Another UFO Finished

Well, I have finished another of my 18 Unfinished Projects…..although I got a bit of help this time from the Charity Bee of Cotton Patch Quilters.

Our guild makes quilts each year that are given to the American Cancer Society “Relay for Life” program and they raffle the quilts to raise money. We were in need of a FAST quilt that could be given to the Clark County Relay and were all kicking around various ideas. Then, I remembered this UFO…….

It was made from remnants of another quilt that the guild made a few years ago. I knew that it needed to be much bigger than the current size, so I got onto Electric Quilt and started playing with different ways to add borders to it to increase the size.

When I had decided to add borders that needed strip sets, I sent out a plea to our charity group and they showed up with Black and White fabrics, and one friend (Pat K) brought a finished set for us to use. They cut the strips and helped to get the strip sets pieced and then I brought it home and put it together. Ellen N. graciously quilted it on her Long Arm Machine. Here is the final result…….

We are excited to see how much they can make on this offering Even though it is a bit smaller that our usual gifts, we are hoping that the “Red and Black” (ie…Georgia Bulldog) colors will help it to be a big seller.

Only 15 UFO’s to go!!!!

Using Orphan Blocks

My husband and I just returned from a wonderful dinner with some friends, Muhammet & Hulya, who are here from Turkey. Hulya is a WONDERFUL cook and has a Turkish Cooking blog that is definitely worth a look. Check it out here.

I wanted to take something to her as a hostess gift and finally had an idea….duh….she is a Chef….take potholders!!!

The next step was to actually make some, so I returned to Anita’s (check out her blog too) idea of using orphan blocks to make potholders. This is the UFO that I came up with…it was a border of a quilt that I decided not to use….

and this is what I turned it into!!!

We had a wonderful evening with TONS of excellent food!!!!!

UFO # 2 FINISHED!!!!!

The second UFO is a Christmas piece that I had started back in September, planning to take it to Australia to give to my hosts there. Unfortunately, the next day I found out that I had to have abdominal surgery which pretty much put me out of commission for the rest of the Fall, so I didn’t get it finished in time for the trip.

This piece has a moral to it….. I made the red blocks first and thought that they looked great. I then made the green blocks and pieced them together in the same formation that I had used for the red ones. WRONG!!!!! If I had spent a bit more time reading the instructions, I would have noticed that these alternating blocks were pieced in a different formation. I then decided “no problem, I will just make two quilts with opposite colors”. So, I re-made the green blocks and finished piecing the top…..it looked great.

Next up was to make the second top. Well, as I started looking at my fabric, I realized that I didn’t have enough of the green fabric to finish the second top!! So, I decided to nix the second top for the time being and put the extra blocks back in with the Christmas fabrics.

I struggled with quilting this piece as nothing seemed to look right, so I finally decided to just quilt a few straight lines with monofilament thread and call it finished. I gave this one to a friend as well.

I realized that I needed a small gift for yet another friend, so decided to take two of the extra blocks, add borders and turn them into potholders……thanks to Anita Heady for the idea of using leftover blocks to make pot holders!!!

TWO DOWN…..SIXTEEN TO GO!!!!

UFO Number 1

I decided that the first of the UFO’s that I would tackle would be a small wall hanging that was started in a class several years ago. The workshop was given by Debbie Frey and used the “Scrap Happy Spools” pattern. I had selected shades of blue for the piece and had only finished 2-1/2 of the 12 blocks needed for the top.

I truly enjoyed spending an evening finishing the squares and setting them together to make a cute small quilt. I dont particularly care for paper piecing, but found this project to be fun. As I stitched, I decided to give the quilt as a gift to a wonderful friend who wants to make quilts, but cant find the time at the moment.

I needed to quilting to be fast and easy so chose a variegated blue thread and did a free form swirl over the surface.

I am pleased with the result and my friend loved it!!!

One UFO down and 17 more to go!!!!

THE FIRST POST…..hopefully many to follow

I have decided that today is the day to start keeping a “quilting and other stuff” diary and publish it as a blog. Wish me luck!!!!!

This past Fall I had a conversation with some friends about how many Unfinished Projects we each had hidden away in our quilting studios. I responded that “I don’t have very many” and then started wondering whether or not I had just told a fib. As I started trying to list them in my mind, I realized that there were actually quite a few. So, 2 weeks ago I cleaned out my studio from top to bottom and found ALL of my UFO’s…..I was shocked at how many there were.

I started to make a list of them and then realized that I had done this many times before and would promptly put the list somewhere where I could forget about it. So, I got the idea to make the list in a different way this time. I got out my camera and photographed each of the projects, along with any fabrics or other stuff that I had put aside for it. Then I printed out two sheets of paper with nine photos on each paper (that’s right…..18 UFO’s) and pinned it to the cork board in my studio.

The plan is that I will slowly work thru them and mark them off of the list as I go. We will see how well it goes!!!!