February 2015

February has been a very long month.  Not so much in days but in busyness and in the fact that I have been sick.

At the beginning of the month I started coughing.  No sore throat, no running nose.  I just started coughing.  A week later I did get a sore and runny nose.  This was the weirdest illness. After about 11 days I went to the doctor and was put on antibiotics.  I am not doing much better now.

In spite the fact that I was fighting the crud I did get some sewing done.  The first item was the #1 UFO.  It was a recent start so that was satisfying.  During the great Christmas sewing spree I had completed 2 Hungry Caterpillar quilts.  But I had cut out 3.  I have two grandsons that share a bedroom and my daughter wanted matching quilts.  One of the boys got one for Christmas and this month I got the other top sewn together.  I am afraid it is not a very good picture and it is not quilted yet but another top completed.

And since I seem to be on a Hungry Caterpillar roll I also did a baby gift for a co-worker.  I have to get this on quilted quickly.  His wife is due in Mid March.

It is so hard to take pictures this time of the year.

I think that what ever Hungry Caterpillar fabric I still have is getting donated somewhere.  I have completed a total of 6 quilts using this line.  That is enough.  I know I had always planned to make the youngest boys matching quilts but I had so much extra.  I am calling it quits.

I have been working a couple of other items but nothing else has been completed.  

2015 Goals

I have a large number of things I would like to do in 2015.

The first quilt I actually finished for the year was actually one that was in the stack from my last post.  I just needed to finish stitching down the binding.  It is a Bear Mountain Log Cabin.  The pieces are small and I completed the top years ago, I think six,  but just got it quilted this fall.  I have given this to my best friend.  Along with three quilts for her grand kids.

I have created a list of 12 UFO's for the year and will follow http://www.52quilts.com/ plan.

For the month of January that is #2.  That is an old one.  I do not even remember when the fabric was purchased.  It is a lap quilt made of flannel.  Snowball and 9 patch.  I have the top made and made the back.  It has now gone off to my daughter the quilter.

I am currently attempting to work on cleaning up my sewing space.  Before Christmas I worked feverishly getting 15 quilts completed between October and December.  That did not allow for clean up between projects.  I need to get organized now and clean up the mess.

I spend one of my weekends this month teaching a young woman that I work with how to piece a baby quilt.  We kept it simple.  A panel with a couple of boarders.  My daughter has quilted it for her now she will need to come back and learn how to put the binding on.

Because my daughter does so much of my quilting for me I often put boarders on her quilts and make quilt backs for her.  I did get two backs made for quilts for her this month.

I am now working on a baby quilt for one of my co-workers.  His wife is expecting a little boy in March so I had to get busy if I want to have it done before the baby is born.  Because he and his family are from India I keep rejecting fabric as something that might not translate culturally.

I have a long list of projects that I would like to get completed this year.  Many so close to being done it is sad that they have sat so long.  I am making progress slowly.

Where did 2014 go to?

I can't believe that it is already 2015.

The last few months of the year simple flew by.

I did however get a lot done.  I made and/or finished a stack of quilts.  In the last 3 months of the year.

You thought I was kidding didn't you?  These were all finished in December or November.  Unfortunately, I can't remember on all of them.   Most had the binding completed in December.

6 of the tops were finished by September.  The other 5 I made and finished between November and December.  It has all become a blur.

First let me show the ones that were actually flimsies and were quilted and bound in November.

This top was completed in July on 2013 and finally quilted and bound in November.  Given to my daughter-in-law.

I have no idea when I made this top.

I know I bought the fabric when Daisy Kingdom was going out of business...That was a really long time ago.  I think I made the top about 9 years ago.  It has sat waiting to be quilted that long.  Quilted and bound in Late November or Early December.  This one is going to a friends grandson.

Next up one I pieced last spring as one of my UFO's for the year.  Now quilted and bound.  This is actually going to a friends grand daughter.

I had the center of this next one completed during the summer.  I put a boarder on it in November.  It was quilted and bound in December.

This one was also on my UFO list for 2014.  The pattern is called Lemon bash.  I made a mistake when piecing it and was not going to rip it out so I just went with the error.  I know where it is and others might see it.  But the person who got this quilt will never know the difference.  I did not let the mistake stall me.

I made this next one for a little boy and needed something quick.  This was quick.

This next one I assembled the top in Late September.  It was quilted in early November and bound toward the end of the month.  This is where the insanity started.  It was after making this quilt that I decided to make a quilt for all 9 grand children.

I made two of this next one.  They were made for cousins.  I had this fabric for a few years and needed to get it done before the boys got to old.

I also made two of this pokey puppy quilt.  One for a grand child and one for my best friends grand child.  Another one that I had the fabric for a while and needed to use it up.

The next one was actually a collaboration between my daughter and myself.  It was one of her unfinished UFO's. I discovered on December 21st that our ex-foster granddaughter would be joining us for Christmas and needed another quilt so I finished this one and we got it done on Christmas.

The funny thing about this one is that she was the only one that was excited about getting another quilt. She loved the colors.

This next one was made for my 4 grand daughter.  It was also on the 2014 UFO finish list.  We and I do me we got it sewn together on Monday December 21st.  My daughter actually finished stitching down the applique so that she could get it quilted before she left town to go to her in-laws for Christmas.  I got it back from her on Tuesday to get it bound.  It was finished about 3am on Dec 26th.   Good think I had until the 27th for our Christmas celebration.

This quilt was made for my oldest grandson.  He like bridges.  So I made this quilt using Violet Crafts Waterfront park bridge fabric.  These are Portland Bridges and he has been across all of them on the Portland Bridge Peddle.  He has also visited them when he took a class at OMSI.  This quilt was inspired by one that I saw at the Sandy Quilt Show last June.  I wish I had taken note of the lady who made it so I could give her proper credit.   I have know idea how close mine is like hers because I made it from a memory.  I know that the colors are of course different.  My daughter did the quilting to look like waters.

This last quilt was actually made by my husband but I wanted to include it.  We took a class in November where this was started.  It started out a wall hanging but he made it bigger.  He then added the boarders and backed it with Minky.  He gave it to our son as he was the last of his family to get a minky backed quilt.  With the temps around here last week it was greatly enjoyed.

That is all but one of the quilts that are in the stack.  There is one more in the stack that I do not have a picture of yet.  I did not finish the binding until New years as the person it is going to is currently out of town and I had time.

Of all that I got done all but 3 pieces of fabric came from my stash.  I sure wish I noticed a difference in the amount of fabric I have.  

There are 15 quilts in the above stack.

4 of the above were on my 2014 UFO list.

2 had been tops for a while.

4 had been on my list to do before the kids got too old to like them any more.  

My daughter has made me promise that I will never decide in September/ October time frame that I need to make quilts for all the grand kids again.  If I had just done them for my own I might have been ok.  But then I did 3 for my best friends grand kids. 

This could not have been done without the help of my long arming daughter and the help of my husband who helped me get the quilts bound.  He bound 5 of mine and his own.

Needless to say my grand plans to work on Bonnie Hunters mystery quilt were put on hold as I finished all of these instead.

Did I mention that I work outside the home full time?

April Finish

April has been a tough month for getting stuff done.  I was pretty sick most of the month so I really did not get as much done as I would have liked.

I worked on UFO #1 but it is a huge project so I did not even come close to completing it.

This last weekend I realized that it is almost May and I have a deadline to get my 'guilt' quilt done.  I hate to admit it but several years ago when I was attending the local quilt guild I was given a charity quilt to piece into a top.  I am sorry to say I found it last year buried on a shelf with other UFO's when I was pulling stuff out of my sewing room.  At the time I could not work on it since the reason I was pulling everything out of the sewing room was because wood floors were going down.  I 'found' it again before Christmas, let's just say that 'life happens while you are making other plans'.  I made progress at the time but still did not get all the block sewn together.  I put it on my list of UFO's to finish this year.  This next weekend is the guild's quilt show.  I decided that I needed to get that top together and drop it off at the show.  I have not been able to attend guild meeting in probably seven maybe eight years because my work hours changed.  So this quilt top is long over due...that is why it is my 'guilt' quilt.  Every time I have run across it in the last year I have felt guilty that it has taken me so long to complete.

This was on the list of UFO's for this year but it was not #1....until I switched them.

February turned into March

February was been busy, as a matter of fact it was so busy that I never got this posted.  It is now the end of March.  I have continued working on my UFO's.  One of the big ones is for my Hoop Sister's Feathered Star.   I am attempting to get done is all of my blocks embroidered.  I fell behind getting them done by November.  I have 17 more block to embroider before I lay them you and start the assembly.  I am really not looking forward to that part - which is very likely why I have put off working on this one.  Maybe I will like it when I get it completed.  Right now I am not in love the the quilt or the process.  Oh well, live and learn.

I have been following 52 quilts in 52 weeks UFO challenge for the year and am working on UFO #6 this February.  I did complete the UFO for last month and since #6 is a wall hanging I should be able to complete it.

In late February, my daughter in law called and ask me to make a quilt for her foster daughter before she was returned to her father.  She had been using a quilt that I had made the year before for my daughter-in-law that my grandsons had asked me to make for mothers day.  Although I know that my DIL would have given Sienna the quilt she did not want to hurt the boys feelings.  I made big 8 inch blocks with sashing because it was quick.  She ask for it on a Saturday I completed in Sunday and took it to my daughter to quilt.  It was quilted on Monday and I started attaching binding on Wednesday.  My husband bound it and took it to her on Thursday.  I have a terrible picture of it.  It was to dark and rainy.  Needless to say I did not get UFO #6 done for February.

I worked on laying out a quilt during the Super Bowl and sewed it together this last weekend.  I learned a valuable lesson....never lay a quilt out at my youngest daughter's house.  I have been using the lint roller on every block as I sewed it together to remove dog hair.   However, as the quilt was waiting to get good enough light to take a picture my oldest daughter stopped by and took it to her house.  I still do not have a picture.



I also began doing the little cross stitch blocks the Little Miss Shabby.  They are small and cute. But I am very out of practice and have made numerous mistakes.  And ripped several times.  No pictures yet. Not until I get it right.

I have the blocks all pieced for the zig zag quilt.  When I began laying this quilt out I discovered that I have sewed over half the block incorrectly.  This one looked so easy.  Looks can be deceiving.  It has two blocks and I got pretty good doing the first one then started doing the second but somehow I keep going back to the first block.  This was UFO for the Month of March.

And here is UFO #6

It should have been completed before Christmas now it really does not matter if it takes a while to get this one quilted.

I am now waiting to find out the UFO number for April.

January finishes

I am going to go ahead and post this today because it is doubtful that I will get another on finished by the 31st.  If I do it would be great but I am swamped at work with several huge projects with deadlines fast approaching.  I will be working extra.

My goal for this month was to finish three quilt tops.  Last weekend I was out of town.  I thought I would get to sew on MLK day but I ended up working the holiday.   I did get 2/3's of the way there this weekend.  I finished two quilt tops.  I never did get the third one laid out.  Instead I dug out a different UFO and sewed the strips together now I will need to cut them and make the blocks.  I was sewing, just not on what I planned to work on.  It was sunny on Sunday so I drove the quilt tops over to my daughter house so I could have her hold them up outside.  The pictures are not the best because not only was it sunny it was windy so I was facing into the sun to get the shoot.  Otherwise the wind was wrapping the quilt around my daughter.

I also sewed the back for the Daliha Quilt.  The other one will have minky on the back so I made the front to fit the minky.

I then made the back for one of my daughters quilts.  She has been trying to figure out the piecing for several months now.  I gave her a piece of fabric from my stash that was for the same line.  She had found a good size end of bolt some where a while back that just need a little more fabric sewn on one end to make it long enough for another strip.  But the quilt is big and was going to need a third strip.  She has a bunch of fat quarters so I was going to use those.  Then we found that she had 6 half yard pieces.  I ended up using those instead.  The quilt top was started last May when her husband's aunt invited her to a quilt retreat. She got all the blocks made while she was there and finished it up last May or June.  Now the back is done.  Before she will be able to quilt it she has to finish up a quilt she is doing for a charity raffle and mine.  I am holding on to her back until it is done.

Now just because I really don't have enough to do i have decided to participate in the Quilty Stitches sampler with Little Miss Shabby http://www.littlemissshabby.com/

Plans for the New Year

Well it has been a busy end of the year, although Christmas day was actually pretty quiet.  Just my husband and I.  We actually went out to dinner so I was able to sew all day.

So in December I made gifts for friends at work.  I made two mug rugs using left over fabric from Bear Mountain Log Cabin.  I actually made them fairly large.  I like to be able to hold a bowl or plate on them.....usually in front of the TV.  She said her husband loved the size.

 I had another friend who had requested one or two dozen mug rugs.  I got nine done for her.  They were from left over block from another quilt.  Great way to use up orphan blocks.   These I quilted using my embroidery machine.

For Christmas I also made a pillow case for every grandchild.  I forgot to take a picture on with the last one made for the foster grandchild.  It was a different colorway of the same fabric.

I did finish getting the names on all the stockings.  Here they are hanging up.

I cheated and had my husband bind 4 of my quilts for me in December.  Since they had been sitting around since last spring waiting for me to bind them I decided that having him do them would at least get them into the done pile.  Hey, whatever it takes.  This time of year is so hard to take good looking pictures.

I also bound two quilts from the same pile.  The second one I started way back in 2005 and was my first finish of 2013.  I finished it on January 1st.  I realized I had stopped working on it back when I started it because I had used one of the fabrics for it in something else and never replaced it.  I decided to use what I had and not worry about it.

This year I need to keep better track of what I have completed during the year.  I know I did more than this I had nine quilts that I had to bind and this is only six.  But I can't remember the other ones and did not take pictures of them.
That will be part of my 2014 goals to be better at taking photos and documenting my completed projects.
My goal for 2014 is to use fabric.  I have a bunch to use.  I planned on going through the piles this last weekend and finding all my UFO's so that I would know where I stood but instead I started a new quilt.  I got the blocks all sewn and need to lay it out.  It is one of Camilla Roskelley's quilts.  Piece of Cake 2.  Fun and easy to put together.  You feel like you accomplished a lot by the end of a few hours of sewing.
I changed up another quilt that I started in November and then decided to make bigger.  I cut out more fabric and started sewing that one also.
I then worked on a quilt top that I am making for me that will have minky on the back.  I just need to lay that one out also.  I am making this one because I have quilt envy.  My husband was given a minky backed quilt for Christmas that our oldest daughter made.  I love that quilt.  It is so warm and wonderful to cuddle up under.  Now I need one.  He had to bind it himself because my daughter did not have time.  But he is well trained to do binding.

All that just to avoid finding my UFO's...I made two more and made another project bigger.

So this next weekend.  I plan on looking for UFO's and making a list of projects.

The first ones I will work on in January are the ones listed above.  I also still need to finish some more mug rugs for my friend.
I really want to do the APQ quilt along.  Do I have time?  Or will I just start another UFO?  I am sure I have enough fabric to pull from my stash for it.  If I am able to do that next weekend I may start it.  We will have to see.

I know that I started a quilt for my youngest daughter last year.  That will be on my list for this year.  I will put that one on the list for February.

Also I need to make a baby quilt for a gift.  That will have to be January or February - the baby is due in March.  I have already pulled the fabric.

Another goal for 2014 is to quilt a quilt on my home machine.  Not a full size.  I will start with a baby quilt.

One more goal is to really look at what I have a de-stash.  There are fabrics I have that I will never use. My tastes have changed.

That is what I have planned so far.  When I pull out the UFO's I will list more.