UFO Challenge from Patchwork Times And the One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts

Just so you know I know....Judy picked umber 1 for the next UFO to be completed.  And I am using these two for my OMG at Elm Street Quilts.

That is...........

A double whammy......bind 100 Meter Swim AND the Triangles. and the One

I think I can handle that.

For some reason I can't flip it, but you get the picture.










Hmmmm.  this one either.  I wonder why I have to resize all the photos I choose now.  And why they won't flip.

These are mysteries of the universe and my computer.

An Accident in the Quilt Room

 So there was a near fatal accident in the quilt room today.




I  was vacuuming so I could mop up after the love  birds made such a mess on the floor. 




The vacuum blew a couple of birds off the design wall, and before I could do anything.....gobbled up the batik bird.  Surgery was required.  I had to replace a corner of the  HSTs.




For a while I worked on putting  my birds together, but I took a bit of a detour.  I remembered that Judy was going to choose a number from a list of 12 we prepared in December.  I must have missed that totally. 

She chose number 10 -  my Zig Zag quilt.  It needs to have a back  made and get quilted. 

The blocks were made at a retreat a couple of years ago.  From Sujata Shah's book Cultural Fusion Quilts.  One of my favorite books. 





 I pulled  some short lengths  of fabric to make a pieced back.  Even though the fabrics are more  traditional, it looks  like  a modern backing.





This is  where I am with the birds right now.  I have put together three sections.  Of course, not making the birds all the same equal sizes, I am having to create piecing maps and get very creative about getting them together.

I am adding white spacers where I need them.  I hope this will make it large enough just to need a small white border around the whole thing.


Frank watched the new X-Files while i watched the Aurora Borealis in Iceland.

That is where we  will be on this year's vacation!

Crosses and Cauliflower

I had a piece of batting that was the perfect size for the Crosses.  Almost!  I had to patch it in one corner but that was easy to do.  I did a ladder stitch holding the batting insert in there and it worked nicely.

However.

That said, I need one of two things to happen before I can continue to quilt this one.

1.  I need to get a walking foot for the Janome machine.  It is a frustrating machine.  I can see why someone donated it to the Flood Cause.  It does not like to switch out of a zig zag into straight stitch.  Which is annoying to the Nth level.  It must be worn in that area.  And it does not like to keep the thread in the needle even if I hold it when I start sewing.  I have rethreaded this machine a million times.

or

2.  I need to finish the quilt on the longarm so I can put them on the frame and use the Avante.

Either is not immediate.  I am working on it.

Today I decided to  pull out an old UFO and get it to the top stage.  I just about got it there. It is  Thimbleberry Block of the Month from like 2005.  I hand stitched  all the centers of the blocks following the little lines.  I actually got pretty good at it too.

And I groaned as I pieced all those tiny pieces!  The Modern Movement was not even a twinkle in the young girl's eyes yet.  Looking at it now, i think it would look great in Improv Style!


 The problem was that the blocks had been washed in a commercial washer with a lot of bits of fabric!  At some point I had to decide that "done was better than perfect" since the blocks were frayed and stretched out in all kinds of ways.

I was able to find two small pieces of the black and the tan material to fill in the blank spaces.  But I had to audition fabrics from my stash.  these two looked good and a chose the purple-ish one.

I am thinking that I need to give this quilt to one of my neighbors.  It has been through the flood, had new pieces added to repair it and is frayed and out of shape!  Just like we all are trying to recreate our houses.


In the construction news, Frank was able to build out the laundry room for me.  He even got it pained this morning. 

 For lunch I made some okra boiled in shrimp boil and some of the oddest looking  cauliflower.

I wonder how they do that?

Want to Bust a Few?

UFOs that is?  I have a ton of them, so many I am afraid it will be embarrassing to come clean.   But I am going to take the plunge and get that box out of the corner and finish some stuff.  I may have to ask you for some help on HOW to quilt some of these very interesting tops............

Go here to join in....

UFO Busting Project 2016  

I will get a list going and my room cleaned up and start working...........

After today, they are coming back with the parts for he heater at the CAAWS building.

Well, that CAAWS got shifted to Thursday or Friday since the parts aare not in today.  So I will head to the Quilt Shop with Paula!  Whoo Hoo!

(Update:  I bought 20 yards at 50% off.  How's that for starting the year in the Stash Hole?)

Here is my list of UFOs I need to work on in 2016.  I have two specific projects to wotk on, I am thinking that Jesse will get the Oriental Quilt for her graduation, but I have the fabric for neice Mary Elizabeth for hers.

Mary Eliz - graduation quilt
Jesse - Graduation quilt

Twisted Halloween needs binding sewn
Neighborhood needs binding
Stars needs binding
Thimbleberries House needs binding
Locked and Loaded needs binding sewn
Chicken Dances needs binding
Saints needs binding

Blue and Purple Stars needs quilting
green orange Houses needs quilting
Fireworks needs quilting
Buggy Barn Chicken needs quilting
Oriental is a top
Black Random - top
Log Cabin Shadows - top
Improv Leaf - top
Zig Zag improv top

Machine needs borders
Batik Curves needs borders
Tentative randomness needs borders
The Devil's Lense bought fabric for sash
Flight 370 - needs borders and words
ToPo Map
Tea Towel London
Tea Towel Moulin Rouge

Fireworks on th 4th of July

I fell in love with this quilt a lot of years ago.  Like in 2005 or so.

It was in a magazine.  And I ordered it.

And put it together for a while.  I taught my mother to paperpiece a couple of blocks, but she was not really able to do much.  Alzheimer's, you know. 

Got tired of it when things were not lining up well.

Put it aside.

I pulled it out a few times over the years, saw where it was wonky in some blocks.  Put it back into the bag.

I pulled it out yesterday and just blew over the wonky blocks.  I hacked some of the points off to make them more square.  Sometimes you do what you gotta do.

I got all the blocks on the wall.  Except one piece.  A blue run.

Cannot find one block part anywhere but I suspect there was a bag of blue that got lost somewhere over the years of being moved around and shoved aside.  I can find all the other colors but not the blues even to make another one.

I decide to use plain black centers rather than the fireworks fabric from the original kit.

I put all the blocks together, except for that missing part one. Since they didn't all match up properly, I used some of my 1 inch black strips left over from the last thing.

It still needs the pieced border. But I can get that done today. 

I like it.  And it is a part of a pile that got moved and finished.  To the top stage, anyway.

UFO Turned Into a Cool Quilt

It is not Valentine Red!  A quilt unveiled on Valentines Day should be red!

Here is another quilt for the 6 boys.  They range in ages from 12 to 6.  Did I tell you they moved the wedding from July 3 to April 4? No sweat!

This one is an interesting piece.  I was in a group that pulled scraps together and made fabric.  We each named a block or style and the group made blocks.  When it was my turn I asked for a warm square and a cool square.

For a while I had a top with all the blocks put together.  Then one day I decided to slash them up and add some black strips.  And I slashed that up and rearranged some of the colors.  It sat in my UFO pile for a few years.

Before I decided to do quilts for all the boys, I was thinking of taking the top and slashing once again.  I was thinking in terms of a stained glass window with little odd shaped squares and black lead strips.

Now it has turned into this. Another piece of my mother's stash completes the top.  I will have enough for the back as well, or close to it.

It is 54 x 54, another square quilt and we all know how much I hate those square quilts.

And I have enough of the colors for one, and maybe two, more quilts!

Joy Just To Be Quilting

Danielle L said to me:  It has never failed that when I have been through the most heart-breaking passages of my life -- betrayal, financial hardship, divorce, dreams dashed -- the pain brought me to the floor of my being, and what was there to be found?: 

The simple joy of being alive.

It is not generally my nature to be happy.  I was born under the Saturnalia.  Which might sound like one great orgy, but it really fits me when you look into the aspects of it.  So this was an interesting thing to say to me.  I don't always think in terms of joy. 

But I do feel the joy of spending the day with fabric in my hands.  You would think that the connections of the King of Saturn to wool that I would be a weaver, but I am not.  And you would also think that I would be the master of the dance, and I sort of am.  I am generally the one in charge or the one behind the lectern.  Yes, that is me!

So today, I will play once again with my UFO quilt that has the skulls and witches on it.  Wit mummies creeping along behind the evil jack pumpkins.  That is right, my All Saints' Eve quilt, the Twisted Halloween quilt.

And for that I am glad to be able to ply my fabric surrounded my my dogs of the hunt.  


That reminds me, I bought a book that had a basset hound in it last year on our shop hop.  I haven't seen it since.  I REALLY need to clean up my room.........have you heard that before?  

And that reminds me.....look what I boiled up yesterday for dinner!

I

Want to use up two UFO orphan blocks?

Look what I found!  I will see what else she has to show us!

Mini Iron Bag Tutorial

Try this cute mini iron bag project.  It uses up two 8 x 8 blocks that would just sit in your sewing room and take up room.  Or if you are like me, they would just sneer at you and say:

You never finished us........you are so bad!  Can't you hear them?????

But if you do something with them, they can't talk behind your back!

glen:  I just happen to have a few of these babies sitting on my design wall at this very moment, I found a box I apparently have not opened for many years!

CHristmas UFO to a Loving Home

I actually put a Christmas UFO from about 5 years ago on the frame.  The stars that were on the panto table already seemed perfect when done in a nice Christmas-sy Tomato Red thread.  It was originally going to be the backing of another Christmas quilt I was making.  But I liked it so much I wanted it to live free on its own!

And I am using up the ends of the batting from the last two quilts.  That means another large yardage usage for the back and two pieces of extraneous batting that will be used up.

I am getting there!  And I think I will send this Christmas Quilt to my doggy friend Natalie in Texas!  Yes.  She will love it!

So it already has a nice loving home.  She is a wonderful artist who works in clay.  She does amazing stuff.  Maybe she will share some of her work with us one day.

This is the completed top, just needing binding.  It went so fast, I finished it in one afternoon.  It is about 68 by 68 inches.  I have to choose that soon and get it rolling.  The back is a pieced conglomeration of the large Christmas fabric pieces I had.  All my Christmas fabric is contained in a plastic shoe box, so nothing is really large.  I love these dogs, they almost look like my beloved Swissys, just needing a little brown on them.

I wonder if I should email Natalie and send her the link to this post, or just let her be surprised when a box arrives at her doorstep!  I think I will surprise her!  I would LOVE to be surprises thusly!

My foot is on the trees on the back of the Christmas Quilt.  LOL.  I didn't realize my foot looked so sexy!  And I don't even have on my sexy shoes!  Oh La La!  I will have to show you the sexy sandals.  They are truly incredible.  I can't imagine what will happen when they fall apart.  This is the second summer I have worn them.  Did I say they are incredibly sexy?

glen

A June Challenge

Are you up for a little healthy competition?  You bet!

I will have a prize with this one too!  No out of the US please.  Shipping is just too expensive to send it across the world!  Sorry!

Here is the deal.  I have a lot of quilt tops to be quilted.  How about you come and get a box full and see how many you can finish.......no not really, although it would be nice!

I have a lot of quilt tops to be quilted.  Ones that have been around since the beginning of time it seems.  How about if we see how many of our UFO tops we can get done in June?  I count 25 or 26 just in these two boxes and a stack.  That is the majority of the tops from the last 10-12 years that got put aside or I had no idea how to quilt them.  Well, now with my machine working and a set of patterns being drawn up, I can handle it.

Can I remember that far ahead into June?  I will put a thingy on the side of my blog and get rid of some stuff there cluttering it up, how's that?  And if you want to join in, we can have a list of those working on the project.

If you just want to get a few done and play along, let's have fun.  It may be me and one other person and that is fine.  I do have a lot of tops and I need some sort of incentive to get SOMETHING started! LOL.

glen

Remember this?

Remember this?  The ugly thing from way back when?

And I cut it up into this? 

Then I found a stash of half square triangles? 

 And then it started going together like this?

And then it grew to this?

And I decided to put some of the black areas together like this?

Well, it is being sewn together now. 

Looks much better than when we started, right!
glen