Monthly Accounting

So this has been an unusual month for me. I started out with much vigor and determination, and promptly sewed through my finger. My heavy duty machine spent most of the the last four weeks in shop, I just got it back yesterday. I've done some piecing but not on the two tops that were listed as needing piecing in my report last month. I also managed to sandwich Chocolate Covered Cherries and tried to do Briners' Picnic, too but I can't find the backing I had set aside for it. That prompted an effort to get my act together and clean up the mess that used to be my storage area. It's coming along. I still having found the backing for that quilt.

So as we head into March things are much as they were on February 1st. I have added one thing to my list. I selected a thread painted piece I started in a class with Susan Brubaker Knapp (she's a wonderful teacher) I'm never going to use it as wall hanging for myself, but I'd like to get it finished for the ECQG Small Treasures Auction. It's mostly finished, just an hour or so of thread painting left and then some light quilting and facing and it's done. I want to hand it in at the next show meeting. Special thanks to Susan for giving me permission to donate one of her designs.

Quilts tops that need basting, quilting and finishing:

Chocolate Covered Cherries (pin basted and ready to go under the needle)

Sherwood Forest Romance

Briners' Picnic (yes, still)


WIPS that need piecing:

Hunter's Star (I've started sketching border possibilities, we'll see where this one goes in March)

Green and white chain quilt (I did get the white blocks cut and the rows pieced, I just need to get it all together)


Other:

Round Barn (needs thread painting, quilting, facing)

Monthly Accounting and a Word About Batting

So, it's been a long time since I've made a list like this. I'm glad to say that most of the items from my last monthly accounting are truly finished, although one still sits waiting to be quilted.

Quilts tops that need basting, quilting and finishing:

Chocolate Covered Cherries (shown with its red backing fabric)

Sherwood Forest Romance

Briners' Picnic (yes, still)


WIPS that need piecing:

Hunter's Star (I pieced together the blocks I'd made and I love it but it needs to be bigger.

Green and white chain quilt (chain blocks are made, I need to cut the white blocks and piece them together)


It's not as big a list as usual. Maybe I've gotten better at narrowing my focus? I have other unfinished things that have been in a holding pattern for a while. But since I have no plan for them they don't make the list. Obviously there's a lot of quilting in my future.

I have the batting and backing for Chocolate Covered Cherries and Briners' Picnic so there's no reason I couldn't get serious about layering them this month. When I get the chain quilt pieced its going to make it to the top of the list since I"m making it as a gift for a friend. I don't know yet how big it's going to finish. Once I know for sure I'll be ordering the battings I need. I used a wool batting in Flying Rose and I love it! It's more expensive than the Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 which is what I have been using for the past several years but wool is LOVELY to work with and the finished quilt feels wonderful. As hubby says, $20 more per batting is a really a small fraction of the cost of the quilt. Sometimes I really love how he thinks

Rose Takes Flight

An interesting series of events informed my decisions about the border designs for "Ramblin' Rose". I had gotten the blocks put together last week, and as I looked at the piece, lying on the floor, I thought the next border could be flying geese or it could be a swag applique border. On Monday I decided to go visit Melinda at Tiny Stitches where she was teaching a "beyond beginners" class. I walk into the classroom and isn't she teaching the students about making strips of flying geese?



I showed her the quilt top and we talked about Pat Sloan's method for making flying geese blocks. I went home and made a slew of blocks, and spent most of the week making the strips of borders (including using downtime in a class I took on Thursday).



By Saturday afternoon the borders were all made and ready to go on the quilt. As I worked, I began thinking about the next border. I had just taken a class with Kathy Kansier about edge treatments, and decided I would make a scalloped border for this quilt. So, I set to work cutting the fabric. It's ten inches now, but I think ultimately it will be between 6-8". I'm happy to put this project up for a few days while I work on that last table runner, getting "Briner's Picnic" sandwiched, and finish turning the binding on "Princeton Plainsboro"

I'm thinking about quilting designs, and what I want my scallops to look like, so that when I get serious about finishing this piece I'm ready to go. I think I have enough of the black floral in the final border to use it for the backing.

Someday I'll do a swag border. Honest.

The Monster in the Closet

So, the big four: "Princeton-Plainsboro", "Briner's Picnic", "Ramblin' Rose" and my old stack and whack top that got pulled apart to be a pile of blocks again, are starting to look like the monster in the closet did by the time I was 14.

You know that feeling? When you were a teenager, and you could remember that you USED to think there was a monster in the closet, but you no longer feared opening the door? That's how I feel about the big four, and the big six before that. Honestly, looking back, I think having so many UFOs kept me from being able to make any progress ANYWHERE in my quilting life. I have seldom worked this hard on a goal, but it's been totally worth it. I knocked off "Blush and Bashful" and hired out "Tropical Storm" to get it finished. "Princeton-Plainsboro" has binding, and "Rambling Rose" blocks are pieced, and I'm working on the final border this week. "Briner's Picnic" will be easily quilted and bound, in fact, I might get it sandwiched next week.

Of course, I now have "Mystery in the Mountains" to finish, as well as the Piecemaker's 2008 exchange quilt, but I really am starting to see that the monster was not something to be feared. It is entirely possible that by March I will be HUNTING to the bottom of that closet for other UFOs that need to be attacked.