May UFO Finished! OMG!

Snoopy is doing his happy dance today, dear readers. Yes, he and I both are happy about finishing the May UFO.

While we're at it, let's have Calvin and Hobbes join us.

And here is what makes us all so happy - the Navy Monkey Wrench now has its borders! 

This is one of those quilts that has an unnecessarily long history. I seem to have many more of those than anyone ought. Start a quilt; finish a quilt - that's the way I should operate. In reality, I operate more typically like this:

The pieces for the monkey wrench blocks were cut out and taken in baggies to stitch while attending various cross country and track meets through our son's jr. high and high school running days - this would be in the  mid-1990s to 2001, when he graduated. Then, the blocks were stored away in a tub. Periodically, I would pull out the tub and take a picture of the contents, write a blog about it, and then return the tub to the closet. Here is a post from 2012. And here is one from March 2015, and again in April 2015. The UFO was listed for completion in 2015, yet obviously that did not happen - but I did work on it. And even though I said I was motivated to put on the borders, something else apparently snatched my attention, because I still had just borders left to do when I once again put it on a second UFO list - 2017. It came up as the quilt for May, and if you check out this post, you will see not only this quilt sans borders, but you will also see all my previous UFO finishes for this calendar year. 

I am definitely on a roll.

I love how striking my Monkey Wrench looks. I've kept it pinned up to the design wall, so I see it each time I look down the hall toward the sewing room. Even DH mentioned how nice it looks. *cheesy smile*

As I stitched borders yesterday, I had a chance to study my hand-piecing on some of the blocks. It made me reflect on just how much I do enjoy hand-piecing. I have not done too much of it lately, and I need to rectify that. I will soon be stitching my hexies, so that may suffice. However, I ought to get back to some of those 4-patches, or 9-patches, or 16-patches. 

Are you a "start-a-quilt-finish-a-quilt" type person? Or do you take the meandering multi-year path toward a finish? 

I hope your are getting some items checked off your list today! I'm linking up with the Monday Making party over at Love Laugh Quilt.

Added later: I am also linking up to Elm Street Quilts and the One Monthly Goal finish. It's such a great way to see who is getting stuff done, and to enjoy all the variety of our various projects.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

May UFO

Do allow me to brag for just a moment, won't you? In January, I entered our UFO Challenge for the 2017 calendar year. This means that we in the challenge (our Frankfort group, mostly) list 12 UFOs to be finished. Then each month a number is drawn randomly and the UFO associated with that number on your list is what you are supposed to finish.

Now to the bragging: my record thus far in 2017 is 100%! I have somehow managed to finish the UFOs for January, February, March and April. For a seasoned, well-trained procrastinator like myself, this is unheard of! It boggles the mind!

January - Mid-Century Reds

February - Lorraine

March - Small Tumblers

April - 9-Patch Strippy

Sure makes me happy to see all these projects finished to the flimsy stage. I will concern myself with getting them quilted later.

It is time to see what I will be focusing my attention on in May for this UFO Challenge. The number drawn was 5, so I will finish Navy Monkey Wrench.

I cannot say with any precision a date when I began this quilt. I do believe I cut out the Monkey Wrench blocks to take with me to DS's track meets, and I think it was when he was in high school rather than college (we didn't get to as many of his college meets). This loose time frame would be between 1997-2001. So we are looking at possibly 20 years ago.

I did hand piece all the blocks all those years ago, but only in the last year or two did I get around to machine stitching them with the setting squares. I have used a variety of blues and a variety of neutrals for a very scrappy 2-color quilt. The side and corner triangles are one consistent blue. The part you see above measures 50x59 inches. I stopped because I couldn't come up with a border that suited me. In the short time I've had it out of the closet this morning, I have decided that I will use a narrow neutral border and a wide navy border. That's all. So simple. It should be a breeze to finish. And of course, it will all be from the stash - no new fabrics will be used in the completion of this project. *grin*

Here's a few individual blocks; it may be easy to recognize some of the fabrics from back in the late 1990s.

With any luck at all, I should be able to brag about being 5-for-5 in rather short order. Yay! I've linked to Connie's Linky Tuesday blog; it's fun to see what other quilters are working on. I'm also going to consider this my OMG - One Monthly Goal - so I've linked with Elm Street Quilts for May's OMG party.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

April UFO

The UFO Challenge has certainly been a good idea for me. There's no way I would have had some of the recent finishes I've shared here if it weren't for the prodding I get because of our challenge.

On Friday, we drew the number for April's project. Number 5. On my list, number 5 is "blue and beige monkey wrench."

Let's dig it out and investigate the situation.

Well! This is certainly a ravelly mess! I have 27 hand-pieced blocks stacked here. How old you ask? Well, they were made when my son was in high school and college, because I made them when I traveled to track and cross country meets. He graduated from high school in 2001 and graduated from college in 2005. It is entirely possible that I made some of these when he was a high school freshman, so that takes us back to 1997. Whoa. We are approaching 18 years?!? Well, yes, I guess that is possible.

They've been stored in this tub/tote. Safe and secure. Spool of thread and several needles, too. Wait till you see all the rest.

I've got yardage; it looks as though I've stuffed every random navy and beige fabric in the pile.

I've got cut out pieces. Triangles and squares. Ready to go!

I've got a partially sewn block, the final seam pinned and ready for stitching. What a mess! It was crammed down in there like I'd put stuff away in a big hurry.

This is the block opened up - first order of business will be to press this little guy!

And last, we have the stack of finished blocks. I certainly had no idea that I'd finished 27 of these blocks. Perhaps the track and XC meets just stopped, so I did, too. I honestly do not remember.

My goal for April is to get these blocks made into a quilt top. I have some ideas incubating, and I will be sure to keep you all in the loop with my decisions.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Blue Monkey Wrench UFO

Here's yet another hand-pieced UFO, found languishing in a plastic bin in my sewing room. I have 28 of these blocks.

In examining these blocks, I see that I have gone quite scrappy with the neutrals. While I consistently make each wrench out of the same blue, I have used many different backgrounds in each block. Hmmm, I wonder if I had a method to the madness?? I guess I'll never know. It's been long forgotten. .

Here's the plastic bin with all the pieces, fabrics, and partially sewn blocks.

Just another UFO calling my name. I have been really good at ignoring the UFOs for so long. I wonder why I have begun to listen to them now??

Happy Quilting, Friends!