UFO's and Design Wall Monday

In last Saturday's guild zoom sew day, one of the things we discussed was closets, drawers, and collections of unfinished projects. I have been thinking about it this week and here are some random thoughts:

*Most of the time my UFO's don't bother me, and in fact sometimes it feels like a very special collection that someone will inherit someday. Photos of my UFO closet are magical - so much beauty and so many memories created over time. I can look at each quilt project, some with borders or backing on the hangers, and I can remember so many things about the fabrics, pattern designer, life circumstances, etc.

*But once in a while UFO's feel a bit overwhelming. Mostly this happens when I want to put more in the closet and there isn't any room!

One of the zoom attendees recommended the youtube video called "When to quit" by Karen Brown. I enjoyed watching Karen's decision making process as she sorted which UFO's were going to become finished projects, and which ones were getting the old "heave ho"! I hope to do more of that in my quilting room on a regular basis.

*Click here to read one of my favourite UFO stories about turning an old UFO duckling into a gorgeous swan. In the right hands, at the right time, with enough creativity and care... anything (projects, friendships, homes, lives, etc) can become beautiful. I just love how the daisies turned this simple QST top into a pretty quilt. I love that the daisies are translucent and you can see a bit of the block design behind them.

*Being inspired, I went through the UFO closet and pulled out 3 projects to finish. The first one is on the design wall today. This was the New Year's Day mystery from Scrapdash and was made totally from stash. I sewed the last seams together during the zoom sew, and today I will stay stitch around the edge of the quilt - just in case it will be in the UFO closet for a little while longer! LOL

I have picked out some fabric for a backing and just have to do some pressing. For that to happen, the weather needs to be cooler. It's hard to put the iron on when it's so hot! But progress is being made!

What's your UFO situation these days? 

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

April UFO Becomes the May UFO

The first step in working on my April UFO was to get the top finished....which meant completing some borders and adding them to the quilt. 

The math was not fun, and the seam ripper was used way too many times to make this enjoyable.  A big mistake was made and I needed a break from this brain buster project. 

Long story made short - the Unity quilt did not get finished in April. This quilt is the largest I have made in a long time and here you can see half of it on the design wall. Maybe the flying geese blocks should go all the way to the edge? NO can do... the math doesn't work!

And so... my April UFO has now become the May UFO!

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

Unity on the Design Wall

It has been 2 years since I started this Unity quilt. This is  a Bonnie Hunter medallion mystery and it was a wonderful distraction at the beginning of covid. Remember when we were learning to sew masks and were so hopeful that it would all be over in a few weeks!?!

Anyway, this quilt top was made completely from my fabric stash which has been challenging in terms of having enough yardage to put it together. Bits and pieces have been added as I have scrounged through the stash to find compatible fabrics to keep building more blocks.

My Unity quilt top was almost finished in February and since then I have been working on the borders. I made 4 corner blocks, 16 flying geese, and auditioned several sashing fabrics. Many many measurements have been taken and math equations puzzled over and I think I have figured out how to put it all together. Fingers crossed!

I love so many of the fabrics in this scrappy quilt, and it holds so many memories of the beginning of the pandemic. I feel motivated to continue working on this quilt and have it done before covid is done! LOL 

Linking up to One Monthly Goal and Design Wall Monday

March UFO

My goal for March 2022 is to finish my version of the 2018 RSC Squared Away Sampler. It took a long time to figure out what the block layout would be, and it has been a quilt top for 2 years now.

Then it had to percolate in the UFO closet until it was ready for quilting.  

And now it's ready!

I will piece some yardage for a backing, cut a batting, pin baste the sandwich and get quilting.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

February UFO Update

A backing was pieced from 12 fat quarters that I won 10 years ago in a shop hop draw. I don't enjoy sewing with solids so this is the perfect place to use them up.

So now this UFO has a backing, and a batting cut, and is ready for pin basting. 

I have the thread colours picked out and the quilting will be quick and easy horizontal wavy lines so this can be finished by the end of February.

Design Wall Monday

You will never believe what is on the design wall today! My version of "Unity" has emerged from the UFO closet! It's time to get to work on this one.

This project was started at the beginning of the pandemic and was a mystery pattern from Bonnie Hunter. It went into the UFO closet in the summer of 2020 when I got stuck on the layout decisions. I didn't want to make an enormous quilt and this quilt top already measures 57 1/2" x 72 1/2", without the other border on top.

When I added the words to my quilt it made the quilt too long to add the final turtle borders to the top and bottom. 

My plan of the moment is to figure out the math to add the turtle borders to the sides of the quilt. The turtles will be swimming up and down instead of side to side, but I think that will be a good solution.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

One Monthly Goal

Every month I chose a quilting goal and make a concerted effort to accomplish that goal. If I don't set a goal with a deadline, I have a 0% chance of finishing a quilt. According to last year's stats, when I do set a monthly goal I have a 66% chance of achieving that goal.

Thank you to Patty at Elm Street Quilts for continuing the One Monthly Goal program this year and encouraging us each month to move forward on our projects.

This month I would like to finish my "Scraphappiness" quilt top. This needs to be finished because I want to start another one!  This is an easy to sew (thoughtless) scrap eater project with so many possible layouts. 

These are my next steps: 1) find fabric and piece a backing, 2) piece batting scraps together for a large enough batting, 3) pin baste the sandwich,  4) choose threads, and 5) figure out a quilting design.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

UFO Update

I've been deep into sewing mystery quilts this month, so my January UFO was a little delayed. But I still have a few days to finish it up. 

backing, batting and quilt top

I had this pile ready to proceed for a while - the backing pieced (only 5 pieces to sew together), the batting cut, the quilt top pressed, and the threads chosen. That's a lot accomplished already, but it's not a finished quilt yet!

Pin basting has started with my handy dandy Kwik Clip tool (to close the safety pins easily). While I'm basting, I talk to the quilt and come up with some possible quilting designs. Since this is a medallion quilt, I've decided to quilt it from the centre out, making the decisions as I come to each round.

A Rainbow Scrap Challenge is FINISHED!

It's always so exciting to finish a quilt... but even more so when it's a long term scrappy project that was 8 years in the making! November's UFO began in April 2014 and was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's Maverick Stars pattern. Each month I made a couple of blocks with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

The quilt top was put together at a retreat in September 2019. And then it needed to age sufficiently in the magical UFO closet.  (You have one of those don't you!?!?)

diagonal wavy line quilting

The quilting was inspired by Preeti's serpentine quilting and I quilted horizontal, vertical, and diagonal wavy lines.

I used up some leftover grey scraps for the binding, most of which were trimmings from backings. I love that fabric with the glasses that was in a scrap bag - it looks like the block is supervising the binding process!

And when the quilt was finished, we went on an adventurous outdoor photo shoot. 

Here is the "stars on the wood pile" shot.

Finished size: 48" x 66"

The fall leaves were a carpet, crunching under foot as we searched for good locations for photos.

Here is the "quilt over the rail" shot.

And my favourite photo is "stars on the oak leaf path"!

Proudly linking up to One Monthly Goal and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

November UFO

The decision of which UFO to focus my energy on each month is always a challenge. You just never know which projects will suddenly start calling attention to themselves! That is certainly the case with this month's choice - Scrappy Maverick Stars.

Maverick Stars on the design wall

This was a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project that started in April 2014 and was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's scrappy pattern. I finished the quilt top in September 2019 when visiting my friend Deanna. 

Since then it has been waiting patiently to become a finished quilt. It's patience recently ran out and now it urgently wants to become a finished quilt!

The first steps are preparing a backing, cutting a piece of batting to the needed size, and then pin basting the 3 layers in preparation for machine quilting.

Here is the beginning of the basting the layers together using my favourite Kwik Klip tool which helps me fasten the pins closed.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

UFO Finish - Deanna's Daisies

In March of 2010 I was a last minute substitute for a guild speaker and did a presentation on my UFO problem - you can read about it here. (We won't talk about how the UFO problem is even worse than it was back in 2010!) 

One of the UFO's that was put up for adoption at the 2010 guild meeting is this blue and yellow QST quilt top. It was made from swap blocks in the early 1990s and although I thought I was clever with the layout, I just never really liked the poor thing. And no one at the meeting liked it either! But my friend Barb took it home and mailed it off to  Deanna, my self declared "northern blog stalker".

Well Deanna took this ugly duckling and turned it into a swan!

She appliqued large daisies, and machine quilted it with loops and flowers... and it turned out so pretty!

Here is a close up of a daisy so you can see how she attached them. The petals are stitched around the outside to fasten them to the quilt top. And then they are stitched 1/4" away from the edge as part of the quilting design. I love the translucent effect!

And even the backing is made of pretty blue and yellow fabrics!

I already slept under it to give it the sleep test... only  happy dreams, so it's good to go to a new home!

This quilt will be donated to my local guild's comfort quilt project that provides quilt to victims of sexual assault receiving treatment at our local hospital.

Now I'm excited about the treasures hiding in my UFO closet just waiting to become something beautiful... maybe!

July OMG

My goal for July is to finish the 2018 sampler from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge called "Squared Away". Each month I made 4 sampler blocks in the colour of the month, and then added the random owl because she is irresistible! I made the 5" block size and put them into an on point setting.

I already have the quilting design in mind which is why it is this month's project. But first it needs a couple of borders added to bring it up to useable size quilt.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

And PS... since Feedburner is going away, I added the "follow.it" subscription service to the right sidebar of my blog. If you want my blogposts to arrive in your email, you can subscribe by entering your email address. Then you must confirm your subscription by email to activate it. Let's see how this service works out.

April UFO Goal

My goal for April is to finish all my UFOs.

Just kidding...  couldn't help myself! 

April Fool's Day!

But just think of what that would be like to have no UFOs and be completely caught up with all your projects. That would be a strange life indeed.

So seriously.... my project for April is to finish the Morewood Mystery quilt from Meadow Mist Designs. I really enjoyed sewing this mystery over the winter using the very bright colours I chose. 

This needs to be finished by April 12th to be in the parade of mystery finishes and get in on a chance to win one of the amazing participation prizes. 

Can I finish this quilt in half a month? 

We shall see! I have the batting, the backing and the quilt top ready to go.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

A Mystery Quilt Finish

My UFO project for March (and for February but we won't talk about that!) was to finish the guild mystery quilt that was started last summer. Nothing new was purchased to make this quilt and so many old scraps were used up. Being unable to shop during the pandemic has really helped me to be innovative in using up what I have accumulated over the years and I feel quite proud of that. 

The quilting is all free motion done on my domestic sewing machine, with each round of the quilt having a different design. I did not agonize over how to quilt this project like I sometimes do. I just made a decision as I came to each border and ended up with a variety of designs including arcs, swirls, waves and a few semi straight lines.

I really love the outside border for 2 reasons:

1) there are 13 pieces of black fabric scraps in the border and this really makes me so happy!

2) I love how the double swirl design turned out  using 2 different colours of threads. It was so fun to stitch that I contemplated adding another layer of stitching with a 3rd thread colour, but decided that I should focus instead on finishing the quilt instead.

The free pattern is by Robert Kaufmann and is called Gazebo Medallion. My version is much smaller and measures 54" x 64.5".

This quilt will join my guild's comfort quilt collection which is donated to victims of sexual assault that are treated at our local hospital. I love that this funky scrappy quilt will be given to a young person in need of some comfort.

I always use Warm and Natural batting for machine quilting and one tip I'd like to remember (so I am writing it here) is how to decide which side of Warm and Natural batting should be facing the quilt top. There are many different and opposite opinions on the internet (as there is with everything these days!) so I only trust the website belonging to the maker of the Warm and Natural batting. They say: 

"When quilting Warm & Natural or Warm & White, it is usually easier to do so in the same direction it was needle-punched – the cotton side facing towards your quilt top and the scrim side facing toward your quilt backing. With Warm & Natural the cotton side is distinguished by its leaf & stem remnants (face to quilt top)."

That is very helpful and I will remember that from now on as it helps with reducing thread breakage. The scrim side is smooth and it should face the backing.

Proudly linking up to One Monthly Goal and Favorite Finish party at Meadow Mist Designs

February UFO Goal

After not meeting my January UFO goal, I think I should pick a sure thing for February! I hope to finish my guild covid mystery quilt and donate it to the comfort quilt collection at the hospital.

The quilt top is ready, I just need to collect a batting, backing, and binding (and some quilting ideas!) to turn this into a finished quilt by the end of February. It's a short month, so I hope it's doable! Two months of failure would be hard to take! LOL

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

UFO Update

This month's UFO had to be found before I could work on it! It's almost 5 years old, so it was at the back of the closet. And although I didn't actually start working on it until this week, I was working on it in my head since the beginning of the month. Thinking. Thinking. 

Why did I stop working on it? What would make me like this project more? 

Having the right mindset is the most important thing when working on a UFO and here are the four insights I had about this project:

1) Too much of a good thing (pink) might not be good (for me)! I was coming to that conclusion after the class and spacing out the pink and adding more white in the strip sets, but still not quite enough to settle it down. 

2) Adding a couple of random surprises makes me happier! In this quilt there are a few bunnies and owls.

3) There is no "right" layout, especially with an improv quilt. Anything the maker likes is "right". Sometimes when I take a quilt class I start to think there is only one way to put a quilt together, and the teacher knows the way and I don't. It ties me up in knots and then the project gets stuck. 

4) Hand stitching fixes everything (for me!). As soon as I started thinking about adding hand stitches in pink thread, I immediately wanted to finish the quilt top.

Progress is being made!

Design Wall Monday

It's pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I decided to start off 2021 with a pink UFO. This project is the combination of 2 improv classes in 2016. It's been waiting a while to be finished and it's time has come! Right now it is just a bunch of pink and white strip sets that need to be sewn to the centre quarter log cabin blocks. It's a bit too much pink even for me, so I'll be happy to finish this for a donation quilt.

It's a big goal to get this to become a finished quilt by the end of the month, but it's January so I'm aiming high!

Hop over to One Monthly Goal to see what other quilters are hoping to finish in January. 

Also linking up to Design Wall Monday.

December UFO Finished!

My December UFO was quilted, labelled, bound, and wrapped and under the tree by Christmas morning! Now that's what I call a Christmas miracle! This was a project started in 2007 and inspired by Leanne Beasley. It was called the 365 Challenge and the goal was to document the life of your family on fabric. 

I lost interest in the project in early 2008 and didn't return to it until December of this year when I thought it was the perfect time to recall "the good old days" and bring back some happy childhood memories for my kids.

The quilt is not much to look at but it is rich in memories and love. When I read some of the entries of all the things I used to be able to do in one day, I was impressed! Life is completely different now, so it is a gift to have these little fabric notes to remind us of those days gone by.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

August UFO on the design wall

Some progress is being made on my UFO of the month.  The enthusiasm for making more blocks for this Moda Blockheads II project was completely gone, so I decided to just finish this quilt with the blocks I had already made. 

To make the layout work out, I had to remove 2 blocks, so the fish and the windmill were moved to the back of the quilt. Then I played with various layout combinations and decided to sew it together in sections with some white sashing to calm it down a bit.. 

Tada! The blocks are sewn together and I like it! But the size is 45.5" x 44" which is an odd size. I can't decide if this is a wallhanging or a lap quilt... should I make it longer to be more rectangular shaped? Make some pieced borders?

Moda Blockheads II

Midmonth UFO Report

I chose a happy but challenging project for the May UFO project. 

Sweet Sixties layout

Here is the layout of the blocks. Those dark reds really pop out so they needed to be carefully sprinkled around. I have sewn the 2 left columns together.
There are so many bias seams, and angles to sew. Plus about half of these blocks were started 10 years ago, and my piecing has improved considerably over the years. Let's just say... the blocks don't fit together very well! There has been a lot of stretching,  trimming and seam alterations... tuck in a little, let out a little. And I have been saying "that's good enough" over and over to myself.
See the pieces for Frolic at the bottom of the design wall?!?! They are still waiting for attention since the Unity project caused havoc in the sewing room!

I took all the pieces off the design wall and pinned them together to take to the sewing machine. This little pile represents so many hours of sewing and organizing!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts.