First UFO Bust 2011 Report

As part of the UFO Bust I'm participating in (click on the button along the right hand side of my blog if you would like to read about it or play along), we are suppose to report on our progress on Fridays. So here is my report...

The label is going on my Funky Santa quilt!!

This is how I put my labels on when I don't piece them into the back. I sew two sides into the binding by machine and then hand stitch the other two sides down. Less hand applique this way! After I get the label all the way on, I just have a little more than one side of binding left to hand sew to the back. The sleeve is made, but won't get attached until I have done all the embellishing I want to do along the top of the quilt. Ahhh! Feels good to be so close to my first finish of the year.

In other news, while my afternoon got completely hijacked by work, when I got around to checking the mail there was a nice package waiting for me.

I ordered this fat quarter bundle of green Kona solids from Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works as part of my birthday spending spree. Isn't it lovely! I think my solids stash is now complete, for the moment anyway.

UFO List

Susan of Blackberry Creek Home Arts is hosting a UFO Bust for 2011. You can click on the button on my side bar to go directly to the rules of the UFO Bust. This is a very low pressure deal - just my style. If you want to join too, just go over to Susan's site (click the link in the first sentence or the button on the right) and sign yourself up.

My plan is just to "deal with" every UFO on my list this year. By "deal with" I mean actually pull out each one. See if I have everything necessary to finish it. Decide if I really do want to finish it. If do, then make a plan for finishing (notice I didn't say "finish it", just "make a plan to finish it"). If I don't want to finish it, get rid of it by either giving it away, throwing it away or cutting it up for use in another project and putting the unused fabrics back in my stash.

Here is my oldest UFO, I think. At least it is the oldest one I have found so far.

These blocks were leftovers from a panel I cut up and used to make a quilt for a friend in 2005. I had planned to quilt it up and give it to charity. It's been 5 years and I haven't done it. Do I still want to quilt it? I'm not sure. This may be one that I end up giving away.

So here is my list:

1. Cabin Lap Quilt (photo above) - charity
2. Mom's Mystery Quilt (this is one of my Mom's UFOs that she passed on to me)
3. Funky Santa (almost got the binding on this one!)
4. Wonky New York Beauty
5. House quilt - charity
6. Clifford quilt - charity
7. Pooh quilt - charity
8. Cars quilt - charity
9. Puzzle quilt
10. Lollipop Flowers round robin quilt
11. Bird Panel
12. Spring Panel
13. Cuddly quilt
14. Space quilt
15. Gail Garber class quilt (pieced hexagon)

This list contains only the UFOs I have currently found. I feel like there are more somewhere, but they haven't surfaced yet. When I finally switch my sewing room with the current guest room and move all my crap, I may find more. I'll let you know if I do. I'm going to try to figure out how to put this list on my sidebar, mainly as a reminder for myself.

I received one more birthday gift from the son. I failed to post a photo yesterday so I'm doing it today.

He is currently reading this book. Below the book is the gift. He made me an amulet. It has some magical powers that I don't fully understand, but I love it. This will go into my collection of treasures he has given me over the years. He is currently 8. I hope to make a small quilt to attach these treasures to someday. I will include photos of him too on the quilt.

Birthday Purchases

I had a great birthday. Mostly I just relaxed. I went to my local quilt shop and was there for a long time visiting with friends and shopping. Here is what I got.

Kona solids, machine needles and Quilter's Tweed

close up of the quilter's tweed

The Quilter's Tweed bundles have been at my local quilt shot for several months. I had been coveting them and decided that my birthday was an excellent excuse to get a fat quarter bundle. I have no idea what I will do with this, I just needed to own some.

After the quilt shop I played online and fondled my purchases. We had Chinese take-out for dinner and I sewed binding on the Funky Santa quilt and watched a movie in the evening. Nice and relaxing - perfect!

My solids collection has grown so much recently that I need to do some rearranging of my fabric drawers so I can fit it all in! I'll have to do that another day because today's plan is to finish the painting on my son's new desk and closet we had installed recently. He is in school today and will go to a friend's house after school so I can get a lot of painting done with minimal interruptions. The husband is skiing today and tomorrow so I don't even have him to work around. It's just Goldie and me today. She will not be happy with the painting because it will mean that she can't be with me most of the day. She is sweet but much too curious to be around wet paint!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday! The husband let me sleep in this morning. He got up with the boy and got him out the door to school today. I got up about 8:30 am, made coffee and opened my presents.

This is what I got from my parents and sister. The envelope contains a gift certificate to my LQS. I plan to go spend some money there today. Ten years or so ago I started a tradition of going shopping to my LQS on my birthday and allowing myself to buy whatever I felt like, up to about $100. Some years we couldn't afford that much and other years I spent a little more, but the idea is to buy myself whatever I want without feeling like I have to justify the purchase. It's a gift and gifts don't need justification. Some years I look through my stash and see what I'm low on. Then I buy half yard cuts to fill the need, in addition to whatever catches my eye.

I got the quilting finished on Funky Santa yesterday and even got the binding attached to the front.

front

back

I am thrilled with how the panel came out. I'm really glad I took the time to rip out what I had started and begin again.

panel (front)

panel (back)

I've got a quart size plastic baggie full of buttons, ribbons and jingle bells I collected for this project. I also have beads and eyelash yarn. My plan is to get the binding on and then start embellishing. It is a Christmas quilt so I think it should be "over the top." It was designed to hang on the wall in our dining room, not for a bed or snuggling under on the sofa. It is art. So even though the quilting is done and the binding will be soon, there is still a lot of work left to do. But this is the fun part!

UFO Bust Luau Report

I finished quilting the swirls around the panel of my Funky Santa quilt yesterday afternoon.

You can click on the image to see it larger. If you do, you might actually be able to see some of the quilting. I love this pattern. It is my new favorite. I had just barely enough green thread to finish.

And the bobbin was only about a quarter full when I finished.

Then I started quilting the panel.

Yuck! I do not like the way this is looking at all. The fushia thread looks good on the red and pink but not over poor Santa! I put in Return of the Jedi and sat down to watch and rip all of this out. It took pretty much the whole movie but I am glad that I stopped and took it out. I only wish I had stopped sooner. Now I am trying something else and I really like how it is looking. I am just outlining the Santas and some of the other images with invisible thread. I'll use a light green to quilt around the Santas and go back to the fushia for the rest.

So I didn't get it finished this weekend, but it is well on it's way to being finished, this month I hope. My boys will not be back until dinner time so I still have all afternoon to work on this. I have dinner going in the crockpot so it will be ready whenever they get here.

Funky Santa Progress

I quilted on Funky Santa for at least 6 hours yesterday.

bottom left corner quilted

back of bottom left corner

I am almost out of the green thread I am using so I'm not sure how much farther I will get on this project today. You might be able to see in the first picture that I am not quilting the panel with the green thread so I hope to get that done today when I run out of green. I have some fushia thread that I bought from Connecting Threads that I will try out. I did not consciously avoid the center panel with the green thread. When I got all the way across the top with the quilting I realized that I was not quilting the center panel, in fact I had specifically avoided going onto the it, with the green thread. After thinking about that for a few minutes, I decided that this was a good plan. I will use a different thread and probably a different pattern.

To me, the panel sticks out because of the thin black border around it. You can see that in this photo.

I have some lime green eyelash yarn that I have thought about putting over the black border to give the panel a softer looking border. I'm also considering a little hand stitching on some of the appliques, specifically the snowflakes.

I was so excited about this project a year ago then other things came up and it didn't get finished. I set it aside and just couldn't get back in the groove with it, until now. I'm in love with it again. I think I may hang it up for a while in the dining room when I finish it, even though Christmas is passed.

And here is a Goldie photo from yesterday. She just looked so cute I had to grab my camera.

Happy New Year!

Since my boys are gone for the weekend, I am participating Pat Sloan's New Year's Eve UFO Luau. Click here to read about today's happenings. The UFO I am working on is my Funky Santa quilt. Here it is December 2009 hanging in the dining room just basted together, pins and all.

I began quilting it yesterday but didn't make that much progress on it. I really liked the Ocean Current pattern I did on the border of Hawaiian Hug, so I am using it again on Funky Santa.

Yesterday I cleaned a few areas in my sewing room, although it is hard to tell that today. My cutting table already has more piles of stuff on it. It was clean for about 2 hours! LOL! I also finished the binding, sleeve and label on the Nine Patch Strata.

So I did finish something yesterday which feels good.