Not bad for three days of work

I just finished this lovely baby quilt last night. Rail fence has to been one of my favorite patterns. I made this for some friends who are expecting a new arrival any day now. This is made from Kate Spain's new Central Park line. It's such a delightful, springy line and a much needed visual break from the three days of snow we've had. I'm actually looking forward to mud.

I pieced in a section on the back both to stretch the fabric, but also to bring in more of the yellow from the front. I quilted it in straight lines. Not to exciting, I know, but it will hold together. I hope they like it.

February UFO finishes

Hi All,

Here's my February finish for Judy's challenge. I quilted and bound my Amy Butler pinwheels quilt. I used a fusible batting which works great for quilts of this size (36ish x 45ish), and I quilted it in random straight lines. I hate marking quilts. It's time consuming and I'm not very good at it. Usually the end result doesn't look much like what I marked either. This was a lot of fun to do and I just kept going til I ran out of thread.

Here's a detail pic.

And here's after washing.

And the back:

I also crossed the squares table runner off the list.

I decided I didn't want to finish the whole thing. It was another test project, so I just finished it up as a table mat. It has gone to live in my laundry room under my bucket of detergent.

My other goals for February are to finish the Tennessee Waltz quilt top and get it ready for quilting and to make 5 more Subway blocks. I'm close on the Tennessee Waltz. I just need to do the borders. You don't get to see pictures until after the recipient sees it, sorry. I've got three of my Subway blocks done, but I ran out of white squares, so I need to cut more of those. It should be no problem to finish those up this week and next. I've also got a baby quilt and Christmas presents on the to-do list too. Whew! Well, that will certainly keep me off the streets for the foreseeable future.

Ta!

Ann

UFO Challenge Month 2

Here's the next project I've chosen for the UFO challenge. Yes, I know I'm marching to my own drummer here. This is another quilt like the last one in that I got the top finished and set it aside. It just needs quilting and binding.

Here's a couple of detail shots. I bought one of those Lil' Twister templates and a charm pack of Amy Butler fabrics, and was just playing around. I had a blast playing with it, and it deserves to be finished.

I'm also going to cross this one off this month too. This is listed as the squares table runner. Only...I don't want to finish it. The sashing is tedious, and the fabrics were leftovers from another project. I was just playing around with my Accuquilt GO! cutting squares. Well...that part was fun. So, I'm going to finish what's together as a table mat and call it a day. It's about 16" square. I've already dispersed the rest of the project into the scrap pile, the stash closet, or the trash.

I'm also working on two other long term projects this month. One is Tennessee Waltz. That one's a gift, so I won't be putting pictures up. My goal is to have the top finished this month.

My other project is my Subway quilt (pattern from Elizabeth Hartman at Oh Fransson!). For Judy and Chris, here's how it looks with the second row finished. I've put a couple of chunks together....partly so it would take up less room. I'm done with the dark green squares now. I really like how the blue and orange lines look next to one another. Hmm...maybe I'll make a blue and orange quilt. No...must...focus.

I'm still looking through all the UFO finish posts. Way to go people! More than a hundred UFOs finished!

Keep warm!

Ann

Obligatory Blizzard post

Snow-mageddon. Snowpocalypse. SNO-MG. Yea, that pretty much says it.

The snow started on Tuesday around 2 pm. It quit this morning around 11:30 am. Overnight we had thundersnow and 60-70 mph gusts. Our house shakes when it blows that hard. Very hard to sleep between that and the roaring wind. We finished up with 25". Parts of the driveway and yard had drift of 6-7'. We chopped down the drifts with a shovel, then the snowblower removed the snow. Rinse repeat. Why would we do it that way? This is why:

This is the driveway before we started. Most of it was 2-3 feet deep with a couple of 4' spots.

This is the middle section of the driveway and the part that was blocked from the wind. It's about 2' deep.

This is the front walk during shoveling:

This is the public sidewalk. Yes it's under there. That stone wall is about 3 1/2' tall. The whole sidewalk in both directions is drifted in.

This is the biggest drift over the driveway coming in at nearly 5'.

The big drift with snowblower.

We took a break at that point to warm up and get something to eat. We had been shoveling for over 4 hours. Past the big drift was another 2' deep section, then the rest of the driveway was 5' deep all the way to the end. I looked out the window when i heard the snow-blower start up again and saw this:

Thank you so much, city employee, whoever you are. He was going along our street and clearing out the end of everyone's driveways. His 10 minutes probably saved us another 2 hours with shovels and the snowblower. If he had gotten out, I would have kissed him.

Right now I'm going to go take the world's hottest shower and hope I can move my arms tomorrow. I've pulled out my next UFO, so stay tuned for that post.

Ta!

a

First UFO finish!

Yay! I have my first finish for 2011. Here's the table runner in its completed state. I quilted it in the ditch and did an outline/echo pattern in the border. Nothing too exciting, but part of the reason this project got set aside was that I wasn't sure how to quilt it. Rather than over-think it, I just did something.

I originally estimated it would take me two total hours to complete. Ha! It took 2 1/2 to quilt and sew on the binding and another two to hand sew it down. So now I will take my estimates for future projects and double them.

Below is my secondary project for the month. My goal is to finish 6 blocks. I did blocks 5 and 6 this weekend, and need to complete #7-10. It takes about an hour to do a block or about 5 hours per row. I'm hoping to do a row a month for the next 4 months, then put the top together and quilt it. Of course, I realized this evening that it will finish at around 80" square which will take awhile to do.

This is why I never participate in the design wall Mondays. This project and all its pieces have been up since I started it and will probably hang out here til it's finished leaving me to rely on my design table and design floor for other projects.

Good luck on your UFOs.

A

First UFO

Here's the first project I've chosen to work on for Judy's challenge. This is a table runner made from the leftovers of a Portobello market layer cake. I had just gotten my new Accuquilt Go! cutter and went to town cutting triangles. Since it was just a sample/test project, I set it aside and moved on to something else. It just needs quilting and binding at this point. I dug it out last night, ironed it, and basted it with fusible batting. It looked like it had been tied in knots and stuffed under a pile of bricks when I found it.

Yes, this is a pretty simple project, but I chose it for a few reasons. First it will be a quick finish. I can knock this one out of the ballpark for an easy win and get the year off to a good start. It will also allow me time to work on some of the more time-consuming UFOs for the rest of the month. Some of them will take longer than one month to finish. When I get this finished, it will go in my Etsy shop which is also one of my goals. A two-fer!

I've been ready everyone's UFO and new years resolution posts. Here's a great one you should all go look at from Wedding Dress Blues. I believe fabric is cheaper than therapy! Yes indeed the world does need more happy people.

Hope your 2011 is off to a good start.

Ann

UFO Challenge...Gulp!

First let me distract you with a pretty picture!

This is a pattern I've designed. I'm calling it Piet's Garden right now, but that might change. It is also the newest entry on my UFO list.

I'm writing this post to list out my UFOs and join Judy's challenge. Go here. She's having everyone list 12 and commit to finishing them this year. I've never done a challenge like this before, and I have a lot of projects, so I'm going to list all of them and pick one each month. This way I'll have enough variety and not feel constrained. I relied on an older list for the projects that are "in storage", but since I haven't touched most of them I'll assume they are still there. :) The elves never seem to come in the night and finish things for me. The list also includes a few non- or not-quite-quilting projects, like cross stitch and some silk ribbon things. OK...deep breath. Here goes:

1. Grandmother's Flower Garden
2. applique stars
3. Tennessee Waltz
4. Snowball/9-patch
5. Chez Moi quilt 1
6. Chez Moi quilt 2
7. Fabric roses
8. Subway quilt
9. Licorice quilt
10. Strippy quilt
11. Piet's garden
12. Elise's quilt
13. quilted pillow cover
14. Le Jardin BOM
15. squares quilt for LR
16. Portobello market runner
17. Glorified nine-patch hanging
18. Oz pinwheels
19. Fassett snowballs
20. squares table runner
21. tiny 4 patches
22. silk scarf
23. Cross-stitch alphabet sampler
24. Amy butler pinwheels
25. Vintage Valentine BOM
26. wool baskets pillow
27. Buzzin' along applique
28. Sunbonnet sue cheryl
29. small art quilt
30. stone lark quilt
31. Black and pink 4 patch
32. Black and orange runner
33. hummingbird applique
34. honeybee blocks
35. Rise and shine quilt
36. Canterbury bells applique
37. Floribunda hangings
38. Hawaiian appliques
39. peppermint pinwheels
40. Amish baskets
41. tangerine tropicale