2017 - The Year of the UFO Projects

What a successful year I have had with completing my 12 UFOs! It is hard to explain the mixed feelings I have had during the past year as I have worked on this challenge.  Ever-so-many months or years ago, each of these projects was begun with eager anticipation. They took a back seat at some point to more pressing efforts, some waiting in a holding pattern lots longer than others.

As I worked through this past year on the UFO assigned to each month, I wasn't always a happy camper, as the efforts became WORK. I wanted to move on to new stuff and fun things. However, I had such good success in those early months, I really wanted to keep myself on pace to finish them all. That's when the drudgery factor began setting in - about halfway through the year. I suppose it was that June UFO that got me - it was such a bugger to figure out. I may have taken awhile to finish it, but I did it eventually.

Now that they are all done (full disclosure: I am doing borders on December's UFO today) I am so very pleased with my accomplishment. This is worthy of a celebration!

I thought I'd use today's post to bring together all 12 UFOs to show off  the fantastic finishes I've managed. I feel like this challenge has been a very long, yet very satisfying endeavor.

January - 19th C. Reds 

February - Lorraine

March - Small Kaffe Tumblers

April - 9-Patch Strippy

May - Navy Monkey Wrench

June- Flag Day Farm Medallion - the only one not finished in its assigned month.

July - Wishes QAL from 2014

August - Hexie Table Topper - smallest UFO of the year

September - abbreviated Farmer's Wife Sampler 

October - Tell It to the Stars QAL from 2014

November - Dusty Trails

December - Large Kaffe Tumblers

I will work today to get the borders on this last one, and will replace the picture when I have a finish. All of these are quilt tops (except that table topper from August). Do I dare dream to quilt a few of these on that long arm machine I have set up and waiting??? I would love to, and you know you will hear all about it if that comes to fruition.

Now, as I look ahead to 2018, I do not even want to think about finishing a UFO. I do still have a few. (Or more than a few, if we are honest with ourselves, right quilters?) I may decide that doing one every 3 or 4 months will satisfy me. I don't want to repeat the pressure I put on myself to do one a month, that's for sure! I will just wait and see how I feel in a few months.

I hope you have enjoyed following along with my '17 UFO Challenge. It's been fun looking back at the quilts. Three are hand-pieced (April, May, August); one is entirely my own one-of-a-kind design (June); over half are scrappy, as opposed to color- or theme-oriented. I think these 12 quilts adequately represent my wide-ranging preferences.

I just discovered that a blogger had a 17-for-17 UFO project going on for this year; while I did not participate in it, I may try linking up with it; click the link to see what others have finished this year. I am also linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Progressing On December UFO

While I have made it quite clear that I long ago lost my excitement over finishing UFOs, I am working pretty hard to get this last one for 2017 finished to the flimsy stage.

When Sharon P. was here on Tuesday, I made some significant progress on the large tumbler UFO from several years ago. When I bought the tumbler acrylic template, I cut tumblers in 2 sizes - 3" and 5".  I came to refer to the little quilts as small tumbler and large tumbler. I made them mostly to see how easy the template was to work with rather than because of a deep desire for a tumbler quilt.

This UFO from earlier this year - the small tumbler was finished early on in this challenge. I love how the small tumbler quilt turned out especially because of the wonderful floral border.

At last I am finishing the large tumbler UFO. I have had to cut more tumblers to increase the variety of fchoices, and I am cleaning up some of my jumbled tubs of Kaffe Fassett fabrics. This flimsy is going together easily.

When a seamstress sits at her sewing machine and looks down at this massive splash of intense color, she can't help but be happy to be working on such stuff, even if it is an ancient UFO. These bright fabrics make even the gloomiest wintry day seem cheery.

By later Tuesday, I had constructed about half of the rows I think I will make. My plan is to be near a finish on this center section by midday tomorrow. Then I will ponder border options for a day or two. I could conceivably have this UFO checked off the list by Christmas! Woo-hoo!

Today, we Frankfort girls are having our Christmas meeting! We normally meet on Fridays, but this week we are meeting on Thursday as one of our mgroup is scheduled to have surgery on Friday. We all have free enough schedules to allow us to make this change to our routine.

I will bring pictures of all the fun at Sharon O's house. Yes, that Sharon of "let's give Jayne a long-arm machine" fame. (What a sweet one she is.) Sharon's DH is fixing breakfast - yum-o! We will exchange gifts and also the blocks for our block exchange project that we began in late spring.

In amongst all the fun of parties and UFO finishes, I am finalizing semester grades for my two OU-C classes. Seems like there's never a dull moment around her, you know?!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hello December

The magical month of December has arrived! Are you ready for all the excitement? I can feel the Christmas Spirit growing bit by bit!

I have been working on cutting out large tumblers for my December UFO. Yes, this month is my final UFO at last, and I must say I am not sad about the end. The last few months of working on UFOs has been a bit of a drag. I am thrilled on the one hand, to be so close to finishing all twelve, but on the other hand, I sure would like to have been making new, fun and exciting stuff instead!

Can't have our cake and eat it, too, now can we?? I will be happy about checking off my UFOs and will not dwell on that other stuff I missed out on.

Back to the December UFO. It is the large tumbler quilt I started maybe 4-5 years ago. The copyright date of the tumbler template is 2012, so my UFO is no older than 5 years.

The portion you see above is all I did immediately after buying the ruler. I cut random Westminster Fiber fabrics - mostly Kaffe Fassett - and stitched. This start measures 20" wide x 31" long. Meager beginning, wouldn't you say? Alongside this start are some remaining yellow tumblers cut and ready; these are from the beginning and will get added into the new ones I am cutting now.

Cutting is in earnest, and I have quite a stack. I will be finishing this quilt in a way I have never done before. It will be determined by the size of the backing I intend to use. I have three yards of "Frilly" by Rowan Westminster (very old stash piece). As big as that back will be determines the size of the quilt. Have you ever done it so backward? I certainly never have. We'll see how it turns out - I may have way too many tumblers cut. Maybe.

I have done some calculations. (That's a scary sentence for anyone who knows my lack of math skills.) Anyway, the goal for a finish will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 54"x75". I think this will leave me with ample backing fabric to use as the binding.

Here is the resulting stack of tumblers from a wide variety of fabrics in the KF stash. I love this bright, vibrant fabric. It will be fun working on this as we head into potentially gray days of winter.

I hope your December is a magical one; and a productive one, too!

I am linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts and her weekly Finish It Up Friday party.
Happy Quilting, Friends!

November's UFO

Just two UFOs remain in this year's UFO challenge. I have all the big ones - aka complex ones - checked off the list and just have two super easy ones left to do. Yay!

The Dusty Trails - my name - is a made-up-out-of-my-head project using some reproduction fabrics that I bought perhaps 20 years ago. I kid you not. I saw a pretty display quilt in a store in Portsmouth, OH, and bought fat quarters of the fabrics. Having no pattern, I came up with 3" HSTs and sewed them together in random fashion to make the traditional Broken Dishes block.

What I made so very many years ago is what you see above. It measures 18.5" square, and consists of 9 Broken Dishes blocks. I am not very satisfied with how well my intersections look, so while I watch the Buckeyes this afternoon, I am going to "unsew" this part. This will also allow me to distribute colors better after all the rest of the blocks are made.

 I have spent a good portion of the last day or so cutting out all the fabric I'd pulled for this. I found lots in my stash that will work with this projects, and since it's a creation of my own, it will be whatever size all of this ends up making - probably a nice throw, I imagine.

Some of you more seasoned quilters out there may recognize some of these old fabrics. I am sure the newest piece in this bunch is past 10 years by now. Old, or very, very old, I still like 'em, so I'm gonna' use 'em.

I look forward to getting this UFO checked off my list. And since the very last UFO for the year is also an easy one, I am very seriously considering attempting to do it this month, too. Then my December will be free for NEW projects! I am very much interested in new stuff, as this year's focus on UFOs has gotten really tiresome lately.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

October UFO

My task this month in the UFO challenge is to finish Tell It To The Stars, a quilt-along project I began in 2014. Judy at Patchwork Times hosted the year-long event, and I did okay until about October of that year when I just fizzled out. After sitting in storage for three years (the quilt top, not me!), I am ready to finish it off. Click here to read my original post about this quilt.

The photo above shows how far along I am - and I truly had forgotten how much of it was done. What a pleasant surprise. I've just this morning pulled it out of the closet. This should be an easy UFO to complete.

I vaguely recall what forced me to halt my work on this quilt. After piecing that spiky green border (which was very detailed, as I recall) I thought all that was left was to do a solid outer border or perhaps a small containment border and then a larger outer border. I was wrong. I had to do one more pieced border. Having just finished what I thought was the last of the piecing, I wasn't in the mood for more apparently, so I quit.

Doesn't take much to turn me off a project, does it? Below is the pieced border that forced my shutdown.

Thankfully I had the good sense to print out a copy of the remaining steps. I have spent some time studying the instructions and I do believe I can finish without too much effort. I look forward to being able to claim another small victory in the UFO challenge. Getting this to the flimsy stage will make me quite the happy gal. Wish me luck!

Just to keep things interesting, I am joining the One Monthly Goal challenge at Elm Street Quilts blog. I did one earlier this year, and figure I am sufficiently ready to try again. It's fun to see what other quilters will be finishing this month. And, I have also snuck in to the party at Silly Mama Quilts.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Two UFOs Finished

Please join me in celebrating the completion of not just one UFO, but (drumroll, please) TWO!!

Not only did I finish the September UFO - Farmer's Wife Quilt, I finally finished June's UFO - Flag Day Farm. Wow. For me this is huge. They've been weighing on me not just this month, but for years. I suppose I bought that center panel of Flag Day Farm a full 10 years ago, if not more. And I began making Farmer's Wife blocks when that book was published in 2009.

Whew. Let's have a look. Both quilts are square, which I normally do not prefer, but that's what worked, so there ya' go. Deal with it, right?

The June UFO was Flag Day Farm, and I just barely made a dent in the process of creating this medallion quilt. Everything is made up from my own head here, and I couldn't duplicate it if I tried. The panel is approximately 21" square and I knew I wanted it to be on point. Since the panel is from an old line of fabric by Minick and Simpson, I decided that I would only use newer Minick and Simpson fabrics to construct the quilt. I had most of this on hand, however I did buy the floral for the outer border on sale at a flat fold table at Old Town Fabrics. The quilt measures 72" square, and I am giving serious consideration to quilting this by hand for Greenfield's upcoming History Day. I will do big-stitch quilting, and, in keeping with Minick and Simpson style, I will imitate the 'Baptist Fan' quilt design that Lori Simpson prefers using on her quilts. 

Farmer's Wife Quilt is September's UFO, and I have finished it just in time. It measures 66" square, and while it is far from a perfectly constructed quilt, I think I will be quite pleased with it when it is eventually quilted. The backing has already been selected from the stash, so it could be only a matter of time. Previous posts here on the blog explain why my FWQ is so much smaller than most, so a search will give you addition information if you want.

I am linking up with Amanda for her Finish It Up Friday party. If you think all quilters sew only quilts, you will be surprised to see Amanda's pretty dresses in her post today.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

September UFO

Even though I still have a few minor tasks to complete, for all intents and purposes I am considering this Farmer's Wife Quilt UFO a finish - another in the month it was assigned. Whew! Down to the wire on this. I dreaded facing it because I think I knew deep down that the blocks were not all uniform 6.5", and that some would have to be eased into place to fit. I trimmed things I normally would not trim in order to get this checked off my list. I am continually reminded by other quilters that done is better than perfect.

This quilt will be a poster child for that sentiment!

Since it has been years of start-and-stop work on this quilt (first post here), there are plenty of references to it in past posts. I won't recap all of that here. In a nutshell, a complete FWQ calls for somewhere in the neighborhood of over 100 blocks. I made 53, decided that was enough, and chose 50 of them to use here. (The 3 orphans that will find a use elsewhere.)

Because I could not just pick them up and sew them together randomly, I had to lay them out on the bed to arrange the blocks in a way that pleased me. I didn't fuss too much, but I did try to separate colors evenly around the quilt.

I had already decided that the sashing strips would be this brown in the photo above. I sewed all the sides onto the blocks and made rows. See what I mean about done is better than perfect? I have completely obliterated so many points on these blocks.

Then I had to go to the stash to find cornerstone and setting triangle fabric. I sorta' had a notion that red would be nice, so I dug out the big stash tub of reds. I found the Floral Trails from 1999 which seemed suitable, so I went with it. Then as I straightened around the remaining reds, I found this big hunk of Garden Dance and decided it could be called into service as a back. Voila! FWQ is 100% stash. Yeah!

At that point it was a very methodical afternoon of sewing rows and sashings together. When I had the first half done, I took the photo above, and then proceeded to finish the other half. By late last night, I had a finish except for trimming and corner triangles.

Because I need to do a lot of school work today, I won't get back to this until late tonight or tomorrow. I am debating the need for an outer border. That is yet to be determined. I will decide while trimming and attaching the corners.

I am going to link up with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts and her Let's Bee Social party. She is featuring a new pattern - a cute panda bear baby quilt. It's darling.

The month ends on Saturday. I sure have been a lazy blogger this month. Maybe I will be more enthused in October. I did get a lot accomplished in September, so maybe that is a worthy trade-off.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

August UFO

Here we are in the 8th month of our 12-month UFO challenge, and this month's task will be a pleasure to finish. After a few months of really big-deal UFOs, this one is gonna seem like a cakewalk. Yay!

Last summer, just on a whim and with no particular goal in mind, I began stitching large hexagons. I must have needed some hand-stitching to take to Friday morning sessions with the Frankfort Girls. Well, I finished this little table topper and then just stopped. I knew it would perfectly accessorize the screened porch table; instead it has hung out in the quilting room. I had the good sense to put it on the 2017 UFO list, and now it will finally be done. Above, you can see that I trimmed the edges. What I'm left with is a long, hexagon-shaped table topper.

I prepped the backing and the batting last night (used scraps, so I had to piece them!). The layers have been spray-basted, and the materials for big-stitch quilting have been gathered. I am ready for some Slow Sunday Stitching!

This work should go quickly; with all the baseball we've been watching lately, I need a project like this in my hands; otherwise, I idly play iPad games, which results in nothing worthwhile.

I will link up with Kathy and her Sunday Stitching link party; come on over an take a peek! I've just visited and discovered that my name was drawn in a give-away she had last week. How sweet is that!?!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Can I Do It?

What do I want to do?? Finish the July UFO, of course. Early each month I am full of optimism that I will be checking a UFO of my list and I have been successful in accomplishing that 5 of 6 months so far this year. I had planned to show more of July's UFO a couple of days ago, but a slow internet was thwarting my efforts. Today, things are running more smoothly, so let's have a quick look. This was a quilt-along I worked on in 2014 called Wishes; it was sponsored by the folks at Fat Quarter Shop. The fabric is a line from Fig Tree and Co. called A Day In the Country; I had a collection of fat quarters from this line.

January Block

February Block

March Block

April Block

May Block

June Block

July Block

August Block

September Block

October Block

Remaining to be done: November and December's blocks; the checkerboard border; then putting all the parts together into a flimsy! Easy-peasy, right? My optimistic nature tells me I can do it!

Happy Quilting, Friends!