Category: 2021 UFO Challenge

OMG – January

Ok, we are going to try this again for 2022. Every year I have the best of intentions of doing one monthly goal (hosted by Elm Street Quilts) and I do ok for the first month or so and then never continue. In the attempt to get my 40+ list of UFO’s down I’m going to try this again! 🙂

This months goal is to get the top of Cassie’s EPP quilt put together. I have the first 4 rows assembled and I’m trying to work on it at least a little each night. 5 rows left to put together and then assemble into a top with border. Tonight I’ll start working on row 5 after dinner as my Sunday slow stitching. Cassie gets more and more excited with every row that gets added, which is making me want to get this done for her before her birthday in mid-March. I’ll be able to work on the quilting while she’s at school so she won’t see it.

Goodbye 2021!

Wow, what a year we’ve had! Lots of camping and family time, some health issues with Raven back in the spring – she’s back to acting like her old self – and not much finishing of projects! I’m determined that 2022 will be the year of finishing projects and I’ve been getting things to the point where I can finish them.

I’ve been working on Cassie’s bed quilt, since it’s EPP I can work on it at night. 3 rows are put together and I have the 4th ready to add on, possibly tonight since we are staying up to see the ball drop.

I’ve been working on cross stitch this year, trading off with EPP and my puzzles. I did a couple of Star Wars planets (patterns from Etsy), did 2 of the teacher pieces in the spring, and lately I’ve been working on the Deathly Hallows that I found on Etsy. Monday I’m starting on a SAL with PixelPatterns and we are doing the periodic table over I think it’s 7 months. I have everything ready to start, except the pattern!

I’m still working on too many EPP projects, but some of them are REALLY long term projects. I have the EPP pentagon quilt top almost done, unfortunately I need to order fabric for the border before I can finish it, the piece I want to use is too small, and it’s pretty small so I should be able to quilt it on my domestic. Haven’t done much on the Dear Jane EPP quilt, but a little bit got done on the Hexie Insanity quilt. I’m hoping that once I get the hand work done on Cassie’s quilt that I’ll be able to get another old EPP quilt put together.

I’m still working on saving the money to get the longarm machine that I want, it would help me finish quilts so much faster! I might see about renting time on a machine and see how much it will cost. I just don’t know if I’d be better off saving the money toward my own instead of renting time. We’ll see.

The Harry Potter quilt blocks have now all been cut out, and like I mentioned yesterday I have only 2 left to stitch. Once I get those done I can start putting the rows together, but I can’t get too much of it done since I need more of the background fabric that I’m using for sashing. I only have a little bit of it left. I can’t wait to get this one done since it’s for our bed. The quilt I have on it now is a queen and doesn’t fit very well on the king bed!

Happy New Year, be safe if you are going out and hopefully I’ll be back soon because something is finished! 🙂

Long Time No See!

Wow! I wasn’t planning on being gone so long! Life took over with lots of activities for the kids, camping over the summer and with new school year volunteers are allowed back in the school! I’ve been spending lots of time with 2 kindergarten classes, plus PTA activities and holiday parties for the kids.

Since the holidays are over and all gifts finally got sent out (1 package went out late!) I decided that as much as I could this week I wanted to spend some time sewing. I have a few quilts in process that I’d like to get to a finished state, or at least finish the tops. I’m still saving up for a long arm, it’s very slow going! Today I got back to working on the Harry Potter SAL quilt, finished the Quidditch Cup and started working on Fawkes. Hoping that I can finish Fawkes tomorrow and cut out the last 2 blocks I have to put together!

While I was working on the HP blocks I worked on stitching the sashing strips I need to continue working on my 2017 Hexie temperature quilt. I now have all the strips done for the sides of the blocks that have been done for awhile, so I can start putting the rows together, possibly while I’m working on finishing up the HP top.

I have some cross stitch projects I’ve started in the last few months, I’ll write about them another day. One is a SAL (stitch-a-long) that starts on Monday (1/3) that I can’t wait to work on.

Back soon (I hope)!

Odds and Ends

I haven’t been doing much quilting lately, but I have been working to change that this weekend. After I finished making some masks for my sister and finished a small project for my dad, I decided it was time to work on my bow tie quilt. It’s been sitting around since before 2017 and I needed to get more done on it. So I stitched up all the bow ties I had sitting here already prepped and then finished all the alternate 9 patch blocks I needed for the border. I’m trying to do each bow tie block out of a different fabric, so I pulled out a large bag of scraps that I had bought years ago at a guild garage sale. All the squares are 3″ so I have to do some trimming before I can start sewing them together. I also need to cut some 2.5″ white on white squares, I will do that on the Studio once I’ve got the rest of the squares cut up. Hopefully I’ll have some time this week to cut them and get everything paired up so when I have time to stitch I’m ready to go.

I’ve been spending my time after the kids go to bed working on cross stitch. I have 2 wonderful teachers at school that are getting special gifts this year, one is finished and I need to get the second one started soon. I don’t have any pictures of the piece I’m working on right now, but it’s almost finished and I will post about it then. A friend on instagram had posted some Star Wars planets she was working on and she told me where to get them on Etsy. The first planet is almost done and Alex is quite thrilled with them getting done, all 9 will be framed and put on the wall in the hallway upstairs. I’m hoping that I can get the last 2 colors finished off tonight, depends on how tired I get after dinner. 🙂 That will be my Slow Sunday Stitching, check out what others are working on today at Kathy’s Quilts.

Since I got my cross stitching out again I found that there’s an awesome app that you can use to mark off what you’ve stitched. Unfortunately for me it’s only available for android, what’s a girl to do but buy a small android tablet for the app to run on? Pattern Keeper is a great app, but not all charts can be loaded in it yet. So I pulled up my MacStitch app and started putting some of them in myself. I also found that some charts on Etsy are already formatted for Pattern Keeper (PK) and if you ask nicely they might even add that to the download for you. I had one that I asked about before I bought and she saved it in the download for me. I can’t wait to start that one, it’s a Harry Potter Deathly Hallows piece, but I need to get the teacher ones and the Star Wars planets done first.

I need to get back to work on cutting up the 3″ squares, I hope to be back soon with some finishes.

Finished OMG!

I was afraid I’d have to much to do this month and not have time to finish what I wanted to this month, but I’m happy to say I’m wrong! Not only did I get ALL the pentagon/squares put together and pinned to the background for applique, but I started stitching them down to the background. 3 in the batch are done, and the rest all need to be stitched still. This has been put aside for a bit because I have some cross stitch I want to work on. I have 2 wonderful teachers that both kids have had, that I want to make something special for before the end of the school year.

Happy to have the first months goal met, now to decide on what the goal is going to be next month! Check out everyone else that met their goals at Elm Street Quilts.

Happy New Year!

It’s January 2nd, and we had a great New Year’s Eve! The kids wanted to see the ball drop, so we let them stay up until midnight. OMG were they cuckoo crazy! Running around the room, and just being goofy. We played some video games and watched the ball drop and put them to bed just after midnight – let them sleep on the couch, which they’ve been asking to do for awhile.

I try this every year, maybe this year I can stay consistent and do something every month! I start every year out with good intentions in participating with the One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts and after a few months I just get so busy that I fizzle out and never get back to it. So let’s try it again! 🙂 This month I want to get the rest of my pentagons put together, there’s 18 of them left, and then pinned to the background and ready for applique.

Need to finish my inventory today so I can balance my 2020 books for the business and I really want to start some quilting today if I can. So I’m out of here! Good luck on your goals this month!