A Finish LONG in the Making

Well, I finally did it. I finished one of my oldest UFO's!

I started this quilt more than eight years ago. I took an introductory class on paper piecing and made one of the blocks in this quilt. The colors of the block were inspired by the border fabric.

In the class, we made just one block, but I fell in love with paper piecing and just had to make another eight blocks to make this quilt.

What got me motivated to finish this quilt? My new longarm! This quilt top had been sitting in the closet of my studio for years. When I got the longarm, I wanted to try some quilting on an actual quilt, not just some scrap fabric. This quilt seemed like the perfect one.

For starters, it was my first paper pieced quilt, which I've grown to love the technique. My technique wasn't the best and I can point out MANY flaws, so it felt like a good quilt to practice on. Second, while I will always like this quilt, it's not totally my style any more. I can't remember the last time I put a border on a quilt. The fabrics are more traditional than I like now too.

The only fabric I can identify now is the binding, which I just added this week - a BasicGrey Origins fabric left over from my storm at sea quilt I made recently.

I am VERY happy to have this quilt finally f

My UFO Collection

Have you ever stopped to check out your UFO collection?  Yeah, I did that recently and realized I have quite a few.  Here are some of them and what I plan to do with them (schedule, if I have one, etc.)

This quilt was one of the first ones that I featured on this blog.  I still need to have this quilt quilted.  I might send this one out.  Basically, I'm not sure yet when I plan to have this finished.

Yet another quilt top that needs to be quilted.  I started to piece the back to get this quilted, but again, I'm not sure when I'm going to finish this one. 

This quilt also needs quilting.  I don't even know how I want to quilt it, so it will likely stay unfinished for a while.

This quilt is partially quilted.  I had issues with the tension with my old sewing machine, but I've yet to take it back out now that I have had my Bernina for the past year. 

 

These two are blocks from the McCall's Mystery quilt.  I hated how the quilt ended up, so I stopped making the blocks and put this one aside.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it now.  I'll have to find something else to do.

I still need to quilt this quilt as well.  I really love this quilt.  I've been waiting for my machine quilting stills to improve before I dig into this one. 

 

I made all of these hexagons from a 2.5" charm pack that I won but I haven't finished piecing them together.  Who knows when I'll get back to this.

I just have to get the binding on this quilt.  I plan to give this as a wedding present this year, so this will be finished by the end of the year.

I still need to quilt this quilt as well.  I'm thinking of doing something simple because there are so many small pieces, so hopefully this is one that will be completed this year.

I'm actually in the middle of quilting this top, so I should have this quilt finished once I get my sewing room back in shape. 

I still haven't received all of the BOMs for this quilt, so it is still in progress.  I would love to have it completed by next Christmas, but I don't know if that will actually happen.

These are the blocks I got back from the NEMQG bee.  I now need to figure out what to do with them all.  Hmm...

I made this block when I was learning to hand applique.  I now need to figure out how I want to finish it.  Hmm...

I need to figure out what I want to do next with this block.  Do I want to add a border, just quilt it.  I don't know.  I'm leaning towards a small border, but we'll see. 

My goal is to have the Fiesta! quilt top completed by mid-June so that I can send it off to the quilter then.  I just added myself to her schedule for August/September, so I should have some time. 

I have three more blocks that have been released for this BOM to catch up on and make all of the setting blocks.  I don't think I'll have this top finished by the end of the year, but we'll see.

This is a block I made that Carol Doak released to celebrate 4500 members in her Yahoon group.  It's now over 7000 members and I've yet to do anything with it.  I am so stumped with this one.  I don't know if I will ever finish it. 

Phew, that's a lot.  ::Sigh::

Lots of UFOs/Projects

As you know, we're in the middle of moving into our new house. Our official move date is the 20th, but we're slowly moving things over to our new house everytime we go over to clean. We're painting this weekend and installing a water heater so that we can just unpack and enjoy the new house once we get there.

Because I haven't been able to quilt much with all of my stuff packed up and split between the two places, I've really had the itch to quilt. I decided to put together a list of all of my UFOs and planned quilts. Here it is:

Planned Quilts:

• Blooming 9-Patch Wedding Quilt for my cousin and his to-be-wife (they're getting married next May, so I want to start working on this now for when they have their shower.)
• Fire & Ice Quilt for my class at the Lowell Quilt Festival with Carol Doak
• Swanky Irish Chain Quilt - I got this honey bun on clearance and want to make the Irish Chain quilt pictured on the Moda Bake Shop blog

UFOs:

• One Block Wonder (Bright Floral) - needs quilting and binding
• One Block Wonder (Feathers) - needs to be layed out, finished being pieced, quilted, and bound
• Blue Flower Scrap Quilt - is alreayd layered and pinned for quilting then binding
• Paper Pieced Poppy Quilt - needs quilting and binding
• Carol Doak BOM - need to do the April, May, and June BOM to catch back up
• Bento Box - needs to be quilting and bound
• First Machine Quilted Top - needs quilting and binding
• Autum Quilt - Needs quilting and binding
• Bold Block Quilt - needs quilting and binding
• My first quilt - needs finishing somehow...
• Pink/Purple Jelly Roll Braid Quilt - needs quilting and binding
• 4500 celebration block - need to figure out what to add to finish the top, quilt, bind
• Happy Hour Quilt - binding
• My wedding quilt - piece together all the autograph blocks, quilt, bind
• McCalls Mystery Quilt - finish the second block from the first step and do the next one
• Charm Pack Quilt - finish designing and piecing, quilt, bind

I guess I never realized how many quilt tops I had that needed to be quilted and bound. I guess I'm going to be busy once I get everything set up! Yay! I can't wait to have some finishes.