Scrappy Saturday - UFO Confessional

I read Elly's post about working on her "Quilters' Blessings" redwork block and wondered about my own project. I went in search of my blocks and found them!
There is always a reason why a project becomes a UFO and part of the process to end the parade of projects into my overflowing UFO closets is to take an inventory...and to be ruthless about it.
Last year I did an UFO inventory and decided to put 3 UFO tops up for adoption. They were quilt tops that I knew I just did not want to work on anymore (to read more about that click here).
This year when I made my 2011 UFO (unfinished objects) Wish List, I took several projects off the list that needed some ongoing work and would not be finished in a reasonable amount of time. They went on my new W.I.P. (Works In Progress) Wish List.
This project is one of my favorites from that list...Quilter's Blessings was a Block Of the Month from Capricorn Quilts in 2008.

Here's the inventory:
-there were 16 block patterns released and I stitched 11 of the patterns and ran out of my base fabric. Then it went on top of a big pile of projects I was working on, and gradually worked it's way to the UFO closet, while I thought about what to do about the fabric problem. 11 blocks is a hard number to work with in a quilt layout.



Now for the ruthless questions...
A) Do I still like it and want to work with it?
             Yes...I still really like it and want to make it into a finished quilt.
B) Will I realistically finish stitching the remaining 5 blocks?
             Likely not, because I have several other hand stitching projects on the go. But I could easily finish 1 more block to make an even 12 blocks to work with.
C) What are my next steps?
             Step 1: Pick a similar piece of white background fabric and trace 1 more block to stitch.
             Step 2: Figure out how to set the blocks together.
In deciding what size to make some setting blocks, I realized that my stitched blocks are all different sizes. That was a shock! Could it be that my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders due to all the night shifts I worked this week?!? In the 3 years I have been working on this project, I never realized that my printed out patterns and finished blocks are varied sizes. At this point, the project was in again in danger of drifting toward the UFO closet!
But not this time! I will forge ahead and trim all the blocks to the largest size and then make the alternate blocks that same size. On the right is a yellowed out photo showing the size variance.
I got out my red scraps and figured out an alternate block, which was inspired by Diane's quilt - click here to see it. I am going to make a smaller version of her alternate block. I cut up some blocks and strips and now have everything organized to make this one of the projects that I will take to retreat.
Did I mention that I am going on a quilting retreat?!?!
I am too tired to think about retreat at this moment (did I mention I worked too many night shifts this week?!?) but after a quick nap, I'm sure I'll be very excited to get all my projects packed up. Last year I took 11 projects to work on, and 5 of them did not even get touched!
If the WiFi is working at the retreat centre, I will make daily reports this week...stay tuned!