Friday design wall.....UFO progress!

Today I was in the mood to dig through a bin of older UFOs.
I pulled out this project. This morning all it was were the animal panels & small squares. My progress so far today:




I had an almost identical top in the box that, except for borders, is already done.

These two are destined to be donation quilts. I think some child will like the animals. In fact, I think that I have some animal print fabric that would make great backs! Use up that stash!


Periodically, I consider all my UFOs and feel so overwhelmed! It'll take me years to finish them all, I'm sure. I've decided to try to at least get them all to the "top" stage, with backings and bindings all set to go. That way, I can pull out all the related scraps and fabric pieces and either donate them or file them back into my stash, so they're readily available for something else. Small scraps will be chopped up into blocks or strips.

For years I've accumulated many styles of fabric: kids, brights, reproductions, batiks....anything that I "just had to have" at the time! My tastes are changing and my quilting time is limited, so I've decided to just sew what I really love - Reproduction fabrics, especially 1900 or before. As I sort through UFOs and stash, I will cull fabric and donate it. I don't feel guilty anymore about how much I paid for it all. I really just want to pare down my stash to the stuff that I really love working with! The donated fabric will be useful to someone else, and will benefit my favorite non-profit thrift store.

Louise

Two more UFOs finished!

I finished two more UFOs...yes...! This first one will be a donation quilt, but I'm not sure where I'm donating it yet. I sewed the binding down by machine. I'm finding that when I sew binding down by machine it caused the edges to be wavy, as if the binding is a tad bit longer than the quilt. Bindings that I sew down by hand don't do this.
The Quilt Police would not approve! That's okay, these quilts will never be in a quilt show.
Next time I machine sew the bindings, I'm going to try to very slightly scrunch, by hand, the quilt edge before I sew the binding onto it.
This is a close-up of the quilt. The yellow fabric is a strange pattern, probably from the 1970's. It was hard to find a use for it, but I think that in this quilt the cool colors of the blues and purples calms it down.



This is the 2nd UFO. I'll be donating this to the local chemo center, to be used as a comfort quilt for their patients. One of the members of my small quilt group is going through treatments and spends lots of time there. The quilts they have are looking worn and ratty, so we made more as a group project. The chemo center agreed to pay for the quilting on these quilts.
I already had the middle part done, languishing in my UFO closet, so I added the rows of purple & yellow on the top and the bottom to make it longer. In person, it looks very soft and serene.
It's turning cold here now! We've had 2 nights of below 40 degrees. I still have some healthy tomato plants, which I covered with sheets overnight. It'll be warmer for the next week or so, so I'm hoping to get some more tomatoes out of them! Last year, I picked a few dozen green tomatoes off my plants before the cold killed them. I let them ripen in a sunny part of the kitchen and they actually tasted decent - at least better than store-bought. I had heard that one could do this, but I didn't believe it!

Louise

Two UFOs done!

I finished two UFOs today! They are both kid-size, destined to be donation quilts.
I drafted this first one from a photograph of a quilt that I saw in a catalog. The pattern was called "Serengeti", and was easy to make. I love digging through my stash to match up fabrics that play well together.

This 2nd UFO is a string quilt. It was so fun to make & those strings are addicting! I put the red centers on skewed, instead of exactly in the center of each block.
I machine-sewed the binding down on both of these quilts. They'll be donation quilts, and that method is faster and more durable than hand sewing, in my opinion. I'm still getting the hang of it. At first, I attempted to machine-sew down the mitered corners just using pin basting, but it got all twisted and distorted, and really frustrating. Now, I hand-sew just the corners, like I would normally hand-sew binding. Then, when I machine-sew that area, the stitching goes smooth and looks nice. Definitely worth the extra effort!

I also learned, for future quilts, to find a binding
fabric that blends in better with the backing. I had to be really careful to sew the dark blue thread in just the right spot to keep it from showing on the lighter-colored backing fabric. I managed to most of the time, except for a few small areas. I think after the quilt is washed it will look better. Actually it's hard to notice, but I know it's there!






I've had TV on while sewing, listening to the 9-11 programs. The tributes are so moving and bittersweet. So many heroes emerged on such a tramatic day, often sacrificing their own lives. I only hope that if, someday, I find myself in similar situations that I would choose the heroic route.

Louise

UFOs finished to date: 5