Oh my. Even more UFOS...sigh...

Well, I'm afraid I have some bad news for myself. I was working quietly in my sewing room last night sewing on the binding on my latest finished quilt and thinking about how much I actually enjoy handwork, when my mind took a quick, guilty peek back at some of the handwork I've been managing to avoid for several years now. Yep. I've been handquilting the same three quilts off and on since around 2005. I've actually made progress...really! Just nowhere near enough.

 

Well, now it's time to own up. I'm adding four more quilts to my Get 'er Done To Do list for 2013. That brings me up to...what...27? That's only two finishes plus a smidge more per month, right? No problem. I didn't need that full-time teaching job anyway.

 

Okay, well, maybe I shouldn't go overboard. I do need to pay for fabric after all. Besides, several of those projects actually only need binding, a few more need to be quilted and bound, and quite a few more need borders, quilting and binding. It's not like I'm starting from scratch with all of them... Easy peasy, right?

 

I just keep reminding myself of how much better I'll feel with loads of projects off of my shelves. I ignore the fact that I will then have nearly 30 finished quilts to pile on my guest bed when I'm finished. Anyone have a princess I can borrow? And a pea?

 

The first quilt I'll be adding to my list is actually one of the very first quilts that I ever made. It's in lovely fall colors, and I'm supposed to be giving it to my brother. Thank goodness he doesn't know that or he'd be nagging me to get it done. It's only seven years old now. The poor little quilt is still a youngster! Anyway, I need to finish the flowers in the sashing  strip areas and then tackle the borders. The floral squares are finished and most of the sashing strips are done. You can see the floral pattern I'm using in a couple of the strips.

 

 

The next quilt that I'm adding is one that I actually work on every year. It's also still a youngster at only about six years old.

Each of the 6" squares gets a quilted butterfly. Each butterfly has a different wing color. I think I'm down to the last three or four butterflies to do, and then I can finish off the flying butterfly pattern in the outside borders. What was I thinking when I started hand quilting more than one project at a time? I used to have three hand quilting projects going, but I got tired of working on one of them, ripped out the little quilting I had done, and handed the quilt over to Mom to machine quilt for me. Best decision I could have made. These two, however, have come too far for me to back out now. Onwards!!!

 
The next addition to my list is this cute little Turning 20 quilt. I actually won all of the cut pieces for this quilt as a door prize at a Stashbuster's meeting at Sager Creek Quilts and Yarnworks about three or four years ago. I'm actually machine quilting this one. To be honest, I haven't looked at it lately. I think all I have left to do on it is quilt the outside border. After that it's ready to be bound. So why is it still in my To Do pile? Geesh.

 

The last project that I'm adding (until I run across some more - after all, I have until the first Saturday in March to turn in my UFO list to the guild) is my African inspired quilt. Several years ago I decided to make a quilt using my precious collection of African fabrics and African inspired fabrics. There is no pattern. The fabrics are sewn together completely free style. To add some challenge to the project, I completed the quilt with no single seam running in a straight line completely through the quilt. Every seam will, at some point, run into the middle of another fabric. Later I'll post some pictures of the complete quilt top and you'll get a better idea of what I mean. This photo is primarily for turning into the Get 'er Done contest. I am also hand quilting this project. Sigh.

I will also  soon be posting  photos of the quilts that I will be entering in the Q.U.I.L.T of NWA's quilt show this April. I need to get the entry forms filled out this afternoon, so hopefully I can get photos on here when I have more time (maybe tomorrow?).

In the meantime, have a great day!

Deb

 

 

Kansas City Troubles and Kansas City Projects

My husband is in his conference, and I am in the motel room watching the housekeeper clean. It doesn't get better than watching someone else clean, does it? I'll leave her a tip when we leave on Sunday.

In the meantime, our Kansas City Troubles haven't been insurmountable yet. I left my face cream at home (Oh no, I'm having to use scented hand lotion on my face!), and my husband left his WaterPic that he uses every night without fail. Oops. Mom called and tried to tell us that he had left it, but we thought we had packed his new travel size. Apparently, it was the travel sized one that she had found, not the larger one. Last small trouble:  my husband, bless his heart, brought me some breakfast., including some strawberry yogurt. A spoon never occurred to him. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with that yogurt. And did I mention the world's hardest mattress?

On to my Kansas City Projects:

I've been working on this quilt for about five years. I finished the top in no time, but I decided to hand quilt butterflies into the white squares and around the borders. Unfortunately, as this was one of my first quilts, I did not know not to use 60/40 batting for hand quilting. It's been hard going.

Here is one of the butterflies that I've finished. The butterflies are quilted in slightly different colors, using about eight different green and blue and variegated threads.

You probably can't tell the difference, but the top butterfly is worked in blue and this one is worked in a variegated thread. I have 9 of the 36 squares left to finish. Maybe this is the weekend I get them done...

I miss my Sinbad. I hope you're playing with him, Mom. He needs his playtime! Of course, I miss the girls, too. Oh well, just two more days.

Time to get sewing if I intend to get anything done. I hope you have a great sewing day yourself. 'Til later...

Debbi