My First UFO Finish!! Hooray!

I finished my first UFO for the year and I'm happy to be done with it.

This basket quilt was the New Year's Day Mystery at Planet Patchwork 2011. There were some problems with the directions and I ended up with twice as many basket feet as needed - an odd little unit standing by itself!!

I don't like mysteries - for me the mystery is "Why do I have so many UFOs and WIPs!!" I love to come to the sew-in day and work on one of my own projects. If I really like the mystery's end result - I can always do it on my own later. But, come to think about it - I don't!! I guess I just collect mysteries and BOMs!! Sorry Bonnie Hunter!! I love her mystery quilts - just never take the time to make them!

I'm bound and determined to learn FMQ this year. I've dabbled with 'loop de loop - star' on the LA machine. But that's pretty much all I do. And nothing even that organized on my DSM. So Leah Day's FMQ Wednesday is tempting me to follow thru. I've never stippled - so I followed her tutorial and stippled the center of this quilt.

There's so many variables - foot pedal speed; hand motion; keeping the pattern in your head ... let's just say I can't chew gum at the same time!! The stippling is too close on this little quilt - but it washed up well. Thank the Lord those stitches tighten up after washing - I needed some help.

My friend M, in Lincoln, quilted my Halloween Round Robin on her LA for me last April and quilted a really cute border design - she called it olives! So I attempted 'olives' in the sashings.

By now I was really tired of the whole process and rewarded myself by going back to walking foot quilting and did the outer borders with that fast and furiously!! Machine bound it and it's ready for the Brookings Baby Shower in March.



It's all from stash and I did a happy dance when this back fit!!! Isn't it cute? It's been in my stash forever. It was just the right size and now it's not languishing in my stash! LOL!

I'm on the tail end of finishing the pies and tarts blocks. Of course, I had to make new freezer paper templates - and they are so sticky the first few times! I have 9 pies pinned to the background blocks - ready for a few nights of TV.

I hope to sew the next 9 wheel sets today and then there's only 7 more sets left from wedges already cut. Then I have to decide if it's big enough or if I need to cut more Civil War fabrics for more blocks. That will be a mess - I'm not sure I've bought many more fabrics that are suitable? Oh, I probably have, but laying it out and discovering what's new/what's already in there is a big pain for me.

I also have to trim the blocks - first decide how big. I think I've cut 3 different sizes of background squares. I'll just take the littlest and see what size it is and go from there.

IF I was just starting this project again. I would make a no-shrink plastic round template for the pies and tarts. Then I could poke a hole in the center; pin the fabric pie to it and drawstring it up around the template and press. I think this would result in better circles.

My method now is to iron against the freezer paper to make the sewing line. They're pretty good - but there's little points and bumps on the pies and tarts. There are on the original too, they show up in close-up pictures. So I'm in good company, but I'm pretty insecure about my applique anyway and I think this method would have given me better lines to start with!!



DH and I were ornery last weekend! The neighbors here have a cast-iron pig bank in their entryway. They are Green Bay fans and the pig looked cold! They were gone and we brought the pig in, measured it and made it a GB kerchief on Saturday. DH looked thru my stash to find the perfect color fabrics and we found the logo online. It's so cute and the neighbors loved it when they came home ... if only it wasn't the 'kerchief of defeat'!! Oh well, there's always next year!!

Our new community college campus opened - it's basically across the highway from us and I'm taking a digital scrapbook class. Mainly to learn Photoshop - but I can see this could be as addictive as quilting!! Oh, no!!

If you 'digital scrapbook', I'd love any hints or tips and any free resources you like!! The first class was last night and I came home overwhelmed!!

I'm trying not to take our winter storm today personally!! I'm supposed to be on my way to Portland for a visit with Miss P and Mr M and then take a quilt class in Philomath Saturday. We're expecting 100 mph winds on the coast, snow up in Portland and I'm a big chicken!! So I'll stay home, sew today and hope tomorrow it all blows over!! [get it???] I'm telling you, if we lived on the East Coast - these storms would have names!!

I'll let you know how it goes!