UFO Challenge FINISH (!) for March!

Welcome to the last day of March. I simply can't believe it took me the entire month to finish this UFO - all I had to do was put on the BORDERS!!!! How hard is that!? And now that it's done I'm not quite sure what I'm going to end up doing with it...

Faithful Circle Quilters - Quilt Show

I registered 4 quilts for my guild's quilt show in April - pretty good for me!

Honestly, I had to go looking for quilts to enter - I'm not very good at finishing things! Here they are:

Barnsley - Bonnie Hunter's Jamestown Landing pattern. I took a class with her at Quilt Odyssey in Hershey PA in 2013 and finished it in 2015 so I could use it on my guest bed in the new house:

Barnsley Autumn - When we were de-cluttering our house to list so we could move here, I had to completely dismantle my studio and make it look like a "normal" bedroom again. Essentially I put every.single.thing. into storage but I did keep my Jem Platinum so I could at least do a little bit of sewing if I got desperate. Well...my DH actually gave me kit for Christmas that year so that I could do a little quilting...and this is it:

Back in 2012 I took a class with Gyleen Fitzgerald using her pineapple block ruler. Easy Peasy. And I used up a bazillion scraps doing it - only I think scraps get busy in those bins because the pile did not decrease at.all. I quilted it last week just so I could enter it into the show - AND it is on my UFO list for 2016, so now when that number comes up at Spring Water Designs - I'm already DONE!

And finally just a little wall hanging I made at a guild retreat back in 2012. It was a Connecting Threads kit.

Quilt Gift for Friend of a Friend (?)

Here is what I've been working on…it is SO not me - not the pattern, not the fabric. I do like how it came together and it is REALLY simple and classic, but....

A friend asked me to make something for her to give as a gift - picked the pattern and the colors. I "always" say no to making quilts for other people. I got caught in a weak moment I guess plus she's a good friend. Once I got started, it just felt like work - I was aware she was waiting for it (in fairness she NEVER asked me about progress - "deadline" was completely in my own head!); but something was always coming up (e.g. I had thought I could whip it out over a weekend…only the weekend I chose was the Snowzilla weekend here and I had my mother and just never had the opportunity to sit down at the sewing machine!). It simply wasn't any fun and if I had a free afternoon I found myself thinking of other things, FUN things, I could have been working on. So trust me when I say it will be way easier to say "sorry, but no" next time someone asks me if I do quilts for hire. Sheesh.

Sewing on the binding - my quilt label:

I ordered these labels on Etsy - they are two sided. When I make a quilt specifically to donate, I show the Quilts for Mikey side in memory of Michael.

What to do next?????? Something wild and crazy for sure!

UFO Challenge 2016 - March

The number for March in the Spring Water Designs 2016 UFO Challenge is.....3! And since I'm not showing you a beautifully quilted house quilt, which was the February challenge, it is safe to bet that it wasn't finished. Very.Safe.Bet. In fact, I had pulled it out of the UFO closet (yes, my UFOs have their own entire closet...) and put it right next to my sewing machine so I couldn't manage to ignore it (as I have done for the last bazillion years). Here's the picture:

And in the spirit of not learning from past mistakes, here's a picture of the March UFO folded sitting next to my sewing machine - implying I have faith that I'll notice it and complete this one....(the February challenge is already back in the closet):

The March UFO is simply to put on the borders to complete the top - seriously - how hard can this be? I even have the fabric already! If I manage that and have time left in the month there's a (remote) possibility I'll go ahead and quilt it, but honestly I'm not promising anything.

I had gotten a kit at probably half price when a local quilt shop was closing many years ago. When we moved last summer I packed some simple kits I had in a box of their own thinking I would make an effort to piece them. I started on this top in the Fall. Here it is on the design wall:

Since all that's left are the borders, I'm fairly confident I can have a finish for the challenge, but it would be great if I "finished" it!

American Craft Council (ACC) Craft Show 2016 - Baltimore

Last weekend we went to the ACC Craft show at the Baltimore Convention Center. Love.Love.Love this show. This year I actually bought some handwoven apparel pieces which I absolutely ADORE!

I own pieces made by two different exhibitors...and follow their blogs (journals) as well.


Ann Brauer - (http://www.annbrauer.com/Ann_Brauer_Quilt_Studio/Welcome.html)

Erin Wilson - I find her work AMAZING!!! She has shown me the backs of her blocks and they are neat and trim and I have no idea how she manages to piece things that teeny....(http://www.erinwilsonquilts.com/)

And I also got a picture of Cindy Grisdela - I follow her blog now. She's been exhibiting at the ACC show for a few years and I just love her work (http://cindygrisdela.com/)

It was just a really nice day. There was some amazing work there.

UFO Challenge 2016

Well, I didn't win in January....so hoping I have better luck in February. The number for February is "8" - and my UFO is a Houses and Stars quilt top that needs to be quilted (and has needed to be quilted pretty much forever...). This is a Thimbleberries pattern I think, which is what I liked when I first started quilting so it's really been waiting a looonnnngggg time!

The challenge is being sponsored by Spring Water Designs ( http://springwaterdesigns.blogspot.com/ ),

Sewing Machine Cover

I finished a top of bright and scrappy fabrics…and something just didn't look right about it. I had fussy cut some fun centers for one of the rows from a Mary Lou Weidman fabric that I liked…but the "realistic" centers in that row looked really out of place. Now, normally, I just let things like this go - I really like it to be DONE when it's done. But this row just screamed GET ME OUT OF HERE!! So I bit the bullet and picked it out, made new blocks and reassembled. The finished top:

Here's a detail:

BUT…(there is always a but(t))

I still thought the other blocks were fun and didn't want them to get buried in the Black Hole of miscellaneous blocks. SO - I made new sewing machine covers out of them!!!

VOILA!

(The blocks were made from a set of Kwik Krazy patterns)