May UFO Challenge - DONE!!!

Sooooooooooooooooooooo thrilled I got the challenge done! I only had to add borders to call it a finished top...but I've noticed a pattern with this UFO Challenge: I did January. I didn't do February. I did March. I didn't do April. I did May. So obviously, June isn't looking good - especially since I'll be in North Carolina for half the month waiting for the arrival of my third granddaughter! Not much quilting going to happen...

Tablerunners

I really have to start THINKING when I start something! Sheesh...

I wanted to make one tablerunner. I've made this pattern before in Christmas fabrics. Honestly, I knew what I was doing. It uses charm squares and I had a pack that I thought would look nice. Funny thing though - I just wasn't paying attention to the background fabric - it was pretty subtle - no biggie - however (always always always there is a "however") there was direction to it so when I did my HSTs the background ended up butting heads when I sewed the blocks together. Lovely.

The only solution I could come up with was to buy more of the background and make the same set of HSTs....and then take half from each tablerunner pile and match the backgrounds. Now I have two of the exact same tablerunner - Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday to someone!

It's like the project was doomed from the start. I finally get the blocks made for TWO runners and get them up on the design wall. Move things around until I'm happy with the placement. I let it all sit nicely on the design wall for a few days to be sure.

Unfortunately, my lovely husband...who seldom vacuums...decides to do just that. Did you know there's an exhaust on your vacuum cleaner? Trust me, there is.

UFO Challenge 2016 - May

OK - here's the deal - I simply wasn't "thinking" when I created my UFO list for 2016. Why? Well, the number for May is "2" - and it's only to sew on the borders to make it a finished quilt top. Sounds simple enough, right? My problem is that this is MAY. May is in the Spring - not exactly prime time to find Christmas fabrics in local quilt shops...and guess what! The May quilt is CHRISTMAS! I've been to my local shops and pretty much no holiday fabrics on the shelves - I will give credit to Spring Water Designs because she took me into the back where they had a few Christmas bolts stored, but none of those work. So I just ordered fabric for the borders online and I'll have to hope it gets here soon enough to give me time to sew them on...once again I'm thinking the UFO Goddess is not on my side.

I started this top in a class 4000 years ago. It's kind of a good thing I didn't finish it - the plan was for it to go on the guest bed over the holidays. We bought a new bed for the guest room in this house and it's a Queen. In the old house it was a Full size bed - so the silver lining is that if I had finished it in the olden days, it wouldn't fit this bed!

New Baby Quilt

Like a lot of quilters, I have tops that I just don't seem to be able to finish in a reasonable amount of time...uh...let's see...YEARS???? But I just finished the top for a baby quilt in less than a week. That includes deciding on the pattern, picking the fabrics, piecing. And I just picked up my lovely HQ16 from her spa treatment at Spring Water Designs today so I'll be loading this bad boy tomorrow...who knew I could actually finish a quilt in a couple of weeks! Why doesn't that happen all the time???????? Someone I know (not well but I have a lot of respect for her) just adopted a lovely little boy...and I feel that a baby quilt is what I need to do, for myself as much as for them.

It was fun - picking the fabric:

cutting and piecing the half square triangles:

Figuring things out on the design wall:

And finishing off the top:

UFO Challenge 2016 - April Update

It's like the UFO Gods are against me...got my April UFO loaded on the HQ16, managed to get one pass done, and VOILA! I've got issues...

First, my thread was breaking. Fine - I look up what to do: adjusted tension, double checked the threading, changed the thread, changed the needle, etc...but it seemed like every time I did something, then something else got a little screwy. Finally the poor HQ16's timing got messed up and now my bobbin thread wasn't getting picked up. At that point I figured if I kept trying to fix each of these problems I'd end up with a completely broken machine! So I very sensibly took my girl into Spring Water Designs for a good cleaning and service.

It looks lonely without her...

So near and yet so far - an "almost" UFO finish...hmmm...I wonder if I could have entered it anyway??? I mean, I had quilted SOME of it! My UFO list only says to quilt it - no mention whatsoever about quilting ALL of it!!!!!

The quilt is from the Phat Cats pattern by Erin Underwood.