Madrona Road progress

As a member of the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild, I jumped at the chance to participate in The Modern Quilt Guild's Madrona Road challenge--beautiful (free!) fabric to sew into something amazing. We finally received our little fat eighth fabric bundles at the January meeting.

(photos from Michael Miller Fabrics)

In a move very unlike me, I came home from the meeting and almost immediately cut up my entire stack of fabric without having a really solid, thought-out plan. (I'm the quilter who likes to admire pretty stacks of fabric and I have a really hard time bringing myself to finally cut into it!) There was a slight "oh crap" moment as I looked at my beautiful fabric all chopped up into 4 inch squares. I considered buying more fabric but decided to forge ahead with the challenge of using just these fabrics and solids from my stash. So I started pairing up my squares with squares of Kona White and am making piles of half-square triangles. While making the half-square triangles gets a little tedious, I love their versatility and with so many options I'm still not set on a layout for my quilt. I think I need a design wall.

It's so easy for me to get discouraged and tell myself I don't have enough time to complete the projects I want to. I've tried to be better about getting off the computer and just going for it rather than over-thinking it and eventually convincing myself it's not possible. So I'm okay with cutting up all my Madrona Road without a set plan. I've also started breaking down projects into manageable pieces so they don't seem so overwhelming. I have 10 squares of each fabric. My mini goal is to sew the HSTs for at least one fabric every day. There are 7 fabrics, so my 140 HSTs will be done in a week. (Possibly sooner if I get really motivated or have extra time.)

I had to do the same thing with my converging corners baby quilt. I set a timeline and knew how many blocks I had to complete each week in order to have them done in time to quilt and bind it. It took 2 months from start to finish but was actually finished a few days before the baby shower.  One of my sewing goals for 2013 is to complete more projects than I did in 2012. . .and I was pleasantly surprised with my 2012 accomplishments.