A UFO becomes a Snowman quilt top

March's UFO project was my snowman quilt, started about 2002. It was a block of the month and I had 3 1/2 blocks made when we decided to move from California to Idaho. It got packed in a box and never had another stitch done until last year when I pulled it back out. When I wrote my UFO list for this year I had 8 blocks completed and knew I was motivated to finish this, one of my oldest UFO's.

Worried about completing this UFO in 1 month when the number was chosen, I continued working on blocks so when Judy pulled #8 for this month I was very pleased, I had just finished the 12th block, What perfect timing!

I knew I wanted to change this quilt from the original pattern, it made an 80 x96" quilt and I wanted something smaller.

First I started auditioning fabric for the sashing. I liked the first one I tried, but it was maybe a little dark.

I tried a lighter blue. I pulled out some strips to try for a tiny border around each block.

I liked the red and the gold, but the yellow was a little bright. I just wasn't liking this blue for the sashing though, and even with all my fabric, I just didn't seem to have another blue that would work. Should I go shopping for another blue?
Well I decided to give the first blue another chance

It didn't look too bad with the red, I decided to just go with what I had. I figured out a plan on some graph paper so I could figure out the sizes for the sashing pieces.

Trimmed my blocks and added 1" strips of red for a skinny border. I put the blocks on the wall and started adding sashing pieces, figuring out the order to sew them in as I want along. It went pretty quickly and soon looked like this

Almost done, just needed a border. I was just about out of that red fabric, but that gold had looked pretty good too, so I gave it a second chance in the border.

TA-DA.............A completed Snowman quilt top!

10 years to make this quilt top, I sure hope it won't take me 10 more years to get it quilted!

My March Ufo goal

The UFO for March is #8

I was pretty happy about this one. This is my snowman quilt, started about 10 years ago.

When I wrote my UFO list it looked like this

                                   
                                                       8 blocks made
                                                        and kits for 4 more

               Knowing this would be a big project, more than I could probably get done in one month, I had already pulled this one out. My snowman blocks have been my hand work project while waiting for kids from the school bus and while watching TV. Just last week I just finished the last block!

First I fused all the pieces in place and then I sewed buttonhole stitch around each shape. If I started this quilt today I would have done the buttonhole stitch by machine, but when I started this quilt I didn't have a sewing machine that could do that stitch.

This quilt was a block of the month kit. However there must have been a finishing kit that I didn't buy. I just have blocks and a picture of the finished quilt, but no directions to finish it. That's OK because I'm not very excited about the original quilt design.

Here's all my blocks on my design wall.
 This week I'll be auditioning fabrics, perhaps a small red border around each block and blue sashing?
We'll have to see what these blocks have to say!