2013 - The Year of The UFO!

Well, for me anyway, this is the year of the UFO.  UFO being unfinished object.  Yes, I will be starting some new projects.  I also plan to spend some serious time digging through my vast backlog of already started projects and hopefully finishing many of them in the process.

Yes, I am making progress!  Tuesday night was the first night of a new six week class at Millstream.  I handed five, yes - 5, quilts over to Ginger Ouwenga for quilting.  She had a long arm quilting business, and does a phenominal job of quilting!  Four are baby quilts, and the other is a twin size quilt that will be used for the 2013 Chili Festival and Washington Elementary School in Lindsey, OH. 

The oldest quilt top was finished about four years ago.  Progress, at least for this week.

New quilt started.

I started a new red and white quilt that I will donate to the International Milling Education Foundation for a silent auction. The auction is in Niagara Falls, Canada this year so I decided to do the maple leaf pattern. I plan to alternate it with an Irish chain. Here are the first two blocks.


This is going to be a lap quilt. I'm not sure if I will quilt it or hire that out. I'm excited to start this and it is a fairly easy quilt.

Happy quilting!

Baby quilt done

I finished the baby quilt. I will send it off Monday. It's for a friend's first baby. He is so thrilled to be a parent. Got to love it.
Here is the label. I believe all quilts should be label to tell future generations about the quilt. So much history is lost when a quilt artist doesn't acknowledge their work.

Don't forget to label!

Starting 2013 off right!

June's got me beat, but I do like her resolution to blog more regularly this year.  Along with catching up on my backlog of UFOs, PIGs and the like!

2013 has started of better since I have 3 baby quilts ready to be quilted.  I finished two of them late last year - Cousins of the Blue Frog 2 for my newest great niece and a colorful dinosaur quilt.  The third, a turtle quilt, is for a co-workers newest addition who arrived last week.

I've also started purses, inspired by "Muffintops" fabric given to me by a friend.  I fussy cut 10 samll panels to use in five purses.  I'm planning to keep one and use the others as gifts.  I just hope that the recipients don't read anything into them other than I had fun with fabrics.  Thanks to my good friend Nancy for providing the jumping off point!

Oh, and placemats!  I wanted to make some as a Christmas present ... no, they're still not made but everyone loves the modification to a free download that I found.  Yes, the making of a quilt is in there too.  Oh boy, do I love to find more stuff to add to my Someday list.

I missed the first meeting of 2013 for Stitches in Time, a local quilt guild.  The membership is very reasonable, and it will give me a chance to not only learn more about quilting, but to also meet new quilters and spend more quality time with my fabrics.  Maybe even use more of it, too!

Julie

Baby Quilt almost done

I've made good progress.  I have the baby quilt together and quilted.  It just needs the binding.  I learned a lesson about creating blocks tilted.  I saw a Nancy's notion show and she measured the block and created a side template that was 3:1.  For my quilt I cut the template 12 1/2" x 4".  Then I cut diagonally down from the upper left corner to the lower right corner. 

Well after I finished my tilted blocks I saw a Fons and Porter show where they just attached a border the width of the widest point of the angle then cut the square to make it tilt.  Here is a picture of the block.  See the triangle shapes on the side.  They were cut with a template.  The next time I will just sew a border that is approximate 4 1/2 to 5" wide all the way around.  Then create a 12 1/2" square and lay it on the block with the friendship star in the center titled and cut around it.  When I do it I'll post pictures of how it is done.  I think it will be much easier.

 

The quilt is made using 6 blocks and then sashed using 1 1/2" blocks of all the fabric.  Once I'm done I'll show you what I did to the back.  I've really gotten into pieced backs.  I like the idea of getting two quilts.  one on the front and one on the back.  It allows me to create two quilts where before I'd only get one and put a plain back on.  I'm pretty conversative on the backing just yet, but I'll like to get more patterns on the back.  I'm thinking a lasagna quilt or any big block quilt would work.



 

till next time!  Quilt away!