from no-reply bloggers :( if I don't have a direct way to reply to your comment (your email) I will reply here on the blog, but you may not read it if you don't come back :( so if you want to make sure I interact with you, leave me a way to get in touch by writing your email address!! I appreciate everyone's comment! 

One second every day makes a difference (and a link party)

A new tool that gets a looot of things done!

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Play with Me QAL - working on future blocks (cannot share details)
   but I released the third block of the QAL, the Backgammon board!
2. WGACA projects
1. Jane T - paused until completion of other two
2. The SK project - no progress
3. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - no progress
3. Mirror Mirror Afghan - working on block 8 translation to crochet
4. Block Swap Adventure -  insane block done for March (see below)
5. American Quilt (previous known as Americana QAL) - no progress
6. Project Quilting (#6) - waiting for next challenge
7. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - paused, not liking where this is going :(
8. Splendid Sampler - block 6, 7 and 8 done (see below)
9. SECRET quilt for exhibit - no progress
10. Items to send out - mini tote and pincushion (see below)

The EverythingElse List:

1. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
2. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
3. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
4. As You Wish -  no progress
5. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
6. Memory quilt 2 - no progress

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Before talking about the specific projects I worked on this week, let me share a wonderful tool that has been extremely useful for me to find motivation and inspiration to complete projects.

The tool is an app for smartphones called "1 Second Everyday" and the name of the app explains what it is :)
The creator of this app has a very powerful story and a good TED talk, so go and check him out!

The great thing for me in this app, is that you can have different "timelines" so I have one for my personal life and one for my Crafting life!! :) Having to record a second of my crafting life every day encouraged me to take out my projects and work even for just few minutes on them! Some days I got more done than others, but still every day I did something creative (because I had to record it) :)
To be honest, it is kind of hard to record when you are doing something crafty because we only have two hands :) but because the video is just one second anyway, you don't need to worry too much about the action, light, sound, etc... It's super easy and below you can see what I had after one month (30 seconds video)! Oh, the other cool thing is that you get the video "stitched" together (as they say) with one single click, no editing, no extra time required! The original video is a great quality but I compressed here to save space in my account :)

(this is the first time I try to embed a video here... it may not work, if so let me know!)


--

These are my latest blocks for Pat's and Jane's Splendid Sampler 

Block 6, 7 and 8

To see all my blocks, check out My Sampler Journey page

--

When partners in the Block Swap Adventure group tell me "choose whatever block you want" I tend to select challenging blocks with a gazillion of pieces! :)

I do that both to challenge myself and to try blocks that I would probably never choose if I had to make an entire quilt with them! This is definitely one of them! 

Lake Life (by Kari Carr)

Note: HST finish at 1 inch square! O_o the block is 12'' finished

The block has a gazillion of tiny HST but I think it turned out beautiful! Linda said that she likes traditional patterns, red and white and that scrappy is ok. I hope she likes this block! To my surprise it turned out extremely precise considering the amount of pieces!!

--

For my Splendid Sampler, I asked people if they were willing to send me some of their selvages in exchange of something from me. Several generous people agreed to send me something so I am making them something in return.

A mini tote and a pin cushion!

The mini tote is perfect to keep the Splendid Sampler blocks... or if they choose to box the corners it becomes a great thread catcher basket. I hope my first generous donor likes it! I will make more because they are really fun and easy to make. 

--
Early this month I shared the third block for my Play with Me QAL

I am looking forward to see boards shared by the people in the group! We have about 50 people playing along, it is so fun!!

If you didn't join, it's not too late!

Visit the QAL page for more details.

--

And last, but not least, I want to remind you that I am working on charity quilts,
and I would love your help!! 

Quilts are for a quilt drive to help the kids in the DC General Homeless Shelter. 

And you can help me by donating orphan blocks, partial blocks, or fabric (scraps, strips, leftover, uglies, whatever). 

If you are willing to mail them to me, I could use them to make more quilts for these kids!!! 

If you are up for a loving donation, please send me an email at tweloq[_at_]gmail[dot_com] or leave a comment here with your email address so I could give you my mailing address. I promise that your donation will be used to make some kids happy and feel more loved!! 

I started assembling few quilt backs... but nothing worth sharing, just yet... 

--

How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Sewing, crocheting, designing and planning (and a link party)

Sewing and crocheting at full speed!

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Play with Me QAL - few more hours to turn the PP block. (see below)
   The next pattern is ready and will be shared on Monday!! 
2. WGACA projects
1. Jane T - paused until completion of other two
2. The SK project - one block done (see below)
3. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - no progress
3. Mirror Mirror Afghan - 2 blocks done (see below)
4. Block Swap Adventure -  waiting for March partner assignment
5. American Quilt (previous known as Americana QAL) - no progress
6. Project Quilting (#5) - done! (see below)
7. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - paused, not liking where this is going :(
8. Splendid Sampler - block 4 and 5 done (see below)
9. SECRET quilt for exhibit - FDJ planning started (see below)

The EverythingElse List:

1. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
2. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
3. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
4. As You Wish -  no progress
5. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
6. Memory quilt 2 - no progress

----

Pat and Jane announced the Splendid Sampler and can I not join such a fun project? Of course not!! :)

But I had to find my twists to make my journey different than anyone else's.

Block 4

Block 5 (with the two crochet ones too)

To see all my blocks, check out My Sampler Journey page

Block 6 is out but I think I will slow down with this project because 2 blocks a week is a lot, considering that I have to make my own "fabric" with selvages first and that I want to crochet some of them as well. I may see if Block 7 (released tomorrow) is easier and start with that for next week.

I am really enjoying this project but it is taking over my (sewing) life! :) :)

--

(Project 5: 2016 Finish-Along, from the list in this post)

Speaking of projects taking over my (sewing) life...

Another challenge of Project Quilting (Through the Eyes of a Child) was released last week and this is the piece I put together.

"MOOOM! Look, I colored Mickey"

8'' x 6.5''

I loved Mickey Mouse (Topolino) when I was a child... I cannot remember a time when I didn't have a Topolino comic book to read every day... from kinder-garden school to college :)

So my piece is a reproduction of a classic "drawing" from when I was little. And I put it on the fridge because where else would my mom display my art, right??

I am really pleased about how it turned out! I learned a lot about thread coloring since this is my first time (hence the wrinkly look).

About PQ challenges... I will have some reflections on this next week, since that is going to be the last challenge for the year... I have mixed feelings about the experience... but more on this next week :)

--

Second project from my WGACA list  (to read more about this concept, read this previous post) was completed. I recently completed a page for this, and I realized that the initially empty page slows down my progress. I better get some progress on all three of the projects so the ball will get going!

Stephen King - Salem's Lot

Book cover

(Pattern available soon)

I am happy that I broke free from my own rules of making the book cover with paper piecing! I don't particularly like the process of raw edge applique, but I really like the result and the fact that requires much less time designing them!!

--

Early last month I shared the second block for my Play with Me QAL

Look at all the different color combinations that people used in their game boards! So exciting!!!

If you didn't join, it's not too late!

Visit the QAL page for more details.

--

I had an idea for a project for a long time... and now I think it could fit this exhibit so I will actually get the project out of my head and down to fabric.

The piece will be entered in special exhibit, Modern Quilts: Redesigning Tradition.

I cannot tell you more for now... except that the plan is on paper (and on my computer) so now I just need to get going!! :)

--

And last, but not least, I want to remind you that I am working on charity quilts,
and I would love your help!! 

Quilts are for a quilt drive to help the kids in the DC General Homeless Shelter. 

And you can help me by donating orphan blocks, partial blocks, or fabric (scraps, strips, leftover, uglies, whatever). 

If you are willing to mail them to me, I could use them to make more quilts for these kids!!! 

If you are up for a loving donation, please send me an email at tweloq[_at_]gmail[dot_com] or leave a comment here with your email address so I could give you my mailing address. I promise that your donation will be used to make some kids happy and feel more loved!! 

I haven't made any concrete progress here, but I pulled some fabric out and I am ready to assemble some strips into quilt backings! At least I have a plan now!! :)

--

How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up