UFO CHallenge Check-in 5

 Another good week of progress on the UFO pile.  I actually got two quilts finished this week, and made progress on several other projects.

I made four more units for Odd Fellows Star.  I also counted the number of units left to be made, found I was short 9 foundations and was able to scan one and make the copies for the rest.  I have about 5 more weeks worth of units to sew before I can start putting together the top.  I'm happy with the slow progress on this one, so plan to keep up the pace.

I was in need of some instant gratification, so I finished up this mini quilt.  I made it with leftover units from a larger project, and it's been in the pile, basted and ready for quilting.  Now it's quilted and bound.  I just finished this with stitch in the ditch back and forth around the squares.  It looks good!

Then I decided that I needed to replenish my supply of basted quilts, so I took care of this one since I had got the backing all ready to go.  I think I am going to quilt this with flowers, but what color of thread?  Guess it's time to go through my stash and see what will look good with it!  Probably a pink, since the back is that bright fuschia color.

While I was at it, I basted this one, too.  Since it was a small one, I went ahead and quilted that as well!

My supervisor, making sure I did the job right!

Moving on to Alice's Wonderland - I got my two blocks prepped and pieced!

I was particularly pleased with the fussy cutting on this one!  It features the Liberty London store! They are also now appliqued onto the background.

And another dogwood block is button-hole stitched.  I think this week I'll have to go through the remaining blocks, and the pieces that are prepped.  Some of them are missing their mates, so I need to figure out how many blocks are ready to go, and see if I can't get more of them matched up and ready to stitch.

Last, but not least I decided to pull out this container and try to figure out what in the world I was thinking with all the purple half square triangles!  I seem to have way more than I really need for the project I have in mind.  Time to actually put the blocks together and determine what to do with all of this!  Next time I need to leave a note to my future self telling me what I was thinking, because at this point I have no clue.  I made all of the basket blocks I had in mind, and I have some ideas for what to do with the rest of the triangles, but I need to count them and see if it will work!  

Of course I had a block that ended up not quite as it should have!  I have fixed it now, glad I caught it before I sewed them together!  I'm kind of excited to work on this now, so I'm pretty sure I'll have more progress to report next week!

I think that's the fun part of working on UFOs - finding the excitement that I had when I first started the project.  Not every project sparks like that, but this one has. It's almost as fun as starting something new!  And we all know that feeling!

UFO Challenge Check-in 4

I am pleased to say that I am still making great progress on my UFO challenge!  This week was another busy one, and the handwork was great for a long car ride.  I have to say that the English Paper Piecing is starting to grow on me!  Especially since I figured out how to print my templates instead of having to trace them all!

Between using EQ8 to make the templates and a Sewline Glue stick to speed up the basting, I could be a convert!  

I finished two more blocks this week - I really like both of them.  I've been working at trying to get a little more contrast in the fabrics than the ones in the book.

I did a lot of the stitching for both of these in the car - we drove to Eugene to drop off a friend at the airport and spend some time at a trampoline park for our granddaughter's 6th birthday.

Yesterday I spent a little time and got the templates set up for the next two blocks, so now I just have to cut them out - maybe tonight while we watch football.  I also got four more odd fellow star units pieced.

I also finished another Dogwood block.

Finally on Sunday afternoon I got the chance to sit down at my sewing machine and work on quilting the Prickly Pear quilt!  I started out by quilting the pear. Then I got to work on the background - I wanted to fill it with feathers.  I wasn't sure how good it would look but talked myself into just going for it as this isn't a super important quilt to me, and if it didn't look good at least it would be done. Turns out that I had a great time doing it, and it also looks pretty good if I don't say so myself!  

I even took a chance and tried out a different thread, and it worked perfectly. Turns out I remembered how to quilt feathers pretty well for not having done it for several years! These projects are perfect for experimentation, since most of them are just things that have been sitting for quite a while and I don't really have a purpose in mind for them!

If you would be interested in learning more about the design behind this quilt you can check out my blog post about it here.

I like having the combination of working on long term projects and handwork as well as the instant gratification of a finish!  This is 2 out of 20, so I'm feel like I'm doing pretty well right now! I need to finish a little more than two a month to get my whole list complete.  I don't know if I can do that, but I'm going to keep working toward that.  I have one project basted and another ready for basting, so will probably move those two on to the next step this week, as well as work on the three long term projects.

I also have a new project to complete this week, but it's just a table runner, so it will be refreshing to go from start to finish on something!

Oh, and the biggest UFO on my list is pretty much finished up now!  The front of our house is looking good!  That's pretty darn satisfying, too!

Hope you are checking things off your list, too!

UFO Challenge Check-in 3

Despite a busy week last week, I managed to make good progress on my UFO list!  I started out by sewing four blocks for the Odd Fellows Star project.  The process is going much quicker now that I have remembered how to do foundation paper piecing!

I finished the quilting on the Apple Table Runner, and had lots of fun with all the different designs!  Here is a picture before adding the binding, which I also accomplished!

Aren't the leaves on the outer border pretty?  I'm very happy with this!  Then I added some more quilting on the Advent Calendars.

I'm not sure if I'm done with these yet or not.  I might add a bit more quilting.  

I sewed the fan block to the background (this was supposed to be block 2 for last week, but it took me till this week to finish!)

Then I made the star block (block 1 for this week) and added the embroidery stitches. My running stitches are small - but I like how it looks!

I finished up a dogwood block - boy, those buttonhole stitches take a while to do! I usually do one flower an evening.

I also finished up another EPP for Alice's Wonderland - I discovered that I had a Sewline glue pen, which saved the day and cut the time spent basting the 13 pieces by a good amount!  I've also gone to using parchment paper for the foundations which is easier to fold and manipulate.  Learning better techniques really helps with these blocks!

I found a backing fabric for the Cityscape quilt.  I'm trying not to buy anything to finish these up, so that helps!  This was leftover backing from another project, I had to piece it, but the color will be great!

And last, but not least I got the Pear quilt basted.  This will be my next free motion quilting project.  I am not really that invested in it, so that frees me up to take a chance and try something different! 

I know this looks like I spent all week sewing, but really most of the projects I worked on didn't take much time at all.  I am enjoying having a variety of things to work on when I have some free time.  The hand sewing is taking the place of screen time in the evenings, so that's helping me with that goal as well! Hope you get inspired to get out some of those languishing projects and start making some progress, too!