What I’m Working On…

I have been on a HUGE roll at getting things done.  I ended up finishing the longarming on this.  The binding got cut and put together.

From there I bound the quilt.  I have the pictures of this taken and hope to get a blog post about it together for Saturday publication.

Do you remember the little meeting I had with myself last week about my UFO projects?  If you missed it, you can read about it HERE.

Well, that was just the chat that I needed because I ended up pulling out one of the projects and I worked on it…

and did some math…

and worked on it some more…

and worked on it even more.

I put a couple of sewing sessions into it.

Look what I have to show for my hard work…
Not one…

But two small quilt tops.  I originally thought to make one but then decided that I’d make two small ones and then have them here for charity donation or for baby gifts.  I’ll tell you more about them once I have them both quilted and finished.

I’m just thrilled to have this UFO kicked to the curb.  Of course, I do have to do the machine quilting yet but that’s do-able.

The project is all cleaned up.  All I had left were these…

After that, these went right to the quilting machine.  A simple stipple to finish these up.

At the same time, I loaded enough backing fabric so I could run both quilts through the machine at the same time without having to unload and then load the second quilt.  I took time to piece some batting scraps together.

These are both trimmed and bound.   All I have to do is take pictures and write a blog post about the finished quilts.  YAHOO!!

How is that for pounding out a UFO??  I was so happy with myself.

After that, I pulled out my Virginia Bound quilt.  That is another one that is on my UFO list.  This one has been a UFO for a long time.  I told you that I have been contemplating doing some applique around the outside.

I saw someone else do a green outer border and then they did the applique on that.  I have little to no experience with applique.  I pulled this dark blue and have been contemplating using it…but then I had a bunch of questions…

Is it too dark?
Will the applique show up on it?
Do I want a narrow border first?
Do I do the applique and then attach the border or do I put the borders on first??

AHH.  I wish I had more confidence with this.

I did buy these…Lori Holt’s Simple Shapes the Granny’s Garden edition.  I thought getting these might help give me the nudge to figure out a design for the actual applique.

>>>STOP THE PRESSES>>>>>>
The plan for this has changed.  It has completely changed.  There is a whole story that goes with the change but I am going to save that story for its own post coming soon.  I think you’ll all agree that Kalissa and I came up with a PERFECT plan for this quilt.

I won’t be doing applique and that’s totally okay.  The new plan is perfect and I’ll save the applique for another project someday.

While I was ruminating on the Virginia Bound quilt and waiting for a plan, I pulled yet another UFO…LOOK AT ME GO!!

I pulled the one on the right.

This started out as a few blocks.  I had about 60 blocks done.  They are string/crumb blocks.  What makes this top a little different is that each block has a little red square set on point in the center.

Sometimes I put off projects like this because they are so messy…but I love them.

I sat down and made twenty-some more blocks.

I’m constructing this a little bit differently than most quilts tops.  Typically we want like fabrics away from each other so we don’t put the blocks together until the very end.  I’m doing this in a way that I want like fabric together.  It’s an experiment and I’m giving it a try.

I got the 60 blocks sewn together…then I made more blocks.

I’ll explain it all a little better in an upcoming blog post. By Thursday evening, this is what I have together.  At this point, it was about 1/4 done.  This would be about one quadrant’s worth of work.

When I’m working on a project like this I often don’t use black.  This time around, I decided to throw it in.

I am loving this project and am so happy to be back at it.

The project is my new morning project.  I sew on it in the morning until Gannon comes and then while he’s here I iron and trim the pieces so they are ready for the next morning sewing session.

Later in the week, I had two days with no Gannon so I went to town on sewing this.

By the time Friday had rolled arounf I had made even more progress…by Saturday even more.  I ended up this far along…

I am working on a plan for this.  I think I’ll be adding another row or two.  Then a narrow inner border of red…then an outer border of crumb blocks with no red in the center.  We’ll see.  It’s still early in the planning.

All I know is that I’m SUPER excited with my progress and I’m loving the jumbled goofiness of the whole quilt.

My UFO push didn’t end there.  I made a backing for this quilt top and it’s all loaded on the frame and ready to quilt.  That is this week’s job.

I’m feeling SO much better about my UFOs…and I only worked on them for a week.  I can’t imagine how I’ll feel after a month.  I hope I can keep this momentum.

That’s what I worked on last week.  This week I plan to get this quilt machine quilted and hopefully get my crumb quilt top finished.  That would be awesome if I could accomplish that!!  Fingers crossed!!