A Lovely Year of Finishes – Participant Highlight

Shanna and I are so excited to present our September participant highlight post to you!  We have Kris from Sew Sunshine with us today.  If you haven’t visited Kris yet, you really should, she does some amazing quilts!

Blog name: Sew Sunshine
Blog address: https://www.sewsunshine.blogspot.com
Name you’re known by throughout quilting world: Kris@SewSunshine

What’s your ALYoF goal this month? Well I think I bit off more than I can chew  this month. I wanted to make a back and quilt my Mod Olive quilt from the Mod Olive qal earlier this summer, over at Sew Kind of Wonderful. It has lots of curved seams and secondary designs made by those curves that would be great for fun quilting. However, quilting like that is a real weakness for me. I want to have some fun with it but tend to stress out of what to do and how to do it.

How do you approach your sewing goals? I don’t really like to make much of a list or goal. I found that picking one item each month for A Lovely Year of Finishes motivates me to give my attention to that one thing if nothing else. Sometimes I can do it and many more things. Sometimes I get distracted by other quilts I want to make, or projects I want to do.  Items made for gifts can throw any plan out the window as well as family events and well, just life.

How do you organize/prioritize your projects? I like to keep that one thing in mind  for  each month but I sort of go with the flow. I don’t put away the fabric for a quilt that is not finished. If I start a new project before the others are finished, I have to work around that mess. Most of the time that keeps those projects to the forefront and I get them done.  Other times I am 3 deep on the design wall, one on the floor while I walk past and stew about how to finish it, and one on the cutting table waiting to get started. Not to mention drawings/sketches  and bags of fabric stashed for upcoming ideas. So to answer the question…not so organized at my house.

What is your current favorite project that you are working on?  Currently I am working on this sort of southwest looking block. I was going through some old magazines and I found this cool way to make this block.  It is one of those blocks that you sew together one way and then cut it apart and put it back together and you end up with something so cool.  The block is cool but what I find to be the best part about it is that I am using up stash fabric. I have fabric that I purchased in my stash dating back to the 80’s so it is so exciting to just use it up.  I have been trying to do the Purge over at Stitched in Color. I have several items I completed from my stash for this project.

What is your dream project to work on? I think my dream project would be to make a super king size quilt for my bed. I would make pillows and shams and matching curtains. I used to love working on big projects.  I am not quite ready to quilt a big quilt like that on my home machine so for  right now I am just dreaming about it.

What is your favorite time of day to sew? I really do my best when the sun is just coming up.  I like really early. The rest of the house does not, so it is not often  something I get to do.

What is your favorite quilting/sewing accessory? I think this year my favorite quilting accessory is spray starch. I never liked to iron/press but when you use spray starch you see just how smooth and flat something can get. It really has helped me out so many times. I use all kinds but really I am finding that expensive is not always the best.

What is your number one quilting/sewing goal for 2014? I really want to finish a quilt that I made my first year of blogging. It is a diamond pattern using Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I have the top done the backing pieced and the batting bought. Now I am waiting for my fmqing skills to improve so I can do a great job of quilting on it. I have been gaining some skills  in this area and making bigger and bigger quilts to quilt.  To date my DIY sampler is my largest  finish at 54” x 70” you can see HERE

What is one technique you really want to learn? I had this idea of doing a new technique at the beginning of the year. This year I chose to do the portrait of my mom in pixelated format. I really want to do this again but refine the colors and pattern and maybe use prints.  I think there are lots of opportunities for this technique to really become art.  I like the cross over into mixed media by dying my own fabrics and using other textiles too.

Thanks for joining us Kris!!