Worked on many projects this week (and a link party)

Finally I worked on projects I can share!

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Growing Up QAL - no progress
2. Splendid Sampler - no progress
3. Charity quilts - no progress
4. SK project - 3 blocks done, two more designed (see below)
5. Molli Sparkle's "The Honey Pot Bee" - completed June block (see below)
6. En Provence QAL - no progress
7. Journaling into my new Journal/Planner - working on it every day!
8. 70273 Project - 4 blocks done (see below)
9. Book binding - no progress
10. Twilters! Bee - paused until July
11. Zipper pouch - completed! (see below)

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Working on my blocks for the Stephen King Quilt: in addition to book covers and quotes I will be adding objects that are connected to SK... this week I designed a block that resembles the bats/gargoyles he has on the top of his home entrance gates :)
For "Carrie" book cover I used regular Heat'n'Bond for the Carrie's silhouette, but I used Ultra Bond for the letters. The instructions say "Do not sew" on the Ultra bond, so I will try to leave it as is (and stitch around the silhouette): let's see if I will loose those after few washes or if the letters will stay on, let's hope for the best! :)

Carrie, book cover

Buick 8, opening line

SK house gate decor

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The block for the The Honey Pot Bee (June): keeping up with the Disney/Cartoon theme, this is Alice in Wonderland, of course :)

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More blocks for the 70273 Project. If you are curious to see some of the beautiful quilts made with all these blocks check out this Pinterest board!

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My partner really like this fabric and I made him a credit card wallet and a GPS pouch... he just got a new phone, and the leftover fabric was EXACTLY the size I needed to make a zipper pouch for his new phone. Now everything matches! :)

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Last but not least...

I started to design (and sew) a quilt that I will be offering as a QAL in 2018 on Fandom In Stitches! 

It is inspired by a recent publication of a newspaper in Italy. This weekly newspaper came out with a series of books about art history explained through disney characters. Of course I told my mom to buy all of them because how can I miss out on that?? :) 

Since the covers of those books are absolutely amazing, I decided to turn them into patterns and make a quilt for myself with all those inspiring artists through history!!

The blocks are fusible raw edge applique blocks, and I started with these two (Leonardo and Cezanne). If you are curious to see the original publication, check it here... the site it's in italian but you can see the books :) http://inedicola.gruppoespresso.it/prodotto/scoprire-arte-disney/

I am planning to make a quilt for myself with many of these covers, but I also wanted to include contemporary artists too! So I designed a block for Kara Walker, a block for Yayoi Kusama, and here below the latest creation, inspired by the work of Adam Lister (check his creations here). 

I have been in touch with Adam because I asked his permission to reproduce one of his paintings as a mini for the AMB Tiny Quilt challenge (my quilt: Vincent) and we also exchanged art pieces when I made this mini quilt for his daughter (in exchange he sent me one of his wonderful paintings).

Given how he inspired me and given his very unique style, I wanted to include him in my art history/disney quilt: he said his favorite character is Goofy, so let me introduce you...

Goofy Lister, , 20'' x 20''

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How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Mostly sewing for future reveals (and a link party)

A lot of sewing for projects that will be shared later in the year, so not much to show today!

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Growing Up QAL - July blocks ready, August blocks ready, started September ones :)
2. Splendid Sampler - no progress
3. Charity quilts - no progress
4. SK project - completed one block
5. Molli Sparkle's "The Honey Pot Bee" - paused until June
6. En Provence QAL - no progress
7. Journaling into my new Journal/Planner - keeping up with it!
8. 70273 Project - 4 blocks done
9. Book binding - no progress
10. Twilters! Bee - made 4 blocks for the June's Queen
11. Zipper pouch - picked fabric

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Working on my blocks for the Stephen King Quilt.

Lisey's Story, opening line

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Few blocks for a block exchange in the Twilters! group

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More blocks for the 70273 Project. If you are curious to see some of the beautiful quilts made with all these blocks check out this Pinterest board!

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How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Journaling and Planning: May 2017 update

More progress and evolution to my planner!

My planning journey is like my quilting journey: from the first weeks I immediately know what I like and what my overall style is. However the more I plan, the more tools I want to buy and the more experiments I want to run! This month, off to a new journal!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: April review, March review, December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner), November review, October review, September review.

As mentioned last month, while I initially loved the disc bound system that I used to transform my Quilter's planner, it starts to bother me the unused layout that I have to erase to create my own... and it's hard to write with those discs... and it's a bother to take the page out every single time...
Long story short, I moved into a (smaller) bound journal. I found a fantastic one (pretty cheap) at Micheals... it has thick paper, which means I can play with markers and be more creative... having less pages it's also good because I can finish it in few months and if I don't like it I can change system again :)

Spoiler alert... I moved out of that journal too :) while I liked the blank pages and the thick paper that allowed me to color in without ruining the back of the page, I need some kind of structure, and the dot grid of the Emerald Leuchtturm 1917 (in the picture above) provides the right amount of space and structure. But more on that next month...

For now, let me show you how I used my dark pink, artist notebook.

Below you can see the daily tracker, with my weight tracker and some excercise tracker. I also included on the same page the Weekly/Monthly ToDos and the Habits that I would focus for the month: it's great to have everything on a single page!

(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

I kept it up with the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread, decorated with the artist of the month... see below to see who it is :) each day is a different design from Leah Day's blog... it is very interesting to practise all these designs in small spaces and see if I like making them or not: no thread or fabric wasted :) This month I also added a coloring legend to remember which designs I love, like or don't like: that's essential for times when I want to pick a quilting designs and I don't remember which one I enjoyed and which was frustrating to draw!!

The week-by-week daily activities (with the Weekly Specials recipes meals in each page),

The Fitness Mandala (split between steps and water), and the tracker for the Art with Fabric blog hop: it's complicated to coordinate so many people and a tracker made the process much easier!!

And the "Doodle an Artist" spread, that migrated to a different journal!
I reflected on what I want to accomplish with this project, and I found another journal in my house that I wanted to test (Moleskine): I heard that pages are terrible for heavy pen/markers/colors so I decided to dedicate the entire journal to doodling different artists! If the pen/color bleed through the pages, I can glue pages and move on.

This month, in my "Doodle an Artist" I picked Beverly Fishman, an Artist-in-Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art. For the past twenty-five years she has worked as a full-time artist and has dedicated herself to educating young artists.
As usual I tried to "Steal like an Artist" and extract part of her pieces that spoke to me and mesh them all together in two pages!

Last but not least...
I had few tough weeks and I needed some cheerful and inspirational quotes
Keep our composure... from Old school and Bon Jovi's song "it's my life"

I am all set up for June: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!