UFO List for 2012

I have plenty of UFO's hiding out in my sewing room so I decided to participate in the 2021 UFO challenge. I almost talked myself out of doing this knowing how life gets busy and things don't always go as planned. I was afraid I'd not be able to complete all the UFO's I'd listed. But then I thought, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if I only complete some of these, it will be better than none! At least I will have tried!
By the way, for me "Completed" is a quilt top, and to quilt and bind it is bonus points!

1."Farmer Wife" Started this Dec 2010.  A BIG project! Have about 70 blocks done,  there are 111 total if I make them all.

2. "Frogs" Wall hanging or baby quilt. Started 2002, 1 block sewn and maybe 8 more cut.

3. "Brights" Buck a block type deal, got one each month from LQS in 2003 and kept up for 3 months, have block for 4th month, and then we moved! Needs more blocks to make a lap quilt.

4. "Truck Blocks"From 2004.  Sewn into long strip originally for window valance. Need to take apart and make into baby quilt.

5. "Purple butterfly" 2009. This just need border(s) and quilting!

6. "1930's string quilt" 2008  Have 21 block made. Need enough to at least make a baby or small quilt.

7. "Summer Applique log cabin.  2008. Have center log cabins made. Needs applique and outer border blocks or ?

8. "Snowman collector" 2002. Another casualty of us moving. Have 8 of 12 blocks made. Doing applique with buttonhole stitch by hand. Not a quick project!

9. "Leaf quilt" 2011. Have 16 blocks from a block exchange at a retreat. Blocks are sewn together but want pieced border.

10. "Sheila's Hearts"2011.    Have 60 (I think) hand appliqued heart blocks. Needs to be made into a quilt!

11. "Scrappy Animals" 2011.  Just a scrappy quilt with simple squares and rectangles of animal fabrics. Only 4 blocks sewn but many more cut.

12. "My House" 2009. Have 7 of 9 applique blocks fused ready to machine applique. Need 2 more blocks made, sew together and decide on border.

Lets see what I can accomplish in between all those other "must do" projects!

Catching Up!

Working on all those Christmas gifts I got way behind on Orca Bay Mystery quilt. The last few days I've been focusing on only this project. Amazing how much you can get done with a little focus!
Here's part 5......354 of them!

And part 6 almost looks like a quilt all on it's own............

So now I just need to do part 7 and I'll be ready for the final step. I think this is going to be a great quilt, and the best part is I used up tons and tons of scraps!

Every quilt tells a Story

Christmas is almost here and I feel relieved to have all my Christmas gift quilts finished.It doesn't seem right to just post a photo of each one and be done, each quilt has it's own unique story.

 This first quilt's story starts 6 years ago (2005). I wanted to make a quilt for my Nephew for his 13th birthday. Figuring black and white was a good combo for a teenager I cut a large quantity of pieces, in fact all the pieces for this quilt and arranged them all on my design wall. It looked great so I started sewing since his birthday was only a few days away. So much for Good intentions, I quickly realized I was NEVER going to get it made in time. Into a bag it went, maybe 10% sewn. I quickly cut a much simpler (as in much less pieces) quilt and stitched it together barely making my deadline. 6 years later I finally took this poor quilt out of it's bag and tried to remember what I was doing with all these pieces. I hadn't taken any photo of my plan so it was like trying to put a puzzle together. Eventually I got it figured out and today it's finished and guess what? I'm giving this quilt to my son who also happens to be 13 yrs old!

   
Lots of fun fabrics in this quilt, as well as some 'uglies' snuck in here and there.

And what a great backing this is for a boy, Giant fire-breathing dragons!

And this next quilt I'm calling "Yikes, Stripes"
This project started out simple enough. A kit from Joanne's clearance section. I actually bought 2 thinking that they would make quick gifts or charity quilts someday down the road. Well I decided to "whip one up" for my eldest son for Christmas. I cut it out and sewed it together just about like the kit showed. It looked about like this:

Well that would have been a quick and easy gift if my brain would just rest while I sewed it together. But No!, my brain just kept imagining all the cool effects that could be had by combining the stripes just so. No sooner than I got that first top done I started cutting out the second kit, but this time I skipped the squares and cut all triangles. I arranged them on my design wall only to find that I didn't have all the 'correct' triangles. I needed many more horizontal stripes than vertical ones, so I picked apart the first quilt top to 'Steal' the triangles I needed and replaced them with the rejects from my second quilt. So much for a quick project! Here's my 'improved' stripes quilt:

A much more pleasing quilt! Although now I'm saying, Please no more stripes, at least for a little while.

What's on the back?

The hard part of sewing Christmas gifts for your kids is you can't work on it when they're home. I have to work on quilting one child's quilt, then when he gets home quickly cover it and go work on binding a different child's quilt. Thus I have had 4 quilts in various stages of progress all week and feeling like I'm not making much progress because I keep switching back and forth between them all. But keeping at it has paid off and here's 2 completed quilts!

The first is for my son who is a cook, pattern called Another Trip around the World,

It's not very often I only use 3 fabrics

Here's a close up of the fabric on the quilt, silverware on the front and artichokes on the back, seemed appropriate for someone who works in a restaurant!

This 2nd quilt is for my 9 yr old son. I had all these black and white fabrics out one day and was trying to decide on a 3rd color. He came in my sewing room and immediately was drawn to this red fabric. I decided then I would use the red and make it for him (didn't tell him that!)

And the front of his quilt is only the beginning, I think he'll love the back just as much

I won't tell him I was just using up a bunch of leftovers!

So glad she still like horses!

I bought a Toni Whitney pattern for a horse wall quilt to make for my teenage daughter because she loved horses. Well that was over 2 years ago.  

I had just made this quilt for her birthday this summer. As I decided to make quilts for all my kids for Christmas, I had a small dilemma, she didn't need another quilt. Problem solved though as I came across

this pattern I had intended to make for her long ago. A few days work and it's done, Christmas gift #3. And thank goodness she still likes horses!

"4 ever friends" wallhanging 

Should be quilting Christmas quilts but...............

My littlest guy has been sick and it's been hard to find an increment of time long enough to get a quilt top quilted, but I've been working on Orca Bay Mystery every time I can squeeze in a few minutes  for sewing. 10 mins here and there adds up! Today I sewed 2 strip squares for step 4, pressed them, trimmed them, cut into triangles and removed the paper foundation all while the potatoes boiled for dinner. Served up meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy and no-one even noticed I'd snuck away to sew!

Here's step #3, 150 sewed so far.

Alot of these fabrics are old friends from previous projects, the bottom 3 are scraps from baby dresses I sewed for my eldest daughter. The dresses are long gone but the memories will be preserved in this quilt

Here's some step #4 triangles, I'm pinning them in stacks of 10. 

It's a graet feeling to actually use up these scraps and not just save them!

Thankfully my little guy is starting to perk up so I think I'll be back to quilting and binding soon.

A quilt for my little princess

A quilting friend won 15 pink and brown blocks but she didn't care for pink. She gave them to me and I added some more blocks and made a quilt for my little princess. Christmas quilt #2 finished!

Of course I can't contain myself to only one project at a time. While I have my kids quilts in various stages of construction, I'm also working on Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery. Here's step 1:

And Step 2, These sting blocks were fun to make!

Still working on Step 3, but step 4 is calling me............. more fun string blocks, perhaps I will catch up on step 3 later? 

Just not enough time!!!!!!!!

Sew and sew and sew and sew and............

Tis that time of year, Christmas is gettig closer and I'm sewing every minuite I get. I always underestimate how long it takes to get each project done!

This year I decided to sew a quilt for each of my kids for Christmas, probably doesn't sound too ambitious until you realize I have eight kids, yes 8!
Quilt tops are about done and I'm busily quilting and binding.
Here's the first, an easy peasy 'Woody' quilt for a little boy.