WIP Wednesday... OMG SEPTEMBER!?!

Well, it's hard to believe it is September already!  Summer flew by and as much as I love fall, I'm not ready for summer to be over yet.  It's going to be Christmas before we know it...and I have a lot of gift-quilting to do between now and then!

Last week, I finished up the top for my Parking Lights quilt - it's inspired by my favorite parking garage in Pittsburgh!  Friday night, I was at a wedding on the Gateway Clipper with my fellow civil engineers.  We were all discussing our favorite infrastructure (usually, "This is my favorite bridge!") and we got onto the topic of our favorite parking garages.  We cruised right past my favorite parking garage!

See the parking garage at the end of the bridge that's all lit up?  Yep, that's my favorite!

The quilt is very simple.  Rectangles.  In Kona solids: nightfall, ash, and pepper.  The pepper forms the sashing between the big blue and gray rectangles.  I still haven't decided what to do for the back or how to quilt it.  The colors aren't quite what I wanted them to be.  But I still like it!  The blue needs to be a little less bright, and I probably should've used a gray-er color than the pepper. 

Parking Lights - It's too big to hang from my make-shift clothesline without touching the ground!

A close-up of the top.  If you notice the white flecks, it's because I went through three types of starch on this quilt.  Non aerosol spray starch DOES flake on dark colors... just sayin.

I've also been getting my groove on!  The Totally Groovy Quilt Along is moving right along and I finally got caught up!  I pressed, starched, and cut all of my fabric.  I only did the crib-size, but it came together really quickly.  My first curved piecing went really well!  Kate Conklin has a great video tutorial for piecing curves without pins - it takes a few attempts before you get the hang of it, but it's a timesaver!

My finished Groove top - I'm not sure why the bottom is so uneven.  Did I cut my fabric inaccurately?  Is my seam allowance inaccurate?  Close enough - just square it up later :)

I'm not sure how to quilt the Groove top or what to do for the back.  Maybe a solid back and do some organic-looking, wavy lines that echo the shapes in the quilt? Thoughts or suggestions welcome!

My latest project is a Christmas quilt!  I've had a jelly roll of Basic Gray's Jovial (and some yardage) laying around for a year now and it's finally time to put it to use.  Its all cut and ready to go for a Christmas Ribbons quilt.  I'm not sure how much I'm going to like it in the end... but I'm hoping it turns out nice.  I cut it all up and then started having second thoughts about the pattern - it's not really my style.  Too late now.  It'll be fine, right!?

My pile of Jovial, nicely organized in a shoebox, and my "test block" for the Christmas Ribbons quilt.

My other big news is that today, my QuiltCon Block Challenge blocks are featured on the MQG Blog!  I'm letters A and G in the second set!


I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced - be sure to stop by and take a peak at some of the other awesome projects!