Update on UFOs

Really feel like I am making some progress this week.

I got back to the Neutral Jacob’s Ladder. Figured out how to make the few strips of special fabric I had go all the way around the border. Then got a back  pieced for it. And they are all hanging on the basting wall ready to be basted. Except I just noticed one of the border needs a touch up with the iron, so it will have to come down again.

See the border fabric, it is really unique and I have had a hard time figuring out where to use it. So much so , that I chopped up one length for string piecing. That’s why I thought it was going to be tough to get enough to go around. But I had seven strips and given the large blank areas it was easy enough to put all the cut off bits from the sides onto the top and bottom. The colour was a strange one as well, beige with a greenish tinge and it just happened to match the flecks of colour in the brown border. Looking at it now I can see the backing is obviously too large and will have to be cut down.

As well as this, I also worked on the last border of last year’s Bonnie mystery. And can now cross that off the to-do list. It is a completed top.


So, with two UFO’s off my list, what is next? Another mystery, this time from 2015 and from a different designer.
Three more clues to go.
Now to link up with Jo and see what everyone else has done this week.
Jo's Country Junction

Weekly UFO update

This is it, the last two days before the new Bonnie Hunter Mystery starts. And have I finished last year’s?  No. Despite all the good intentions last Wednesday, still not done.
At the moment it is heaped up on the ironing board waiting to have the first border ironed. This was the one I thought was missing the units but found them. After getting that all put together, I had a whole bunch of 4 patches left . Was this another ooopsie ? Back to the pattern to check,  no mistake, there is another border.  So now putting that one together.


The borders on the Jacob’s ladder were sidelined by a brilliant idea that required finding a specific fabric.  It was eventually found and I might get back to working on it soon.
While I was searching for the fabric I wanted for a middle border, I got totally sidetracked by a shirts project. This is one of Becky Petersen’s patterns and I knew I had cut the centre blocks for it some time ago. But totally messed up the room looking though every bin of shirts for them. 
Finally did find them in a basket on the shelf.  At which point I looked at the mess of shirts and decided something  needed to be done about them. ( but after I put two blocks together, isn’t this cute? The centre has the pocket from the shirt front. That’s why I couldn’t just cut new blocks)
So for the past three days I have been cutting and sorting and stacking. Plus running some through the Accuquilt strip cutters. It feels like I have made some progress.
Now I just have to get it all put away in some order so I can find fabrics when I want them.
Not much to look at but they are in specific piles and I just need to cut some more strips before I put them away. I found a whole stash of shirt fronts I had forgotten about and now am thinking of doing some aprons from them.  Or just put them back in a bin until after a few more things are finished. Now to see what is happening with everyone else this week and link up with Jo
http://www.joscountryjunction.com/ufo-challenge-20/

UFO update

Well, the monster quilt is finished. I was so excited about , I even wrote an extra blog post about it Here .
And today, we seemed to be getting a break in the overcast, grey skies so I threw it in the washer. But by the time it had cycled to the end, the sunshine was gone. Still hung it out to take a picture.

With that done, the question arose, what to do next. There are so many to finish. But with less than two weeks until the mystery starts the only choice could be the last mystery.  And so I started. Much better starting position this year in that all my pieces were made and I had worked on the sashing pieces over the summer so they were all done. It simply was time to put it all together.
A brief panic last night when I came up short 10 units for the border. But I was pretty sure they were done and just missing in the sewing room. So I undertook to rearrange everything looking for them. And got a better shelf arrangement so the bins of pieces I use frequently are closer to hand than the backings which were taking centremost . Soon enough the missing was found, just leaving a mess to put away. And I hope to be able to report this done by next week.
It might have been today but I got another parcel from the Quilted Twins and it sent me off in a totally different direction for most of the day – borders for the neutral Jacobs Ladder.  Heading back down to finish them off as soon as I link up with Jo.

Finished !! Finally

There should be even more exclamation , a fanfare of trumpets perhaps. This has been a long time coming. In the interests of accuracy,  I searched back through my posts to see exactly when I had started these projects.
 The Trip Around the World was started July 2012 making it the longest in the works. It has been finished for a while and hanging around looking for a border.
The Scrappy Bargello panels I used for  borders were cut back in December of 2014.  And the Scrappy Stars have been in the works but not commented on so can't be exactly sure of their start date. They suffered from a dissatisfaction with the yellow fabric. It is more like a brassy/gold and just did not inspire me to finish them. I see that in one post about UFO's ( 8/10/15) I had a bunch done. Sometime after that, I decided to change yellows and made up a bunch which I used to make the top last week. This left three of the brassy stars. Needing a way to make the Bargello strips meet I decided to use them as cornerstones and quickly whipped up another.
And thus the monster was created. My hubby is thrilled, I am warm and the cat approves.

UFO report M-2

That is two weeks until the mystery with Bonnie starts and how am I doing in clearing out old unfinished projects before starting a new one? Pretty darn good if I do say so myself.
I finished up the sashing on the Stars and got them all together.
So now it becomes a finished top waiting for some reason to quilt it, like a new baby.  Although I  would have a hard time parting with this project as the fabrics bring back so many memories.
In the same project box as the stars, were the string geese from waaaay back. I searched Bonnie’s blog to figure out how long ago.  The post where she first mentions them was December 2012.  Not sure that these were started at the same time she was working on them but within a year of it.  The pattern is no longer available as a free pattern on her site as she has tweeked it and it’s now in her new book coming out soon.  So I had to improvise on the sashing size between the rows of geese.
Still working on the side and top border. The sashing fabric was from the Quilted Twins, the detail of the picture isn’t fine enough to see the peach colour from the geese is picked up quite nicely. As soon as I saw this fabric I knew they would play nicely together. It's called Splish Splash and comes in lots of other colourways (https://www.quiltedtwins.com/new-fabric/template-swirling-marbling-blender-2ns4m-98789-6harc-zygyk-7gpgr)

And in between these two projects, I lashed together a third.
This one destined for our bed. It is named the Franken-quilt because three different projects were sewn together to make it big enough to cover us.
It has a centre Trip Around the World, skinny border, Scrappy Bargello strips for a fat border, and Scrappy Stars for corner stones.  One thing I wish now I had done differently would be to extend the skinny border to frame the stars. It sort of looks like they get lost in the bargello. This is on the basting wall right now with backing and batting waiting for me to go baste them together.  The weather here has taken a downward direction temperature wise and I would like to get this on the bed soon.
So quite busy week, although I’ll be playing catch-up on the housework for a day or two soon.  Soon, I promise, well maybe after I quilt Frankie.
Now to link up with Jo and see what she has done this week.  Jo's Country Junction

UFO report

Well, this is it, the final weeks before Bonnie’s Mystery Quilt starts. This means a clearing out of projects currently being worked on and cleanup in the sewing room.  Basically clearing the decks for action.
One project cleared up, the neutral/brown Jacob’s ladder. All blocks done, layout done, rows stacked and numbered ready to sew together.  I had the opportunity to just focus on sewing for two whole days and I did. Wasn’t sure just how many I was going to make, original plan was for 48 with a large border but I pushed to get beyond that and made it to 56 before I ran out of steam.  Here they are up on the basting wall on a flannel sheet as my design wall was too small to hold them all.
 Thinking a simple border but will let that thought percolate for a bit.  After all that neutralness, a shot of colour was needed. Especially as we are having numerous grey overcast days.


  So out came some crumb stars. I have two UFOs using crumb stars, the first was Star Splinter from Quiltmaker March/April '13  and the second, Scrappy Stars from Jo Kramer ( link at right on her page)

(the pictures loaded in reverse order, Scrappy is the first and then Splinter) 



Scrappy won out and Splinter is back in the project box for another time.
It was so engrossing, the next thing I knew it was 2 in the morning and all 9 blocks were done. I have more centres but the pattern calls for 9 so now comes the sashing.

And stopping here to link up with Jo's UFO challenge before I go back down to my cleaned up sewing room with my re-hung design wall  to cut some sashes.