How I Trimmed My WIP List / Beauties Pageant 82

This baby quilt was a quick WIP to check off my list.

Last November, I engaged in some self-inflicted accountability and made a list of my WIPs. Usually, working on 5 or 6 WIPs at a time provides the variety I need to maintain my interest and be productive, but the count last fall was a whopping 21 projects.

Some of the 21 were finished flimsies. Others were piles of fabric with an accompanying pattern. No matter what state each WIP was in, however, I had committed to finishing them all. And now, exactly six months after my initial count, my list is down to a respectable 12.

If your WIP list is unwieldy—and we each get to decide how many projects is too many projects for us as individual crafters—here are my suggestions for pruning it ...

Start with the Deadlines

Quilt deadlines tend to live in the gray. How many of us have, say, promised newlyweds a quilt only to present the finished gift on the couple’s third wedding anniversary?

Last fall, however, I had a hard-and-fast deadline: submitting to QuiltCon. After I finished the project I hoped would get juried into the show (and it did!), I moved on to two quilts that I needed for gifting at the end of January or beginning of February. Done, done, and done!

Love Boldly was displayed at QuiltCon 2020, in Austin.

Tackle the Low-Lying Fruit

From there, I focused on projects that were further along in the quilt-making process. I was all about culling that total number of WIPs down, so a quick baby-size quilt was an automatic priority, as were tops that were already pieced.

Call in the Reinforcements

I almost always quilt my projects myself, but I knew I would clear projects from my list faster if I enlisted the help of a longarmer or two. One project (finished but not yet unveiled here) was a twin, and I wasn’t interested in wrestling it through my machine. It was the top candidate for a little quilting by check. Then there were a few Christmas quilts I was making for family and friends. They merited some special quilting treatment, too.

Insert Some Fast Finishes 

Along the way to a smaller WIP list, I took some breaks. I sewed some Christmas minis. I tried my hand at making vinyl zipper bags. I completed enough Popcorn Pouches for a small army. Trimming my WIP list was a fine objective, but a fast finish here and there helped keep things interesting for me.

These minis went to the three paraeducators who work with my younger son.

What is your plan of attack for WIPs? Are you a stickler for tracking your projects and your progress on them, or do you allow yourself the freedom to follow your creative whims? Or are you one of those quilty unicorns who works on one project at a time, not starting a second until the first is done?

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Adding Bling to Some Bags / Beauties Pageant 81

Despite the dozens of zippers I have installed in past projects, the process continues to intimidate me. I think the issue is that I sew with zippers in short spurts—when I, say, bang out Christmas presents for a small army or tackle the four zippers in a Sew Together Bag. There’s just enough time in between such projects that I begin to doubt my zipper acumen.

But recently, I had the need for some quick gifts—for Mother’s Day, as thank-you gifts—and I decided to make Amista Baker’s Popcorn Pouch pattern. It’s one that’s been on my radar screen since its release back in 2018, and it proved to be both a simple and a satisfying sew. In fact, the zipper installation is so straight-forward that it would be an appropriate project for beginners.

I love making pouches and bags because they’re practical gifts and I can never have enough of them myself. They’re also a good way to use stashed fabric that hasn’t worked for quilt projects. Look at that Cotton and Steel fabric at the top of the post. It’s lovely, but I struggled to fit it into more than one quilt top (this one). On a pouch or two, though, it’s the star.

And consider the Denyse Schmidt fabrics in the pouch below. They’re from collections sold at a national chain. Because they weren’t quilt-shop quality, I hesitated to use them in projects that would get washed over and over again. An item that won’t get laundered, though, is the perfect venue for them.

All the zippers, fabric, and interfacing used in the nine Popcorn Pouches I made came from my stash, so I thought I’d indulge in some crafty retail therapy by buying some charms to use as zipper pulls. They were inexpensive, were easy to install, and added a little personality to the finished products.

A question for my fellow bag makers: Have you upped your zipper-pull game? My first foray into adding a little bling to bags was simple: I attached single charms with jump rings. If you have any suggestions on what I can do in the future, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Quilted Christmas Village / Beauties Pageant 80

This week I checked another project off my list of WIPs. It’s the first of two versions of Kate Spain’s Chalet pattern I have planned ...

I own a bunch of Basic Grey’s Juniper Berry collection, and this pattern was a satisfying way to make a dent in that stash. To showcase those Juniper Berry prints with a lot of white, I chose a tone-on-tone gray polka dot from Riley Blake as the background. It was not a typical-Michelle fabric decision—and one I’ll make up for in the second version I have ready to sew, which will have a white background—but it works here. (I also used Kona Pepper in this quilt. That’s another odd choice for me. And I bound the quilt in the same polka dot I used as the background. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Weird!)

This pattern was a hit with me. In addition to being super cute, it was a straightforward sew that had me piecing the many flying geese in a clever, new-to-me way. The lessons I’ll take into my second quilt, however, include the precious points in those flying geese. I always default to a scant quarter inch when I’m at my sewing machine. For flying geese (especially ones that I cut down to size, as is done in this pattern), a more generous quarter inch gives me more wiggle room to preserve points. Remembering that would have made sewing the blocks together an easier process.

Even if I had sewn generous quarter-inch seams on my flying geese, I would have encountered a problem with the binding. I almost always attach my binding to the back of a quilt and finish it from the front by machine. There have been some occasions when I do the opposite—attach to the front and finish from the back—but without exception, I finish binding by machine. I don’t ever tack binding down by hand. (To those of you who do—and to those of you who do and even enjoy the process—good for you!)

It was impossible to keep all those points intact when finishing the binding. I did allow some extra space when I trimmed the excess batting from the quilted project, but I wasn’t comfortable providing too much. With my second Chalet quilt, I plan on adding a thin border—maybe just an inch or two—to address this issue.

If this post has stirred up your own feelings about binding preferences, I want to hear about it! As I mentioned, my bindings are 100% machine sewn. I’m also a width-of-fabric binding maker. What are your binding preferences?

Linking up to Favorite Finish ...

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter