February UFO Report

I am happy to report that my February UFO, RRCB is done. So happy it is done, that it is worth writing about it twice. And showing the picture twice. LOL. Judy, at Patchwork Times has a linky up for those of us who worked on the UFO challenge last month. This month, she's pulled the number 8, which is my quilt Double Duty. The top is already made. This month's challenge is to get it quilted and bound. The bigger challenge is to figure out what to do with it. I know I want to do something that plays up the flying geese, and that follows the lights and darks of the log cabin blocks. But how, or what that will be....... haven't a clue, just yet. And that is one of the reasons it is still a UFO. I love the top, and the pattern, but haven't been able to figure out how to quilt it. Whatever I do, except for an all over edge to edge, which I don't really want to do, is going to involve starts and stops as the quilt is advanced, due to the diagonal placement of the geese. Any suggestions?
When I made up this years list for myself, I mixed it up with different type projects. Some had a lot of piecing left in them, some just needed a border or 2 and some were at the needing to be quilted and bound stage. Since this month's pick is one that needs quilting, it gives me a chance to play with other piecing, and maybe starting a new project, or 2, or maybe even 3 from my ever growing want to do list.

I have a finish...... woohoo.....

Well, it's finished to a flimsy, at least. But considering the amount of work that was left to do on it, and that it was my February UFO, I think a few celebratory words are definitely in order, especially since there is still almost a week left in the month - double WOOHOO!! The quilt is Bonnie Hunter's mystery from year before last. called Roll Roll Cotton Boll, but I cheated, and changed it up to suit me. I left out half of the string pieced units, because I didn't want to do any more of them, and substituted some red yardage. Then when I got to the stage of putting the border on, there was a surprise. It was supposed to have a spacer border between the body of the quilt and the pieced border. But when I measured the quilt and the pieced border, it turned out that I didn't need the spacer. That's a good thing, since I auditioned all kinds of stuff to act as that spacer and had a hard time coming up with anything that I really liked. In fact, I like it best with them right beside each other. And, since this was February's UFO, and since there is almost a week left in the month, that means I can play with something else. This is getting better and better. I've joined in with the Bunny Hill Scrappy Dresden Plate quilt along. I have 13 of the plates made, with 7 more to go. I'm hoping to get most of them done today, since it is cold and damp and dreary outside, so I'll play with my bright and happy and spring like fabrics inside. I'll put my ipod in its dock, and sing along. Ah bliss. I'm linking this post up to a couple of places that celebrate finishes. One of them is Finish it up Friday, hosted by Amanda at Crazy Mom Quilts. And the other is Can I get a Whoop Whoop, hosted by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. And then there is another called Sew and Tell, hosted by Amy at the blog Amylouwho. I really like exploring all the different linky parties. There is always so much to see, different blogs to get to know, and lots and lots of inspiration. If you have some free time, grab a coffee, or a cut of tea, and so some surfing, without ever getting wet. And I'll add on another Friday finish celebration linky at Richard Quilts.

Design Wall Monday Feb 20, 2012

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 I still have Roll Roll Cotton Boll up on the wall.  Hopefully this will be the last week for it. I had put the main body of it aside due to machine issues. But those issues have been very nicely cured, due to the purchase of this. So finishing this quilt is going to go much faster from here on in. All 4 borders are all pieced, and the last few rows of the centre need to be put on. Past that point, all I need to do is measure the finished centre of the quilt, in order to determine the sizes of the spacer borders, so that the pieced ones will fit. I am determined to have this done before the end of the month. It won't get quilted by the end of the month, but at least the top will be done. I'm late today, linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times. But I have a good reason, honestly, due to the previously mentioned purchase.

Also today, Bonnie Hunter is sponsoring a linky to talk about the varieties of thimbles out there, and which ones are our favourites, and why. I have tried, like most people, many different styles and types of thimbles, with none of them comfortably working well. I have really short and small fingers. So any of the normal type thimbles hit my finger right at the knuckle, and they hurt. I used to put up with it bu using a thimble that was a size bigger, and padding it with batting where it hit my knuckle. But then I found this one, made by clover, I believe. I saw it in the Keepsakes catalogue, and decided it was worth a shot. It is soft, and stretchy and fits perfectly, and doesn't hurt. It has one flaw, that it will bend where the metal and stretchy parts meet, if there is a lot of pressure put on it. I use it mostly for doing hand applique, so I don't know how it would hold up to hand quilting. I'll be linking up to Bonnie's Thimble's up monday with this post.

Another morning after the friday night before.....

I managed to meet my goal of getting the borders for Roll Roll Cotton Boll all assembled. Now, all I need is my new sewing machine, and I can get the rest of the centre put together, figure out the size of the spacer border, and get these puppies attached, and it will be done. I was hoping the machine would show up yesterday, but it didn't maybe today, before I have to go to work. Anyway, back to the quilt... considering that this is my February UFO, it might even be done before the end of the month. The only problem I can see with it right now, though, is that there isn't any other green in the body of the quilt, but there is in the borders. These border units were the very first clue in this mystery, several years ago, and I'd forgotten about the green.  I was thinking of using a blue as the spacer border, but maybe a bluish green? I guess I'll decide once the top is all together and I can get it, and the borders on the wall together.

In addition to getting the borders done, I also decided to load Make Your Point, which meant making up the backing for it. So, all in all, it was a very productive Friday sew-in. Don't forget to go over to Heidi's place and see the really long list of people from all over the world who were also participating in the sew-in. I'm sure there will be lots of fun stuff to see.

Design Wall Monday Feb 13, 2012

In between all the shifts I've been working this past week, I've been sewing on my February UFO. It has been giving me some trouble, though. I am really glad I didn't do all the string blocks, because no matter how careful I was, their edges stretched. And while the blocks measure the right size, the stretched edges don't. So there has been lots of pinning, which I don't usually do, and lots of easing the fullness in, which means some of the squares are rather poofy. But, I still like the way it looks, so it will be worth it, I hope, in the end. Once I get the centre of the top finished, I'll do the pieced border. Then, I'll measure the 2 of them, and put in the needed spacer border to make it fit. Another day should see the rest of it sewn together, and then I can start on the borders. Looking at it right now, I'm thinking that the spacer border is going to be blue, but I'll have to check my stash, once I get to that point, and see what's there, and what I have enough of to do the job. Any more red would just over power it, I think. Anyway, that's it for me for today. I'm linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday over at her blog, Patchwork Times. There looks like there is all kinds of wonderful eye candy to see over there.

Design Wall Monday Feb 6, 2012

I've got a couple of things going at the moment. Well, if I'm being totally honest, more than a couple........ Anyway, to be more accurate, a couple of things on my wall. After finishing Endless Chain last week, I wanted to work on something fun, and relatively non complex. So I've been sewing Scrappy Dresden Plates for the Quilt Along from Bunny Hill Designs Twelve are pieced together, but I have 8 more to do, because I want mine bigger than the instructions call for. I like to make quilts that will fit double or Queen size beds. They would then also work on a twin, but would hang all the way to the floor on the twin, depending on the height of the mattress.  I think I am going to do different coloured solids or tone on tones  for the centers.
The other thing I'm working on is my February UFO which is Bonnie Hunter's mystery from Last year, Roll Roll Cotton Boll. But I'm putting my own personal twist into it, since I really don't want to make any more of the 8 1/2 inch string squares. So I'm substituting a red fabric for half of them.

                        
It doesn't look like much on the wall, as yet. But I did up a virtual quilt in EQ7 using this layout, and it looks quite good. From a distance there is almost a curvy look to it with this layout. Once the borders go on, I thing it will work quite nicely. To see other walls. head on over to where I'm linking up, at Patchwork Times And now, I'm going to see if I can get some piecing done on this baby before I have to go in to work this afternoon.

W.I.P Wednesday Sept 14

Since my last W.I.P. post I have had 2 starts and 2 finishes. The Batman quilt top and pieced back for my son. And I'm actively working on one of my UFO's, the Bonnie Hunter Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery from last year. There has been a lot of good progress on it. The individual components are almost all done and ready to sew together. All I have left to do is 30 more of the neutral string pieced blocks. Here's a W.I.P. picture of what is put together so far.

Starts in the last 2 weeks:  2
Finishes:                           2
Leaders and enders in progress:       2
Active WIP's                                   1
Being quilted:                 Still working on Shakespeare. Only 1 1/2 rows left to do.            
Waiting for quilting:      10, Batman got added to the list.
Waiting for binding:     4, no progress there.
Ufo's:                           7, RRCB got taken off this list, but My Tweets has been added to it, so the              number remains the same.
Nearly deads:         13. There were 11, but I've found a couple more. A Grandmother's Flower Garden that I started years and years ago, and the year 2000 Piecemaker's calender quilt. So, all in all, not bad. At least there is some progress being made. I had promised myself last week, that if I got up to step 4 of the RRCB quilt done, I'd reward myself with a new start. However, I'm having fun with this one, so I'll keep going while the desire to work on it lasts.
I'm going to link up to the other Work in Progress posts over at Freshly Pieced, where there are a few with lists as long as mine.

Making progress

After I wrote yesterday's post about my pile of UFO's. I went upstairs and started to work on one of them. I pulled out the box with Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll in it, and started to try to figure out exactly where I was with it. I discovered that I had all the strip sets for step 1 sewn together, but not cut into units. Now they are all cut. 
Step 2, 120 3 1/2 inch half square triangles were 90% sewn together, but not de-dog-eared. Now they are done. 
Step 3, 600 2 inch half square triangles, I had 40 of them, and more needing to be trimmed. Now I have around 180 of them. So, progress was made on it.
The added bonus is that I have a pile of 2 inch red strips left from cutting out the Rose Log Cabin quilt, so they are going to get used up with the rest of the 420 half square triangles left to go. It sounds daunting, but I was able to get about 80 of them done in a little over an hour last night. So, Tuesday I worked on the Rose log cabin. Yesterday, was spent on figuring out my large list of waiting to be finished projects, and then working on one of them. Today will be spent on working on quilting Shakespeare. In the times I need to rest my legs from standing at the longarm, I'll sit and work on my projects. I think I'm going to try maintaining this kind of pattern, assigning a day to work on a specific task, and see if I can't be a bit more organized, and therefore get more done.

Design Wall Monday Dec 6

 Today is an excellent day to stay inside and sew. We are getting slammed with snow. Schools have been closed, the roads are a mess, and the snow continues to fall. So far, according to the Weather Network, we've had between 30 to 40 centimetres, which translates over to 12 to 16 inches of snow since yesterday. And, it's forecasted to continue like this for all of today, tonight, and into tomorrow. It's all coming in off Lake Huron, like an arrow, pointed straight at us. It's a good thing I've got lots I want to do, and no place I need to go. My poor husband, though, had to go out in it this morning to go to work. I can only begin to imagine the number of calls the hospital got from people not able to get in to work (he and I work at the same hospital). They called this morning wanting to know I could come in this afternoon. I very politely declined. If this snow keeps up, the people working this afternoon won't be able to get home. My Son and Daughter-in-love, who live in Collingwood, have at least twice as much as we do. It a ski place, so that community will be glad of the snow So, I've spent my morning, and early afternoon working on my 100 block challenge
 blocks, pictured here, at the side, along with a picture of all 8 blocks done so far. And now, since there is no place else to go, I'm heading back upstairs to finish off my step 2 triangles, and start my step 3 string pieced foundation squares for the
RRCB mystery sponsored by Bonnie Hunter. It seems like there are a lot of us in blog land working on this mystery. It is going to be a lot of fun to see everyone's finished quilts, once the mystery is done.

Sewing room news

 I spent most of yesterday, as planned, in my sewing room, with just a couple of tea breaks, and checking the computer for new posts breaks. All in all, a productive, yet relaxing day. It was so nice. I managed to start and finish both blocks for the 100 blocks challenge It is so much fun to see how the same pattern can look so different, depending on who made it, and in what fabrics and colours. I'll probably be repeating that thought quite frequently. I also managed to get all of the half square triangles cut, and about 2/3 of the sewn, for the Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery I am liking the purples and blacks, and am looking forward to seeing the next clue, which Bonnie says she will be posting on Friday. Today's plan, after I yank myself away from the computer: clean off the table of my longarm, so I can mount a quilt onto it. I received a quilt from Amalia last week that she would like finished before Christmas, and it's HUGE, made for a king size bed. She wants a fairly easy pantograph, so it won't be hard to do, just a lot of standing, and a lot of time. So, when I'm taking a break from standing, I'll sit, and finish the last of the RRCB triangle units. I need to get back to the borders of the pineapple nine patch, as well. Oh yes, somewhere in there, I need to fit some ho-hum stuff like, making supper, and doing some laundry.

Design Wall Monday Nov 29

There isn't anything too terribly exciting up on my wall today. I gave in, and decided to participate in the Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery , so that's what is currently on my wall. These are the strip sets for step one. I haven't managed, obviously, to get them cut into their 2 inch segment, yet. Maybe this week, depending on what else is going on. I've worked this past weekend, as well as having to go in today, as well. And, for some reason, I just can't seem to get up any energy to do anything else. My body just doesn't want to wake up, which could make this afternoon's shift interesting. My get up and go has definitely gotten up and went.  Oh well, this too shall pass. The second picture here are the fabrics I think I'll be using for step 2 of the mystery. A continuation of the purples used in step 1, and blacks, since I think they will have a good contrast with the purples. Both pictures a rather blurry, for some reason, rather like the way my brain feels, today. Definite brain fog going on here. (sigh) I did get a lot more than this accomplished this past week, but most of it is secret, Christmas stuff.  I'm hoping to keep up with the 100 block challenge blocks, as well, so they are on my to do list for this week. But, for now, it's off to work I go. To see other design walls, go on over to Judy's Patchwork Times