Another UFO off of Mt ToBeQuilted

Hearts & Flowers From Friends

This had been put away since September 2011.

Why did I do that?

Three long rows were together..

sashing sewn to both sides of the outside rows.

All I needed to do was sew the center row on both sides,

add the top and bottom sashing/border and bind.

The binding was even made.

I do know why this was put away.

I made my heart hurt too much to work on it.

It was a bit rough today as the anniversary of the tragedy approaches

and memories flooded my heart. 

After some quilt hugs and tears,

I'm happy to say the binding is now stitched down and

this one is finish #8.

Doing The Happy Dance!

2017 UFO Finish #3

This just  happens to be #3 on my Patchwork Times UFO Challenge list 

and the number for January.

I love all the colors in this quilt and the quilting makes me happy.

Each block is quilted different from the others.

The block backs were made from 5" squares that I won at a retreat.

I think it makes it's own fun quilt with lots of novelty prints.

I wish I could get an outside/better light photo but it is pouring buckets.

Melting snow and ice, flooded roads and general yuckiness outside.

Now I think I will build some mystery quilt blocks. 

Design Wall Monday

This is my UFO #3 from Patchwork Times 2017 UFO Challenge.

The blocks aged for 10 years, the quilted blocks for another 2 years.

After being upset with myself over procrastinating so long, 

I just giggle because I have so many great memories of receiving these blocks,

the friends that made them and the smiles they bring to me.

So no regrets, just smiles.

A few days ago, I posted my progress.

Saturday morning, I trimmed all the blocks.

That bag of trimmings bothered me for a bit.

There was so much in it, 

but nothing was wide enough for the string bin

and I not going to start making pet beds.

 I gave it to the garbage man without guilt.

The fact that all the batting used in the added sashings came from 

the trimmings of Tumalo Trail may have helped with the no guilt.

Then I set about joining my blocks. Thank goodness for Craftsy classes from Marti Michell called Piece By Piece: Quilt-As-You-Go-Techiques and Dot To Dot Quilting with Angela Walters.  I highly recommend both of these classes.  I learned so much from both of these ladies! The fact that I can take notes for the steps I don't want to forget and can go back and review just that part might be my favorite feature of these classes except the fact that I can re-watch them whenever and how often I want.  I learned the glue trick from Sharon Schamber  (you can find almost anything on you tube!). Isn't the internet amazing!!!

The status of this quilt right now is Rows A and B are joined together, C and D are complete rows ready to be added and Row E is laying on the sewing machine to start being made into a row.  Binding strips are all cut. Cross your fingers for a finish today. We still have plenty of snow and ice and the rain is coming in ready to create more chaos and I am happy to stay home and out of the way. I have my own work to do.

See fabulous projects at Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

UFO Progress

Like Jo of Jo's Country Junction, I set my En Provence aside to work on my UFO for the month.

The blocks were all quilted and put away almost 2 years ago!

I bought sashing and joining fabrics.

It's sad to admit that I didn't have enough of anything to do this step.

But I don't feel bad about buying new fabric to finish a project.

Action is being taken on my big plan!

Strips of fabric and batting were cut into appropriate lengths.

All 20 blocks were ready to sew.

I joined the batting to the seam allowance of the sashing and block with some interfacing strips.

A trick I learned from a Craftsy class with Marti Michell.

I love those classes!

I did some quilting and now

I have 7 blocks to do.

 I will trim them all to size and join into rows.

After revisiting the blog post from 2 years ago, 

I have decided to not add an outer border.

I feel really good about the progress on this project.

It's fun to revisit these blocks and remember the friends that made the blocks.

I feel a UFO about to be marked off the list.

2017 Finish #1

Yeah me! 

The Quilt As You Go String Quilt is finished!

It's fun to turn on a good book and just sew. 

The string bin doesn't feel any lighter. 

I know it is.

I love using up scraps of batting and

deep stash fabrics that I'm not in love with any more.

I also love the randomness of the backing.

There is no pressure when you just pick a block and 

join it to the previous block.

It is now in the washer almost ready for the dryer.

My favorite part of quilting is pulling the warm quilt from the dryer the first time 

and having a good, toasty snuggle.

Design Wall Monday

Happy 2017 Design Wall Monday Readers.

I have 3 things happening this first week of the new year.

Under my needle right now is row 6 of 8 rows for a charity string quilt.

This is a Quilt As You Go that I was going full speed ahead on until...

that dreaded cold/flu slapped me to the floor.

(I think I am over it finally.)

So between Quiltville mystery clues,

 I have been joining the blocks into rows 

and then joining each row to the last.until the last 3 rows.

I just had to change things up a bit!

I have the last 2 rows sewn together so I am going to keep going until it's finished.

Everything is done by machine, including the binding which is ready to use.

Today, maybe??

afternoon edit:  Yeah it's finished!

Last Friday we got the clue for part 6 of En Provence.

I was working on the string quilt so I haven't started those yet.

Then yesterday Bonnie gives us the final clue!

As much as I want to jump right in and get this going,

I'm going to finish my string quilt first.

You can bet that some of these blocks will happen this week!

I've seen some fabulous blocks coming together on the Facebook group.

This is a photo of UFO #3 from Patchwork Times UFO Challenge.

I belong to an internet quilting group and we used to do monthly block exchanges.

I'm embarrassed to admit these blocks are from 2005!

But in February 2015, I quilted them and posted my plan.

Well, that plan was a bust!

I'm making a bit of a change to that plan 

and these blocks will become a fabulous quilt soon.

So it's time to get busy and make it happen now.

We welcomed in 2017 with a blanket of beauty.

I love early morning light photos.

We spent the day with a group of friends,

had a wonderful time and 

now I'm ready to hunker down into my winter hibernation,

See fabulous design walls at 

Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

My Scrap Problem Progress

At the beginning of March, I found this blog post by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

She had me raising my hand up high!

Yes, I have a scrap problem.

So I focused this month on strings.

My crammed full, can't put another piece of fabric into it, sting bin.

I started out making 3" blocks,

using phone book pages and scrap papers as my foundation.

I am a tear the paper off the back as soon as they are trimmed up girl.

For me, it's easier to do it small bits rather than in one huge paper tearing session.

This is the results of my month of little blocks.

(Not a good angle to see how high the blocks piles really are!)

I do have a plan for these and when Bonnie Hunter's new book comes out,

(She shared the picture on Facebook and for the life of me I can't find it again.

But it is in my head.)

I'll have a good head start on that quilt.

For now, these will just wait for that time.

There is a good stack of twosies on the right waiting to be pressed.

And the 4 stacks are waiting their turn to be leaders/enders.

When these are made into foursies,

I will be done making 3" string blocks for a while.

After the first week of sewing on 3" string blocks every day,

I decided to go bigger.

The batting scrap box came out and I started making 9" quilt as you go blocks.

That helped in reducing the strings.

50 blocks were made.

(I only needed 48 but 2 blocks had cutting booboos and will become a pillow.)

Yesterday I started sewing the blocks into a quilt.

I have all the joining strips cut to size and I'm ready to get this quilt finished.

But this week we have sunshine, 

so sewing time is limited to early in the day.

I tried to get a picture of how much scraps I used.

Miss Shirley loves attention and insisted on being in the bin.

She wins!

I win!

Not only is my string collection reduced,

I used up quite a bit of not my fabric fabrics for the backings

and my box of small batting scraps is greatly reduced.

Thank you so much Sarah for confessing you problem and 

encouraging me to confess mine and do something about it.

I'm going to finish my blocks and finish my quilt.

Today Sarah shares how she did and

 is having a link up party for others working on the scrap problem. 

Read all about it here at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Design Wall Monday

 I've had a fun week in my sewing room. I got my new ruler foot for my machine on Wednesday and had to play. After some fun practice pieces, I found this block that screamed out for some straight line quilting . I'm sure it came in a scrap bag from one of my generous friends. So I played and now have a bright, cheery little table mat.  I am counting this as finish #6 for the year. After all, it is a finished quilt.

Since the backing fabric I ordered arrived, I'm pretty excited to start making a batting (sewing together the big hunks) so I can get busy quilting the next quilt. Oh boy do I have a plan cooking up in my head.

Speaking of batting, I added to my stack of quilt as you go blocks. This helps empty out one bag of small batting scraps and lots of strings from the bin. I have 30 blocks done, 18 to go.

Sunday found me making a stack of 31 little string blocks. Sometimes I get started on these and forget to stop. I settled in for some TV watching and some de-papering. 

I also spent some time cutting the last 2 rosettes for block 7 of Millefiore. I'm using scraps from Allietare. Next for this quilt will be to join the rosettes I have complete so I can figure out which colors to use on the remaining rosettes.

See what other quilters are working on at Patchwork Times.

Scrap Addict Wednesday

When our Granddaughter Taylor was little, her favorite movie to watch with Poppy was Monsters, Inc. They had a ritual, get ready, hide under the quilt, get ready, wait for it, SCREAM!!! 

Mike Wazowski, the one eyed green guy, said I've got my eye on you.  Since then, that has been our saying. And because I can't wink, everyone does the Gramma wink (cover one eye) and says I've got my eye on you! So when I found this string in the box, I had a giggle fest! Oh the things we remember at the funnest times!

I've been having a blast with my string blocks. It's so easy to make more than the 5 a day I had planned to to. Since I have no other projects ready to work on, I'm just making strings blocks right now. My goal for 155 blocks for the month is quite reachable.

Eight days into the month, (7 days making string blocks) I have 65 blocks sewn, trimmed and de-papered! Go me!!!

Since 3" blocks use up so little fabric, I also have 9" quilt as you go blocks stacking up. I finished #10 yesterday.  Less not my favorite fabrics and fewer batting scraps. It will take more than one string quilt to tame those batting scraps!

While working in the string bin, I am finding larger than strings. I have 3 chunks that will be turned into backing squares and several pieces to run through the Go cutter for tumblers. Today I am babysitting so it will be a good day to run the Go cutter with a 4 year old as my helper. She loves fabric so it will hold her attention for a few minutes.

I am still hoping to have my string bin empty by the end of the month. Am I a dreamer? Probably but that is my plan. It was fun to read Sarah's post this morning. I love being inspired by other quilters. I also love that I am not alone in my scrap addiction. It's still hard to toss out those itty bitty pieces but I don't see myself ever making another quilt with such tiny bits. I keep telling myself it's good to let go.

Design Wall Monday

What a week!

There seems to be a lot going on in my world. 

Nothing serious, just busy, busy.

After reading about Sarah's Scrap Problem, 

I am making time to sew.

I want to sew every day this month.

I'm making 5 (or so) string block a day to try to decrease the amount of strings in my bin.

I wrote about my scrap problem here

.

Thursday morning, I had an epiphany,

Only making 3" string blocks will take forever to reduce the strings in the bin.

And then I had a huge brain storm! 

I will make larger quilt as you go blocks in addition to the 3" blocks.

10" squares of no longer my favorite fabric were cut for backing.

The batting scrap box came out and scraps of batting were layed out on a backing square.

Starting with black center strips,

9" blocks are being made.

Look at all the stuff that is being used up!

It's a stormy, rainy day here today,

hubby will work out in his shop

(he is newly retired, sort of)

and I will sew!!! 

It's a great day for string blocks.

 

After  much searching on my blog, 

I didn't find the picture of my last finished quilt as you go string quilt.

July 2014

I'm glad a had a picture of it on my computer!

This quilt lives in hubby's pickup.

The new one will live in my car.

You never know when you will need a quilt!

See what others are working on at Patchwork Times. 

Design Wall Monday

UFO busting at it's finest is what is happening on my design wall this week. I pulled out a bin full of SWAN (Swap Without A Name) blocks that were made by a group of internet friends in 2005. For this swap, when it was our turn-2 quilters per month-we sent each of the 23 participants a 12" square of our focus fabric along with any wishes we had for the quilt block. I used some of my stash fabric-the purples, green and peach, I asked for white or WOW background. These needed to be 12 1/2" unfinished, do your best work.  I did have to remake 1 of the blocks but no big deal. I have 4 that just didn't fit so they will be used in the orphan block quilt.

This purple star is my favorite...made by my friend Sonya. I remember her asking if I had any extra purple fabric because she wanted to make me a special block. I did and Oh Boy did she make me a special block. It's called Connecticut from Carol Doak's 50 Paper Pieced Stars book.

Step 1 - Make 20 9 patch blocks for the back using 5" charms. At one of our retreats, I won a huge stack of charms, such a fabulous variety of fabrics-even a Millennium square. I set the stack of charms at the machine, reached over, picked up 2 off the pile and sewed them together, picked up the next pair and the next and next, you get the idea. Then I added the 3rd charm. Pressed those all in one direction, grabbed a few, flipped them around so the seams would butt up to each other. Then did it again until I had 20 blocks.  There are only a few charms left to go into the charm bin. That UFO bag is busted!

Step 2- Make the batting squares.. Since Quilt As You Go is being used on these blocks. (Lots of tutorials on YouTube.) I am able to use up a big bag of batting scraps. All the batting is Hobbs 80/20 from other quilts. Batting scraps bag busted!

Step 3 - Quilt each square-Done!! How much fun I had doing this all week. I pulled out matching thread, filled bobbin with white thread, put on my walking foot and had a blast.  No new thread was purchased but no spools were emptied either. No problem since I didn't want to run out of thread.

Step 4 - Add borders to blocks. I messed up this step. I should have added borders to each block before quilting, 10 with one fabric, 10 with another fabric. I need to do this because the blocks now range in size from 11 3/4" to 12 1/2 ". So I now have to do this by adding backing strips, batting and sashing strips, quilt and cut to 15" since that's the size of my biggest ruler, that's the size I will use. The 9 patch seams will not line up, that doesn't bother me since they will have sashing on them also. I have the fabric to use on the back but I'll buy something coordinating for the front. My stash isn't that deep. I learned a very valuable lesson here.

Step 5 - Make borders.

Step 6 - Join everything together.

Step - Bind, wash, dry, cuddle.

Looks like I have a good plan for the week.  See what everyone is working on today at Patchwork Times.