Finish 1 & Finish 2

So...as much as I am not a goal setting girl...
Well.
Wait.
I'm a goal setter but I've not got a lot of follow through...

Whatever.
Any way.
Hey !!!
I finished 2 quilt tops in January!!!! A UFO and a hexie quilt. Gooooooooooo me!

The blue border actually has some pinky-purple that
matches perfect with the Kaffe fabric in the center.

Thing 1 was a UFO that I found in a box of UFOs. This quilt was started when I lived in Miami as a monthly strip quilt class. It was intended to be smaller and the Kaffe fabric would also be the border. Janet so thoughtfully pointed out that the Mountain Majesties pattern was perfect for this ADK Mountain loving girl so I knew I had to finish this to use while camping. It's kind of a funny size but it will work perfect with my camp cot or in front of the fire. I've got more of the orange for the back and the dark blue for the binding.

Thing 2 has been a loooooooong time coming. My first post when I started working on Value Proposition was way back on 5/5/14. I've done lots of side projects in the meantime but I was thrilled a week or so ago to have all the hexies stitched. This past weekend I was able to get the borders on!! Woohoo!!

This is what 374+ inches looks like!

I started by determining that I would need something like 374 inches of borders and cut 10 strips each for the inner and outer border fabrics. I sewed inner and outer border strips end to end and then sewed the two borders side by side. I just couldn't see myself making 2 trips around the quilt to add separate 2 borders but this was so easy I might use it again.

I just love these fabrics together.

After cutting the borders to length I matched the middle of each border to the middle of the quilt side and pinned it at every hexie. Like my weights? Of course, close up is one of my old crocks but in the back is "my" rock.

I think some of you know that one of the hexies in The New Hexagon was named after me (Thank you Katja!!!!). Well, my boss at the LQS had one painted in my fav colors for Christmas!!!! I think I still have most of these fabrics so I need to stitch up a mug rug or something to match.

Anyway, I machine blanket stitched the quilt to the borders and WaaLaa!!! Another finish.

Luckily the weather was nice on Sunday, allowing me to run out to my street to photograph this beauty. Yes, I am 100% sure the neighbors were wondering what the heck I was doing but it's not the first time they have wondered and I just love the streaky blacktop as a backdrop.

This backing will be the same dark teal as the inner border with a matching gold. I'll use a "zipper" method of making the backing that I first saw at a Bonnie Hunter class. I'll share pictures when I get the back made. Which will probably not be until later this month as I am helping out at quilt retreats the next two weekends!

And for this month's non-goal --> another UFO from the box and Twisted hexies!

Wordless Wednesday

Design Wall Monday - 1/4/16

On Thursday, Denise texted me before and after pictures of cleaning up and cleaning out her quilting nook. I told her I thought I had a couple boxes of kits (both bought and self-made) that I probably ought to just take apart and filter the fabric back into my stash. There is nothing wrong with the kits, or fabric, but I just didn't think they needed to sit another 8 years gathering dust. Yes! Most of them were from Miami when I was making kits for when I moved back to NY since I didn't know what kinds of fabric they would have here. I thought the cold, gray north would only have dark fabrics, unlike my Miami brights. I was wrong - there's LOTS of bright fabrics up here. Hence always being caught up by the new fabrics or patterns instead of digging in my boxes. I told Denise I thought I would get to a box over the long weekend.

For some reason Thursday after work I was all gung ho to work in my quilt lab. I started by putting some things away and just generally clearing surfaces of clutter.  Once I tired of that the surfaces were passable I remembered the comments about the boxes-o-kits and headed towards the first one.

Sadly, it's buried under a pile of stuff in a cupboard so I pulled some of the stuff out and filtered some new (non-kit) fabrics into the stash immediately. Why they were in the cupboard is anyone's guess. My guess is I threw them in there for a quick cleanup...

Frustrated by the time it was taking to get to that box, I headed for the other box, under my cutting table, which only had my sewing machine case on it. It didn't take long to discover that this box wasn't so much kits as UFOs. Ugh! I had completely forgotten about them. Everything was sorted into gallon size Ziplocks so I guess you can still call them kits. Some kits were actually fabric bits from finished projects. Those were emptied into the stash, right quick.

The rest of those UFO kits? I dumped them right back into the box so I could work on hexies for the rest of the night. Denial at it's best!!

Final layout...

Come Sunday, tho, I pulled out the kit on the top and decided to make some progress...

The quilt store in Miami used to have a strip club where we made a lap quilt each month using a "passport" system - each month represented a different country via fabric, pattern and or food. The first kit I chose was "Austria" and I know exactly why I quit when I did. The pattern is super easy but was not designed for using the Easy Angle to make HST and I had cut a green WOF strip 8" instead of 8 3/8". Oooofffff.

The top row was together when I found the UFO, I made the second
row yesterday and will pin the 2 together at lunch today. Each
pair of WOF strips makes 8 blocks but I only need 6 per row so
I've already got 4 ready for the next row. Me thinks I can definitely
finish that row tonight! And then only 3 more rows to go!

For now I've set the naughty strip aside and will make as many blocks as I can with the fabric that I have left. There is a possibility that I had already bought extra thinking ahead for borders but if not, I'll be creative and piece together what I need.

Actual colors...

This is such an easy pattern and it seems to be going together quick so that's promising. Tonight I'll be cutting more of the green so lets hope I don't make the same mistake again...or this project will be back at the bottom of that box...

Joining: Design Wall Monday

Design Wall Monday - 4/6/15

Friday started with a headache and a tummy ache so it was a pretty slow going morning but a good day to lounge on the couch and watch Mad Men Season 5...by early afternoon I was feeling better and managed to make 10 purple box kite blocks... after a family fish fry I was back to watching more MM and working on hexies.

Ready...Set...Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most of Saturday was spent at my brother's house for the annual egg hunt and brunch. It's my nephews' preferred birthday party, altho their birthdays were in February and March. Given that my brother upgraded to a larger house and 3 acres last year, the invite list expanded to 60 names, 26 of which where kids. I got to help hide 577 stuffed eggs out in the yard!

Why yes...that is more snow out my dusty window!!

Sunday was all about the hexies since I was dying to watch the rest of MM. I couldn't really tell you how much of this rosette I had worked on before Sunday but I finished the last 3 hexies on the outer round.

The rest of the day, including dinner at Mom & Dad's and watching Happy Feet #1, as delivered by the Easter Bunny himself, was spent on working on this pentultimate gold rosette. Given my activities lined up between today and Saturday, it might take me until Sunday to finish it tho :-(

And just so you know the UFOs that I am trying to work on for my trunk shows (184 days!)...here is a little looksee at a pile of some of the parts. There are at least 4 larger projects and several smaller, random bits in this pile. I hope to finish 2 of the larger projects and put some of the smaller bits to use. We shall see...

See all y'all tomorrow for The Bibliophile Files!

Tuesday UFOs

Sew...what's a girl to do with a free Friday afternoon when the office closes early and she has 2 bazaars coming up soon. She works on a UFO of course!!!! LOL!

I just couldn't get into "making" something - I needed to "piece" something - so I worked for a few hours to soothe my inner beast. Probably would have gotten more done if I didn't have to figure out where I had left off 5 years ago. And let me tell you - my accuracy was pretty lacking back then. It could take some doing to get the squares to fit together when I get all 20 done.

The project was started with Thangles but I am much faster at using my Easy Angle these days so it should be pretty easy to finish the blocks when I get another UFO urge :)

UFO Sightings

I hope y'all had a great Labor Day weekend! I know I did!

As much as I had planned to do lots of house and yard work over the long weekend, the expected thunder storms and the jelly arms after trimming the (stupid) shrubs plus chores from my 2nd (school tax collector) and 3rd (LQS) jobs made me a lazy girl!

I did however declare Sunday and Monday as UFO days!!!

The first UFO completed on Sunday was my 2012 Quiltville Mystery Easy Street. I'm not sure why but I always seem to stall at the borders - and these were easy non-pieced borders. Either way the top is now done. I added the top to the "needs a pieced back" pile - I just wasn't into piecing a back at the time.

I also worked on another UFO yesterday. Again, I had stalled on the borders except this time I only had to add a 13" piece to 2 opposite corners. Must have taken me all of 20 minutes to finish...good grief.

I then pieced the back from the leftover fabrics, made the binding (lime green!), folded the larger chunks for the stash and trimmed the bits for the scrap/strip bins. I managed to clean out a drawer! It was such a good feeling. Now I just have to trim up a batting and this quilt will be sandwiched at our next Sandwich Club meeting in October.

Tomorrow I'll share the hexies I worked on and a new little project I treated myself to :^)

UFO Sightings

Last night I wanted to either finish a UFO top or get a back and batting together for an already finished top so I can sandwich something at our new Sandwich Club this weekend.

I checked out my current UFOs but nothing was "finishable" with only 2 evenings to work on it this week so I pulled out the box of tops. Ok, I thought it was a box of tops. I found sandwiched table runners that needed to be quilted or finished quilted. I found some tops that still needed borders. I even found a few finished tops, some of which I even remembered making the binding for. I pulled out a couple so I could figure out what to do about backings since I just don't have a lot of yardage in my stash.

I found the binding for one of the quilts and then got stalled on the backing. Not sure why, it just happened. And when one is stalled, what does one do? Of course, you work on something else! Which is why I present to you all 37 pieced pieces I need for the hexie star I showed in yesterdays post...

The yellow is coming across a lot brighter than it was in the stack of fabric. It will only show in 12 small spaces so I'm hoping it won't over power the rest of the quilt.

Now I just need to keep this project from becoming a UFO...

4 + 16

4 + 16 is the working title for my new leader ender project. I guess that makes it a NewFO and a UFO at the same time!! The quilt is based on a quilt I saw online which I can no longer find. I know it was called "brown quilt" for a monthly color challenge. If this is your quilt please speak up as I would love to give you credit.

This quilt is really just a ton of 4-patches. The larger 4-patches are made from 2.5" strips and finish at 4". The 16 patches are made from four 4-patches made from 1.5" strips. Two 4-patches and two 16-patches create the block.

The overall quilt is then made of 16 x 18 blocks for a 74" x 82" finish. My quilt is being made from scraps but EQ7 estimates it will take about 6 yards each of blue and neutral fabrics.

Of course, I needed a leader ender "kit." As I subcut units to make 4-patches I put them in this old muffin tin, which sits perfectly on the basket. I have rolled up/pressed 1.5" strips in the basket along with finished 4-patches.

Pinned pairs waiting to be sewn are stored right on the sewing machine so they are handy.

The hardest part of this (leader ender) project is not doing it all at once :)


Anyone want to make a 4 + 16 with me??!!
I can write a tutorial or pdf or whatever if it would help...

UFO Thursday

Yup, it's the end of another month and I should be reporting on my NewFO's and UFO's. I worked on a UFO this month, altho not the designated project. I also started a couple NewFO's that I forgot to take updated photos of so we'll post those next week.

I think you will remember that I finished my Kangaroo Walkabout top last month.

Well, this week I also cut the batting and pieced the back. I wasn't interested in trying to match the pattern of the kangaroo fabric or in having a seam down the middle so I had planned to cut one length of the kangaroos and then make a strip of pieced black fabrics to get it wide enough.

I'm sure you all know to "measure twice and cut once". I suggest you also read your notes twice about what size to cut! I had remeasured the quilt top to make sure my measurements were correct and that is apparently what stuck in my head because I did measure out 72" twice but it should have been cut to 76."  Luckily I also had some WOF black left that I could add to the bottom of the kangaroos. Not what I had originally planned but it works :)

Oh hey, I still have more kangaroo fabric left - I think it should become binding...

I need to make some quillows as birthday gifts for the boys and then their party is Saturday. I hope to get Kangaroo Walkabout spray basted in there sometime.

NewFO and UFO Thursday - February Report

Lets do UFO's first -

My UFO Challenge for this month was to work on my Orca Bay Quilt.  As you may recall from earlier this month, I completed 30 blue string blocks. I had plans to do more last weekend or even last night before midnight but it didn't happen. My goal for the month was to make progress on the quilt and I did... I just never thought to take a picture.

One of my own goals for the year was to finish my "florabunda" quilt based on an antique that Bonnie Hunter encouraged us to all work on starting last year as leader-enders. I finished the top, now called Kangaroo Walkabout, this month and even bought the batting. I still need to piece the back and get it sandwiched.

Now, on to the NewFOs...

My designated project for the month was to work on my broderie perse project. I didn't get far but it is started! I cut the green batik for the sashings. I was too timid to cut into the koi fabric and that's as far as I got. I never took a photo of the cut parts, nor did I remember to grab the EQ file. Can you guess what I'll be working on in March?

This months doll quilt was based on broken dishes or half square triangles. Not having the book to get the pattern from, I doodled in EQ which also let me play with color placement. This is the design I settled on:

The original design had more random color placement and a little heart stitchery in the center block. I've picked out the following fabrics (still deciding on the borders: rightmost fabrics) and planned to make a heart shaped yoyo for the center.

My last new project for the month, started on a whim 4 days before the month ended, was another Bonnie inspired project. You may recall that I came across some half square triangles and a pattern almost simultaneously. I again doodled in EQ to come up with this layout based on Bonnie's original design and my lack of 16 more HST:

The colors are not correct at all since the HST are all batiks...it was just easier to doodle this way. The two purple borders could turn out to be anything and I'll be going to the LQS tomorrow to see what strikes my fancy. As you can see in the following photo, I do have a neutral stripe that would be fun as sashing, border or binding. There is also a chunk of the neutral used in each of the HST blocks available to use. I also have that wild orangey fabric that I got from a sale bin. I originally thought it would work for backing but what about outer border? I don't think there is enough for both places. Tell me what you think before I go to the store tomorrow. Please don't make me make my own decision!!

NewFOs and UFOs

Somehow I never started the NewFO I thought I would in January...not to worry tho as I did start 5 other projects! One is done, I hope another is done this weekend and one is probably long term altho a little addictive.

This is the NewFO I finished already. A mug rug that was donated to my local library for their V-Day fundraiser. I had planned to also make one with hexies instead of the hearts but forgot until I was typing this post. I haven't picked colors for the hexie version yet.

This is the NewFO that I hope is finished this weekend. I haven't specified what it is but several people have made some very close guesses.

This is my addictive NewFO. I had thought it would be long term but it's too easy to grab for a few minutes here and there. This could be a good thing so that I don't have parts sitting around forever. Maybe I should aim for the end of the year? I'll still collect selvages but I'm not sure what the next project will be and I need to see how many I have left when this quilt is done anyway.

This NewFO would probably be pretty easy to get finished and since I hope to keep up with the doll-quilt-a-month-a-long at http://sentimentalquilter.blogspot.com/2012/02/february-small-quilt-challenge.html (this is the link for the next doll quilt) I better get caught up and keep the quilting simple. I had thought about fans but we shall see when I get the red backing on what strikes me.

The last NewFO isn't done yet because I wasn't sure how I wanted to proceed. This is a cover for my Kindle and my original idea was to make the hexies go all the way around without any seams but I wasn't sure how to make that work along with the tutorial that I working from. I've now decided that the best way to proceed will be to make the hexies a little bit bigger, quilt this to the batting and then do the seams as on the tutorial. I think it will be safer for the Kindle. Now if I could just figure out what's wrong with my wifi connection all will be honky dorey.

My January UFO was my Blooming 9-Patch, probably started 4 or 5 years ago. I had hoped to finish the top (which turned out I just needed borders) and get her quilted this month. I purchased the border fabrics and got part of it on but had to stop when I was just a little short on the light purple fabric. I did buy another quarter yard but I still need to finish the borders. I bought batting (on sale!) and I should have enough scraps to piece the back. I would like to think this doesn't now go to the bottom of the UFO pile but who knows.

My February UFO is RollRollCottonBoll which was Bonnie's 2010 mystery project. I've actually listed RRCB for 2 months in this year's UFO Challenge so I don't have specific goals this month other than to make progress. I have 4 steps left: neutral string blocks (and y'all know how much I love them!), assembling the 600 HSTs from those 2 skinny bins into sashing and attaching them to the blocks which are under the red and neutral fabrics, assembling the center of the top and then the borders (parts are in that black dish to the left). OK - no real pressure this month and I like that!

UFO Thursday - 1/26/12

Remember how I had hoped to get both borders on my Blooming 9-Patch last weekend?

I was tootling right along, drawing out the borders in EQ to see if I liked the widths and finally decided yep, these are the measurements I'm gonna go with. I got the dark purple on. I got the four sides of the light purple and then realized I only had enough to get 2 corners on. That last piece of the yardage was 1/4" too narrow. Phooey. No worries, tomorrow I can go buy a little more. Purples are still on sale so it's all good :)

I'll have to measure much more closely before cutting the outer green border...it's so old I can't get any more.

You can also see I laid out one of the lime green binding strips.

My goal for the month was to complete the top, sandwhich and quilt it. Doesn't look like we'll get quite that far but I can at least finish the borders this weekend and piece the backing. Any extra fabric will be trimmed right into the strip bins. One of my LQS has their end of month sale on Monday - I'll go get some batting.

UFO Friday

After being up since 1:51am and not getting home until 9am for a rescue call (FYI-Water Rescue equipment is owned by my/Castile FD and Silver Springs FD also works with us, it's not a County-wide team), I decided to take advantage of all that accumulated sick time and called in sick so I could get some sleep. I figured I would never get to sleep after the adrenaline but I briefly woke to the noon whistle and finally got up at 1pm for another rescue call. Getting home just before 3pm I figured it was finally shower time instead of another nap or I would never sleep through the night. After that I thought I would have hours to sew!!! Except... I dragged my feet and barely got much done. Phooey. I am pretty sure it's because I woke up sick again today :(

I worked on my red strings another 20 minutes and they almost all have the strings on them. I just need to cut 2 more strips and I should be done with the sewing. Just need to trim them and remove the papers.

Then I worked on my January UFO (finally, I know, we are getting to the title of this post). I had to trim each side to straighten it before I added the first border, cut out the borders and sew them on. Good grief - it felt like it took 2 hours to get that much done. I am maintaining the angled corners which takes a little more effort but I think I am going to enjoy the look. Only 2 more borders to go! I am hoping to get 1 if not both borders done this weekend.

UFO Thursday - 1/12/12

I'm afraid there aren't going to be too many pictures today. You see when I went to grab the fabric I bought for this project it was no where to be found and I mean no where cuz I searched every "where" I could think of. Until... on the drive to work this morning, I think I remember putting the new fabric back in the drawer where the leftovers to this project were found. Humph...who puts stuff away where it belongs? Must have been the cats!

As you may recall from last week, my UFO for the month is my Blooming 9-Patch. When I went to take pictures last week I found the top was together and threatened to make you guys pick border fabric for me. Unfortunately, for you guys, when I layed out the scraps from making the center it was rather obvious to me where I should go with the borders. Yup - I went to the LQS!

The orange fabrics were both used in the quilt but I just felt there was already enough orange and eliminated them quickly. The fabric on the left is a pinky-purple that matched the pinky purple in the orange fabric on the far side  (I had bought it in case I wanted another round on the center) but it just doesn't match the purple in the center. I think there is plenty of the green in the foreground and I'm happy with that.

I purchased a half yard each of light and dark mottled purples to use for inner borders. Should I go simple and get it done or do something pieced? Unless someone has a simple pieced idea it's going to be something simple. I also bought a lime green for the binding. I think there will be enough scraps to piece the back, which I've never done but there's a first for everything...

UFO Thursday - 1/5/12

For the month of January we are supposed to work on UFO #5 and for me that's my Blooming 9-Patch. You can see the rest of my UFO list on the tab at the top of this blog.

When writing UFO list I pulled some of the leftovers from my 2011 list and added in some "new" things I had run across recently, including the Blooming 9-patch found when I opened the drawer with the left over fabrics and pattern.

I finally unfolded the top this morning and discovered it's already done...didn't remember that! Anyways, I think it needs a border only because it's just not that big - I guess I would currently consider it a lap quilt. I prefer a couch quilt - meaning a quilt that will cover me from shoulders to feet while laying down on the couch with at least one cat and this won't cut it so far.

I do have some leftovers of the outermost fabric altho I have to measure it before I decide if there is enough for a border. I started with the purple/lime fabric that is the second row and now it reads as very reddish-orange so I'm not sure this is were I want to go with the quilt. There is also a pinky purple I had purchased in case I wanted to add that as the next row. Maybe that has enough for a border but again it's far from the colors I had envisioned. I will have to lay out all the possibles this weekend and see how they actually look. Hah! Maybe I can post that for next week's UFO Thursday and make y'all decide for me ;)

UFO Thursday - Counting to 600

THIS, my friends, is what 600 red and neutral half square triangles looks like.

S. I. X. HUNDRED!

Each basket is about 12" long and the basket on the left is just crammed full of HST's, the right is about 3/4 full. I can finally move forward on my RollRollCottonBoll quilt - yeh, I know, Bonnie's mystery quilt from last fall.

What I didn't think to photograph is "how" I counted from 0 to 600. I have used this method for quite some time but generally for much smaller projects.

 I have a collection of 10 antique thimbles that Mom gave me a few years ago. For every 5 (insert HST/9-patch/cut piece/etc) I would place a thimble on it's side. When it was up to 10 the thimble is placed on end. 10 thimbles makes a hundred and that was usually sufficient. This time however I was really slow in making the HSTs so I used a toothpick for 100 and then went back to the thimbles to get to the next 100. 6 toothpicks and I was FINALLY done :) A private little happy dance soon followed.

UFO Thursday

It's a new month which means there is a new UFO challenge by Judy at http://www.patchworktimes.com/.

This month's is similar to last month's project... I just need to add the borders to Bonnie's Carolina Christmas and the top will be finished. And look...it seems the borders are (mostly? all?) put together and I just need to sew them on to the quilt center.

Why do we get so close and never cross the finish line?

May's UFO Challenge is done!

WooHoo!

I actually "finished" my May UFO project!!

All I had to do was finish adding 2 outer rows of borders to 2 sides of the quilt. The batiks were already sewn together, I just had to add the background material to fill out the rows (not enough batiks as these were from charm packs). What did that take? 30 Minutes?

I've kinda decided to call this "Headed North" or "Moving North" or "Moving Home" or something like that. What do you think? The batiks were purchased in NC as I was moving from Florida back to NY.

An early morning...

After getting up at an obscene hour to deliver the special election satchel this morning, I returned home with nearly 2.5 hours to sew before I even had to start thinking about breakfast let alone getting ready for work. So, what did I accomplish, you ask? Not.a.lot!

I finished a civil war block, looked for fabric to make a sample Quiltville block but couldn't make a final decision, machine appliqued a hexie flower as a shop sample and subcut the strip set shown above. I then worked on some hexies.

I know it sounds like a lot but I really felt like I was just wandering from to do list item to item. I seem to be doing that a lot lately, wandering. I love the civil war blocks and the donation quilts were quick and fun but I need to work on a bigger project, even a UFO, that will take some time to finish...to focus me on something, anything. Maybe after Zumba tonight I can find the bits for this month's UFO (can't find them now that I am "cleaning" the studio).

UFO Thursday & Civil War Blocks

This month we are supposed to be working on UFO #9 which is this batik quilt.
It looks done, you say?! Not quite because it's only 95% done. I need to finish the borders on 2 sides.

When moving from Miami back to Castile we stopped at a Quilt Store in one of the Carolina's and they had batik charm packs for sale. Who can resist a good charm pack or three? Especially when moving from the sunny south back to the cold, gray north. The borders were made from left over charms and they are all cut - some of them maybe already be sewn into strips - I just need to sew them to the top.

And that porch...by summer's end it will have a brand new coat of paint on it! We think the main support posts may be original to the 1892 house so we will have to be careful with them when scrapping paint. The trim will remain white but I plan to paint the deck a nice purple color. It may cause my 'hood to be in an uproar but I'll smile everytime I see it :) See, just thinking about it put a smile on my face :)

I've been playong catch up with my Civil War blocks. I'm now making two of these quilts so I had to go back and make duplicates - 3 done, 3 more to go. I've also made two new blocks and have a third cut and partially sewn together. Progress is good!

#14 - Fox & Geese

#6 - Richmond