Tuesday, July 05, 2011

June UFO is FINISHED!

I cannot tell you how excited I am that this quilt is finally finished! I started it in February 2007, so it's about 4 1/2 years old. The size of "Scrappy Memories" is 48" x 56".



I learned how to line up the sashings more accurately and practised with each row, so by the end I was getting much better at it. But the first long sashing was still bugging me, so I took the entire first row off and reattached it. It made me like the quilt so much more! 






I used my new ripping tool that I bought in Vermont and it worked quite well.
This was my first Quilt-As-You-Go (QAYG) project and I have decided I do like the technique. I used the same technique as on Andrea's tutorial over at Welsh Quilter. I liked it so much that a) I have started another QAYG quilt to use up scraps from my Indian Orange Peel quilt, and b) I signed up for a QAYG class in the fall with Martha Shellingerhoud. 
I have written before about the challenges in finishing this quilt - click here if you missed the gory details!
These are the great things about this quilt...
1) it used up a lot of leftovers including bazillions of small scraps of fabric, as well as lots of small bits of leftover batting of all kinds. I mixed them all together - bamboo, cotton, blends, etc and you can't tell at this point that they aren't all the same. It will be interesting to see how they hold up over the years of washing. On the back of the quilt are random squares of purple from my stash.

2) I will always remember hand stitching the sashings on the back of the blocks while having movie nights with my Mom. She received these old 1950's Howard Keel movies for Christmas and we had lots of laughs watching them.
Challenge Summary: for the 2011 UFO Challenge we each set our own projects goals and mine were to finish (as in quilted, bound, and labelled) 12 quilts. As of the half way mark of 2011, I have finished 5 out of 6 of my UFO's. (My spiderweb quilt just needs quilting and then all 6 will be finished)...woohoo!

17 comments:

Cathy said...

I have one of those quilt as you go's hanging around. Yours looks so good, I might just have to pull mine out and finish it.

Ellen said...

Your quilt looks gorgeous - what a beautiful use of scraps!

Sally Ann said...

Awesome job Kathy!! I love it. it was worth the wait to see the finished product!! I must try one of these to use up all my scraps!

floribunda said...

Congratulations -- what a great quilt! I went back to read Andrea's tutorial and it makes so much sense now... I may have to jump on the bandwagon. I love the idea of using up all those bits of batting, too!

scraphappy said...

Congratulations!!!! A finish always feels great, but one that is 4 1/2 years old has even more satisfaction. The back is great, I love the way all those purples look together.

Appalachian Mercantile said...

Woo Hoo! Congrats on the finish!

Karen said...

Great QAYG quilt. I'm curious though on how "stiff" the quilt feels? I started several string blocks using this method and they each feel kind of stiff to me so I put them aside afraid that the whole quilt will be too rigid. Love to hear your opinion now that yours is finished.

Candace said...

It's so beautiful and has so many good memories. I need to learn more about the QAYG and learn to love making string blocks. They make such beautiful quilts. I made 8 for the back of my RRCB in the last couple days and I didn't dislike it as bad this time, lol.

Ivani said...

I love String blocks quilts and Scrappy Memories is beautiful. You did a awesome quilt. I need to try this QAYG method, thanks for sharing.
YES! 5 quilts already done for the UFO challenge. I bet you will hit the goal. Congratulations!!
Hugs

AnnieO said...

Congratulations! That's a great looking quilt and great meet the challenge finish. Happy for you!

Béa said...

Congrats on this beautiful finish !
Love this quilt and I am a big fan of QAYG. XO

Plum Cox said...

Super! I had already looked at your photo and admired how the sashing lined up before reading your text about it.....good for you for unpicking and re-doing, as the quilt looks amazingly precise!
well done!

Amy said...

Oh
Wow!
Considering the stage this quilt was in (from your blog post on June 29), your perseverance to finish it is so rewarding! It is amazing!!
Thank you for sharing the link on how to create a QAYG; seeing your finish is inspiring enough to try the method out in order to use up some of my batting scraps.

Peg - Happy In Quilting said...

I totally agree with everyone...congratulations the quilt is 'stunning'...

Deb A said...

Love that quilt and thanks for the link to Andrea's tutorial. I may need to try this sometime as I love the hand quilting of the binding process. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a nice comment.

Rose Marie said...

Congrats .... only 1 more to go for your goal!!!

Love your quilt and the back looks as good as the front.

Elly D said...

Love your finished UFO! It really is gorgeous :)