Joining Judy L.'s UFO Challenge for 2011

I have decided to join up with Judy L. and try to finish some UFO's in 2011. Some are old, some are ones I just really want to work on as soon as I can! For me, getting it to flimsy status will be considered finished. I am also planning to work along on some of the monochromatic ideas too, I plan on making monochromatic string blocks in the color of the month.

My UFO List....

1. Millenium Trip Around the World - started in 1999
2. Plaid Strings - started in 2010
3. Kitchen Sink in 30's fabrics - started in 2007
4. Little Pretties - started in 2007
5. Kashmere Green and Golds - started in ?
6. Teal Flying Geese - started in 2006?
7. Fig Tree fabrics in Bluestone Pathways - started in 2006
8. Nine-patch Between Friends - started in 2010
9. Nine-patch Bulloch Hall - started in 2010
10. Nine-patch Crossing Paths - started in 2010
11. Nine-patch Flying 9-patch - started in 2010

This is the list I came up with when Judy first mentioned the idea on her blog. There were 12 on the list, but I finished one already! These are not all my UFO's, and I may work on the last four as soon as the opportunity arises. I would love to finish all of these in 2011 and that is why they are on the list!!!!!!

Friday Flimsy - Carolina Christmas

A year later, and I am calling this one done. This quilt was a mystery offered last year by Bonnie Hunter called Carolina Christmas. I fell behind on the steps , and then the final product was not floating my boat. I loved other people's version, but not mine! I decided to put it together as shown, and used my red rectangles as the border. My kids really like this one so I am glad to have it done. Now what to do with the other bits and pieces....

Design Wall Monday

I put the small white border on this UFO this weekend. Now I am trying to decide if I want a pieced border on it, or if I want to consider it done. The pattern is from an older Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine. Even though I have the pages from the magazine, it doesn't indicate what issue it was in. It is called Little Pretties Quilt, and it was designed by Dianne Neumann. Check out more design walls at Judy L.'s blog.

Edited to add: Thanks for the feedback. I do think I will add a border to finish it off, but I am going to work on it in the spring.

Friday Flimsy

I am finally showing you the fourth quilt made from the same fabrics! This is actually the second quilt I pieced from these fabrics, I cut it out as I was cutting out for the first one (the one using the Thanksgiving panel). This one is one of my favorite flimsies ever, my Mom and my quilting SIS both loved it. I love the colors in this flimsy, so much so that I made four small quiltlets to use around the house in the fall. I gave one to my SIS last year, and am using these three now. There are a few scraps left from these flimsies and quiltlets, but not many!

Judy L.'s mystery quilts

There is no sewing going on in my house lately! There has been some cleaning, organising, entertaining, and shopping, but no sewing. However, I do have two flimsies to show you - both of them mystery quilts offered by Judy Laquidara at Patchwork Times. The colors in the first quilt are so off, in real life they are very bright green with a bright yellow background. I gave this flimsy to a friend of my sister's for her guild to use for a donation quilt. I don't know what I will do with the second one, which is also fairly bright. I have quite a bit of bright fabrics that have aged long enough, and I am trying to get them out of my stash.

Friday Flimsy

Okay, this is another flimsy that resulted from that first idea for a quilt. As I was cutting for the second quilt, I knew that I would use the scraps for string piecing. I wanted to use a Piece O' Cake design that featured string-pieced strips alternating with non-pieced strips, with applique on one of the strips. However, my applique looked pitiful, so I abandoned that idea. After a few other false starts, I put all my pieces and parts together to come up with this flimsy. It ended up at 72 x 72 inches square, I think that is a fine size for a truly scrappy quilt!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2010

Welcome to the Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2010 and to my blog.

This is one of my favorite quilts, a oldie but goodie. It was offered as a mystery quilt by Judy Hopkins. The background fabric has little sayings all over the fabric, like 'a stitch in time saves nine' and 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. I have always enjoyed a good mystery book, and ever since I found out about mystery quilts I have not been able to resist them! I love the weight of this quilt and that it was hand quilted by my mother.

Friday Flimsy

This flimsy is actually the third one I made out of the fabrics and scraps generated by the first one that I featured last week. I did not have a plan in mind when I started piecing the center 6" squares, I was just enjoying the mindless sewing. I still had quite a few larger scraps, so I decided to use the string pieced blocks as centers for the eight-pointed stars. I used one and a half inch strips for sashings, and surrounded it with a sawtooth border. I did add more scraps to this one out of my box of scraps, so it has a lot of different fabrics in it. I love this flimsy too - the scrappy, the better!

Friday Flimsy

This flimsy was the start of a big sewing binge that started in 2007. I fell in love with this Thanksgiving panel from Sandy Gervais. I wanted to use lots of fabrics with it. Once I pulled out all of the fabrics, I had to go ahead and cut pieces for more than one quilt, just to make it worth my while. I will show another quilt from this fabric set next time.

Nine-Patches

Just a couple of pictures to show you what is coming next for my nine-patches. These will be two separate quilts, but my sewing hours are at an end until next week.

Nine-patch progress

I am so inspired by all the beautiful nine-patches I received from the swap hosted by Julie at JulieKquilts. So inspired that I plan on stretching them out to make four, maybe five quilts! The first one I am working on is based off the pattern Between Friends by Darlene at Quilting Daze. Darlene offered this as a free pattern on her blog a while back, and I printed it off to make some day. I think it works great with the two different sizes of nine-patches. I plan on adding two more borders, but I need to buy fabric for the first border. What is really cool about this is that Darlene was also one of the participants in the nine-patch exchange! I am linking this post to Judy L.'s design wall Monday.

Friday Flimsy

My Mom and I participated in a swap of these churn dash blocks 10 or 11 years ago. After my mother died, I inherited most of her quilting things - my sisters don't quilt. These blocks were tucked into a shoebox, waiting for inspiration. They were all approximate sizes, not uncommon in swap blocks. I found a book by Lynn Roddy Brown that addresses swapped blocks and used a setting from this book Simple Strategies for Block-Swap Quilts. I used fabric from my Mom's stash to complete this quilt, I know that she would have really liked this flimsy, and I know that she fully expected me to finish up some of her projects!

Finally starting to feel like fall....

I love the cooler weather of fall, it energises me! I finished up this little table topper, the inspiration came from a older magazine, Quilt Sampler 1998, I modified it a bit. It is machine appliqued and quilted.

I also pulled out my one and only store bought kit project - a pumpkin runner. The kit was for jack-o-lanterns, but I wanted to use it all of October and November, so mine is pumpkins. Last year I pieced the scraps from the pumpkins into squares and put together this quiltlet. I have pulled it out to finish the big stitch quilting on it, it would be sweet to get this finished too.

Friday Flimsy

I have had an unexpected free day last Monday, as DH was called into work early that morning. I spent my time putting together the blocks for a mystery quilt offered by Erik Homemade. I am not really pleased with my choice of sashing fabrics in this flimsy. I did not want to add the borders offered with the mystery, so I elected to leave them off. I will add this to the flimsy pile, along with the rest of the black and white fabric - there is enough there to use for binding.

The nine-patches made me do it!

I narrowed down my ideas for all those lovely nine-patches that will be here before I am ready! Then I went to Sew Unique Creations, just to window shop. Resistance was futile! Tara's service is amazing, I ordered these on Thursday and they arrived Saturday! By narrowed down, I mean I actually picked four patterns to make. That is why I needed additional fabrics! I have already started cutting and piecing some of my scraps and some of the new fabrics to include in these quilts, I have 240 flying geese to make, 12 nine-patches with light corners and center, 24 more 3" nine-patches (most of which I have made), and fifty-two more of the 6" nine-patches (I only need to make seven more in this size). I will use the flying geese as leaders and enders as I am working on the other quilts. These quilts will be my focus this fall, I know that I am really going to enjoy working on them!

I had to delay posting this for a few days as I could not get my camera to talk to my computer!

138 nine-patches are on their way...

This is what my nine-patches looked like, Julie should have them on Thursday. I have spent my morning going through books and magazine clippings for ideas on how to use them. I like so many of these patterns, I'll have to rank them in some kind of order! I already figured out how many of each size block each pattern will take. Maybe I'll figure out what kind of yardage I'll need to make each quilt, and compare that to what I have in my stash - that might help me make up my mind. What are you planning to do with yours?

Friday Flimsy

Today's flimsy is my latest quilt top. This one is 48 x 60 inches. I think it will be a good size to take to college one day. My nine patches for the swap are coming along - all except for one batch that I cross cut at 1.5 inches instead of 2.5!

Friday Flimsy

Hello everyone, just a short post and a picture before the first HS football game of the season. We have two high-schoolers in two different schools, we work out a schedule in advance for whose game to attend on Friday nights. We don't go to away games, we do go to Homecoming games and Senior Nights. We pay the most attention to the halftime shows, because both of our high-schoolers are part of their school bands. This flimsey is a recent one, a Schnibbles pattern called Cindy Lou Who, mine is about 33" square, as I started with a bunch of HSTs that were already cut out. This one makes me smile!

Friday Flimsy - Friendship Star

I think this has been one of the fastest summers on record. The kids have already started marching band practice and volleyball practice, DD#2 had her senior pictures made, DD#1 is leaving for college in a few days. I am never ready for the end of summer, I always need another two weeks! The flimsy I am showing you today came about from a swap in 1999, I think I put the top together in 2009. It was quite an international swap, with blocks coming from Australia, Germany, Scotland, and the USA. In the next few weeks, in preparation for another swap, I will be making nine-patches for the Great Nine Patch Celebration Exchange hosted by Julie K. at juliekquilts.blogspot.com.

Friday flimsy

I can only offer flimsy excuses for not posting, like end of the school year, an enormous gardening project that involves removing massive amounts of ivy, and general family life! I have been working on a mystery quilt from erik homemade, am starting another mystery quilt offered by Judy L., and anticipating a third mystery at durable goods . Today's flimsy was a mystery offered by Judy Hopkins many years ago. I extended the blocks into the border to make it a little bit bigger. I really love the fabrics in this flimsy.

Bless your heart quilt back

I decided to go ahead and make words for the back of the flimsy I posted on Friday. The words were a lot of fun to make, but it easier to make them more uniform than it was to make them wonky! I have even worked out a quilting pattern that I can do on my DSM, using my very limited abilities at machine quilting. Next week is spring break for my kids, so after that I will see about basting this and actually quilting it!

Bless Your Heart Friday Flimsy

Today's flimsy is one I call 'Bless Your Heart'. In the South, bless your heart can be used to express gratitude, or to get you off the hook when talking bad about someone, as in, "that girl is such a mess, bless her heart!" My dear MIL from Queens, NY, loved this expression! In her book, Scrap Patchwork & Quilting, Marti Michell recommends cutting 1 1/2' strips from all your fabrics before you start cutting for your current project, and save these strips for log cabin quilts. I did this for many years, until my ziplock storage bag was overflowing! When I wanted to learn to paper-piece, I searched the web for small heart patterns, and made those up when I felt like doing something small. Eventually, I combined the two, using the paper-pieced hearts for the center of the log cabin blocks. I added a piano keys border with larger hearts in each corner. Maybe I'll free piece some letters (a la Tonya at Lazy Gal Quilting) that say bless your heart and use them as part of the backing...hmmmm.

Friday Flimsy

I am going to try and post a picture of one of my flimsys on every Friday. It will be good to see them all, I keep them stored in 2-gallon ziploc bags with binding and backing(if I have the fabric for them already picked out). Today I am showing you 'There is a Bear in the Woods'. My inspiration for this quilt was a post dated Oct. 20, 2009 that Bonnie Hunter did on her blog that dealt with adding elements to an older UFO to suit her taste now. I had made 30 of these Bear Paw blocks many years ago and was never happy with them. I had tried to get rid of them several times, but always pulled them out of the donate pile at the last minute. I also inherited my Mom's UFOs when she passed away. After seeing Bonnie's blog, I rethought these blocks, pulled these green strips my Mom had cut to make a tree quilt, set the blocks on point, and ended up with this flimsy. I really like it, and now I am able to donate the remaining blocks without any regrets! My Mom would be happy that I used one of her UFOs! Check back next Friday to see another flimsy.

Frustration!

I've been working on 4 different quilts in the past few months and I am frustrated with three of them! My Square-in-a-square quilt is not going together very well at all because I pressed all my blocks in the same direction during construction. I am debating cutting each square into 4 HSTs and making broken dishes blocks out of them. I haven't come up with a good border fabric for my churn dash swap quilt, nothing seems right to me yet. I was able to order a Jelly roll of Moda Yuletide fabrics from UpandAwayQuilts.com in NM and worked on this quilt,(bottom photo) but I am unhappy with some of the fabric placements. I want to add a piano keys border to this, but I may not have enough variety in the leftover fabrics to make that work. The last quilt I am working on is the Carolina Christmas mystery by Bonnie Hunter. I have put the other projects away for now so that I can concentrate on this one. For me, reducing the frustration level helps me to keep my quilting mojo in gear!
Retail therapy is also good for the quilting mojo! I ordered these lovely Chicken wire fabrics from Hollyhockquilts.com Etsy shop (middle photo)(the little bee fq was a bonus!) - I am going to use them for the back of a flimsy that has pinwheels in red and yellow chicken and egg fabrics! These other fabrics I bought from Sweet Home Quilt Co. in Conyers, Ga. (top photo)(Actually, the two on the right are from the remnant bin at JoAnn's.) I hadn't been to Sweet Home Quilt before, but as you can tell, I really liked it!

Spare Parts

A couple of weeks ago, Sarah N. offered spare parts from her Carolina Christmas Quilt. I raised my hand and she graciously sent them to me. Her fabrics are beautiful, as is her piecing. Now I am ready to get back to sewing and making progress on my CC quilt. My DH had the past week off, and while I did not spend a lot of time at my sewing machine, we did make a trip to a new-to-me quilt store, I'll show some of my purchases later in the week. Now, if only the sun would come out....

Design Wall Monday

This is the third Christmas quilt I am working ever so slowly on. It started with a churn dash block swap in 1999/2000. You sent off the center square to fellow quilters, they made the block in their choice of colors and returned it to you, and you did the same for them. The 20 blocks sat for quite a while waiting for some inspiration. At some point, say 2008 maybe? I earmarked a Christmas quilt in a magazine that was designed by Robin Pandolph. In fall of 2009, I was looking through my magazine clippings for ideas for a different project and made a connection between the two! It seems like it should have come to me alot faster than that. Anyway, I added dark green,gold, and cream from my stash to enlarge each block to 15" finished. Now I am going to sash them with a dark green and gold stripe, add more dark green as the final border, and add it to the flimsy pile. I really like how it is coming together. Go see Judy L. at http://www.patchworktimes.com/ to see more design wall inspirations.