Saturday, January 9, 2010

OPAM 2010 - January Finishes

I joined OPAM, One Project a Month 2010 (I participated in the 2009 version of OPAM), and am already proud to report some finishes! :)

First, is Penelope Ruffles, by Izzy & Ivy. Lola, my SIL (and the designer behind Miss Penelope Ruffles) made one that looked like this for our New Moon fundraiser. She used black and white, and red fabrics to creat this dazzling purse, and I knew I HAD to make me one just like it if I didn't win it at the raffle (I didn't win). It took me a while, because I am not used to following anything but "sew with 1/4 in seam allowance on the right side" type of instructions. I am a quilter, not so much a sew-er (as opposed to sewer, which is stinky).


There weren't directions for making the key fob, so I made up my own pattern based off of the sample on the pattern envelope photo.

I am not sure if these next two count, but I'm going to count them anyway. :)

The day after Christmas, all of the Christmas crafts at Joann's went on sale an additional 60% off. These two kits were originally $16, but I got them for less than $4 each.
I just love the Santa, and so does Marshy. When I started it, all I had done were the boots, but he knew INSTANTLY who it was supposed to be.

My fourth finish is my NQT NYD MQ 2010.

What in the world does NQT NYD MQ 2010 mean? Well, it means "Not Quite Traditional" New Year's Day Mystery Quilt 2010. It's a class I took from Longarm University. It was all online. It was really a lot of fun. Here is my finished product:
We did not quite traditional cross hatching and Baptist fans. It was fun.

There was a ton of quilting involved!

Surprisingly, I got it quilted and bound in just 2 days! I guess I was feeling motivated by OPAM to finish so I could report it. :D

Below is the back. I based the fabrics I chose off of fabrics I had in my stash. I really wanted to use the lime green/turquoise (backing fabric) and the lime green (binding fabric) from my stash. Unfortunately, I didn't really have enough of anything that matched, so I had to buy the rest of the fabrics used in the top. It wasn't that much, though, so I'm happy :) Funny story, the fabric for the back is actually fabric from a Halloween line that I bought on clearance at Gracie Lou's. It doesn't look like Halloween fabric to me, though, which is a good thing.

Cindy, our instructor, recommended we use contrasting thread. I thought when I ordered my thread that it would be enough of a contrast. Turns out it blended in really well. Now that it's all quilted, I'm glad that the thread isn't too contrasting, because the texture from the quilting is so nice. I used Kate Green on the turquoise bits for the Baptist Fans, Ferrari for the lime green background quilting, and Gerbera Daisy in the hot pink fabrics. They are all by So Fine! threads.

I am having so much fun doing OPAM already. I just hope that I can continue getting things finished. Here's to 12 months of finished projects! :)