Sunday, August 26, 2012

UFOs down!

So today is UFO Sunday, and I took it to heart.  First, let's talk about unfinished objects: anything in the sewing room, that is not done.  Even if I'm currently working on it, because once I go work on something else, I'll have to set it aside, making it unfinished!
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2012/08/ufo-sunday-1.html

Here is what I can think of.
1) "First" quilt.  Finished piecing this in 2004ish.  I need to reapplique the center square. I didn't know how to applique at all then.  Then I need to see if it is quiltable (may not be, my piecing probably stunk then) and come up with a quilting plan.  Priority: Low
2) Snowflake Quilt.  Current project, making progress.  Prioirty: High
3) Dresden Plate Quilt:  This project is stalled.  I need more fabric, and have no budget.  I also need to decide if I want to make more plates or quilt blank squares.  I need to determine the finished size, I went into this without a plan.  Priority: Medium
4) Navigator's Compass:  This is just an applique piece, glue basted together.  I need to decide what it is being appliqued on.  Another project I went into without a plan.  Priority: Medium
5) Mandala Wholecloth:  After the feather/hearts wholecloth I traced this.  I wanted to use colored threads to make it like the Mandala designs I loved to color. Priority: Medium
6-8) THREE Charity Quilts: Picked up in July, these need to be turned in at the September guild meeting.  Priority: High
9) Eye Spy Quilt:  I got some of the squares sewn together.  But I've changed my mind.  I want to machine applique them all into alphabets, so this actually has to come apart so I can start again.  Priority: Low

So what did I do?

First, on Friday I attacked the Mandala.  After having a great experience painting, I decided to paint it.  Disaster.  The paint bled into the fabric so badly!  So then I took a more viscous paint and outlined and it saved it a bit, but I decided I didn't like where I was headed.  I took a deep breathe and threw it into the trash.  Project status: Finished.
Today I attacked the Charity Quilts.  Three quilts, DONE!  I think I quilted from breakfast until about 3:00, and knocked them all out.  They aren't perfect- all have some pretty bad wrinkles in the backing  fabric, but the fronts look good.  Two of the quilts are actually quite nice.  The "fall" one was this reall ugly panel, and I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I outlined the panel, but did some design quilting on the outside sashing, so at least the sashing looks nice.

UFOs left:  5
Probably won't make much more progress, as a lot of these rely on buying new supplies.  My quilting budget until about November is ZERO.  All money is being saved to replenish the bank account after our down payment is taken out.  But I have plenty of stash to quilt with (and snowflakes to work on, plenty of thread to go for awhile!), so it will all be worth it for the new big sewing room!

5 comments:

Christine said...

That is some productivity! Good for you!

sulrossgrad (Emma) said...

Three quilts knocked out in one day! I must be the world's slowest quilter; I hope practice will increase my productivity to this level!
Emma

T. Sedai said...

Wow! I have been using Sunday as my catch up on sleep day, but now I think it would be better to use it as a catch up on sewing day! Three quilts is quite impressive. Oh, and a new sewing room will totally be worth not getting fabric for a while...

Pamelyn's Postings said...

Love the idea of writing out what you have to do and the priority levels. Awesome that you completed your 3 charity quilts. Wish I could see them in full!

Jessim said...

Sorry I don't have full pictures of the quilts. Because they are so loosely quilted (lap quilts...plus my style of quilting seems to be called "quilted to death" by the guild) you see the piecing more than the quilting, and that isn't mine, so I don't want to take credit for it. I just pick up 3 quilts a month at guild that need to be quilted (and return them unbound, someone else does that...)

So that's why I don't usually take pictures of Charity quilts. It's not really "my work".