June Accomplishments

I won't be in my sewing room for the rest of the month, so I thought I'd post my June accomplishments a little early.  The month started with a mad dash to get teacher presents finished as the kids finished school on the 7th.  I think I already showed you the mini-quilt top that Jack and I made for his teacher - while he was off enjoying Boy Scout camping with his pack, I decided I would try my hand at facing a quilt. I picked an orange backing and had some orange strips in my scrap container to make up the pieces I needed. I followed the instructions for facing a quilt with a mitered binding from Susan Brubaker Knapp's blog. They were fairly straightforward and well written. I did have a few issues with the corners, which I will chalk up to eyeballing (vs. measuring) and inexperience. In the end, I am pleased with how it came out and Jack's teacher loved it. 

Quilt front after facing

Faced quilt back

The other teacher gift was for my daughter's Star Wars loving teacher - and I used the remainder of the Star Wars fabric I bought to make his Christmas present to make a one-hour basket from the free pattern I picked up on Craftsy a while back. I timed myself as I made this to see if it really took one hour and it clocked in at 45 minutes - perfect! This is a great size basket and I plan to make more of them for all kinds of things. They also make a great teacher gift. 

One hour basket

The other project I worked on throughout the month is my Valentine diamonds. This was my May UFO so I kept going on this one instead of switching to my June UFO. I finished the month with a finished top and back and I am looking forward to quilting this one. 

The last picture I have to share with you is our bee's finished quilt for Diana's Golden Needle. Caryl put the binding on it over the last few weeks and it came back to me last week. I need to get it mailed off now to support Diana in her Gold Award project - her original goal of finishing 16 quilts is now almost to 100 finished quilts in the Scrappy Trips pattern, plus she still has more tops that will be quilted and somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 quilts in different patterns - what a great project this has been to watch - I've really enjoyed seeing her accomplishments and am glad that we have a quilt to donate to the cause. 

My total sewing time in June was around 7 hours - a lean month in terms of hours, but I set a goal for myself to spend at least a little time in my sewing room 2 weekdays and 1 weekend day every week and it seems to be working. I have several other projects in the queue, so I plan to continue with this plan to get me downstairs, because once I am there, I am usually content to stay for a while.  

I hope you're enjoying your summer and getting some good time in to work on the crafts you love.