This past week

 "Mustard & Ketchup"

Because of guild stuff and Easter preparations this past week, it was difficult to motivate myself to work on my UFO's so I tried once again to master the first border of "Mustard & Ketchup". This is the closest I've come to getting the pieced diamonds fussy cut and the diamonds to actually look right. However, the camera doesn't lie and I see some rework needs to happen. 

One thing I've been challenging myself to work on lately is to become more spontaneous in quilting. In other words, don't drive myself and others crazy by over thinking fabric and design choices!

  I'm trying to do that on this quilt guild BOM and am not sure I like this approach at all. I'm reserving judgement until the project is finished but that's at least 5 months in the future. I would love to go back and make every thing match, fix mistakes, choose better fabrics, etc. Guess I want to be in control and not be surprised!

For some reason, I also can't motivate myself to finish binding Pumpkin Peel. I'm about half done and think I'm going to have to make myself do a little every day. And then there's the sleeve...

The bird is still in the quilt. No decision on my part yet and I think I'm avoiding it. If I don't do something soon, this project will go back into the UFO box.

 Why I thought I needed to get another UFO out, I don't know but here's another one. All I need to do is finish hand quilting the border and tack down the binding. Is that all, lol? I admire hand quilting but because I don't choose to do it very often, I'm not proficient or very fast at it.

When I began this project I don't know how long ago, I hadn't discovered reproduction fabrics yet so this wall hanging has a little bit of most everything in my stash at that time. I'm surprised I used so much yellow which is a color I don't use very often. It has quite a few creases from being folded and put away so for now, I've pinned it up on my design wall hoping that the creases relax.

As you can see, my quilting this week has been a little of this and that. I feel like I'm jumping from one project to the next making little progress. I'm looking forward to more productive quilting time this coming week!

Have a happy and meaningful Easter, Mayleen

UFO Quilt Top Finished!

Another UFO quilt top finished!

Bonnie Hunter's quilt design "Criss Cross Applesauce". 

 While this is a name easier to remember and to say, I've named my version something apple related also but with a nod to the Civil War. When the quilt is totally finished, I'll reveal its name.

I really used a lot of my green fabric stash for this quilt which is good! 

I pieced the backing out of fabric in my stash and lets just call it "creative". Tomorrow, I'm delivering the quilt top and backing to the machine quilter and I hope to get it back sometime in February.

UFO #3 is calling me but I'm not sure what I want to do with it. Continue with the original plan or take it apart and start over? I'm leaning toward starting over. Watch for pictures of it next week!

Until next time, Mayleen 

My Oldest UFO and More

This year, I've decided to try to finish or make progress on my UFO's so to keep myself motivated, I've joined Field Trip and Fiber's UFO Busting link up! Click on her button in the upper right hand sidebar to read more about it and see what UFO's other bloggers are working on.

In this first post, we've been asked to tell how many active UFO's we have and name our oldest UFO.

My total number of UFO's is 34. Some are tops needing to be quilted, some are tops needing to be finished, and some are just a few blocks. Its very difficult for me to get rid of any quilt I start unless its really horrid so I'm going to say they're all active. Disclaimer - I may change my mind later.

I think this is my oldest UFO. It was started back in the late 90's as my daughter's high school graduation present. Unfortunately, it looks like it was meant to only be a double size quilt and it's also no longer my daughter's taste.

My mother did the cross stitch and I pieced the top, as far as it got.

Here is the final border fabric which I had purchased but not cut. It's dated 1998. It reminds me of the new color of the year - Marsala. I would like to finish this quilt as a remembrance of my mother, have it quilted but not sure what it's future will be.

So, what have I been working on? This is Criss Cross Applesauce, a Bonnie Hunter pattern, which is also a UFO. I finished making the blocks and was trying to web the rows together when I got them so tangled up that I had to cut the first two rows apart. I'll make another attempt at stitching the web together tomorrow.

I've also started to work on Love Entwined again. I'm a little further along since I last worked on it but not much. I do plan to take some of it apart - those heart wreaths really bother me.

I have "finished" one UFO - my wild child quilt, "Flash". It just needs a sleeve and a label for it really to be done. Since I print my labels on the computer, I like to print four labels on one fabric sheet. That means I'll need to finish three more quilts before I can print labels. Pictures of "Flash" and my fabric stash wall coming next week!

This Arctic blast weather has been perfect for quilting! 

(Trying to put a positive spin on freezing cold temperatures and wind chills.)

Until next time, Mayleen