A Finish Report (whee!)

So...

I am two for two so far this year!

In January, I finished this incredibly fun, bright and cheery quilt that my cousin's quilty friend had made at a class with her in 2009. She and Kelly had done the class to make themselves do something outside of their boxes. (Kelly was a Thimbleberry girl through and through!) Well, they DESPISED the quilt tops!

Kelly went ahead and got hers quilted at the high school, and put it out on an air mattress when we visited that summer. My daughter RAVED about it, and Kelly gave it to her on the spot. A few weeks later, she called me up, explained that her girlfriend despised her top, too, and would we like it? WOULD WE? lol!!! So, the top was mailed out to us.

Shortly after that, Kelly passed away at far too young an age. Heartbroken, I didn't do anything with the top until this year. The time seemed perfect for pulling out something connected to Kelly and finishing it up. (When I went back for her funeral, I gathered all the unfinished projects I could find and shipped them home so I could finish them for her children.)

Found a perfect backing fabric, paid Patty at Katydids Quilting to do a really cute edge-to-edge, and then hunkered down with some fun movies to stitch the binding. And, voila! One very cute, perky twin-sized quilt!

~*~*~

My second finish, from this month, is another quilt of Kelly's, and it's a perfect example of her favorite style and colors. I don't know when she pieced this one, but it should have been either 2008 or 2009. She'd had it quilted at the high school, which she was usually happy with. This time, though, there were a lot of problems that she didn't feel like dealing with, so she folded it and left it on a shelf. So, I patiently unknotted the bobbin nests and hand-worked those areas, then trimmed and bound the quilt for her son. It's going out to Washington state as soon as I verify the mailing address. :)

Figuring This Out. . .

So. . . I've been stitching along as I can around schoolwork and Mom stuff - Just haven't been posting because I'm new at this blogging thing. So much inspiration to be found in the Web world! Will post my year's progress in a bit.

For now, I scoured my memory for the years on my Lifetime Finishes list, and got my Truly Insane list of active UFO's composed, roughly in order of priority.

There are many reasons that list is so long, among them:

• 1o. Unhappy with the way the project' design was turning out or Decided I hate the colors and boxed it up until some unknown time.
• 9. Found some Poor Forgotten Orphans from years ago in an obscure closet!
• 8. Mother-Daughter projects that can only progress when they are here.
• 7. Uncertain how I want the quilting done.
• 6.Waiting for my quilt's turn at Patty's long-arm studio.
• 5. Broken heart from the death of someone very close.
• 4. Adopted projects for deceased cousin.
• 3. Unorganized work area with inadequate station needs
• 2. Lack of skill for the next step, giving in to INTIMIDATION. (no more! OO-Rah!)

and the number 1 reason:

• Quilt ADD. Yep, I freely admit it. I cannot stand to stick with one project at a time, nor (until now) have I had good discipline in saying "No" to accepting a new project that calls to me.

It just takes so stinkin' long to finish the big, heirloom-quality quilts I gravitate toward, that I get sick of looking at the same colors and techniques. So I work in a circular fashion - tending to stick with a given project to the next good stopping point and then putting it back in its bin/box and moving to another. The fun part of that, though, is that now there are a LOT of projects in the final stages, so I'm at a point where I'll have finish after finish of these treasures!

2011 - A Year of Completions

Wow! Soooo many dream projects, sooooo many UFO's. . .

I got a pretty good start in 2010 on the massive number of unfinished objects that were hiding in various closets, boxes, baskets, cupboards, and shelves throughout the house. Everything is centralized now, and many quilt tops have been completed and are happily hanging from pants clips, awaiting their turn at Patty's or under my own machine's needle. I actually finished three significant quilts, complete with story labels and hanging sleeves! (Heather's graduation quilt, my Flying Needles BOM quilt, and Tilman's piano watercolor wallhanging with fancy quilting and scripted names around the border.)

For 2011, I am looking forward to working my way through many more UFO's as well as allowing myself to continue the fun of BOMs. I'm doing the 285th US anniversary patriotic stars thematic BOM that Sharon's running for Flying Needles, the Judy Niedermeyer Glacial Star BOM, the McKenna Ryan Beachwalk BOM, the Patriots in Petticoats BOM, and a really fun international swap through Linda's Swap Adventure group. Hmm. . . that's more BOMs than weeks, so I'l have to double up the first week of the month! By the end of the year I'll have 5 sets of blocks ready to be assembled into very cool tops.

Working up the BOM of the week doesn't take all my sewing time, so I'll use the rest of the week to finish piecing, quilting, and stitching bindings, labels, and sleeves on my UFO list. First up at the machines is to finish helping my friend's kids make her Irish chain quilt, and my long-time project Katie Loves Chris, which only needs outlining and stippling of the Sunbonnet Sues. These will be closely followed by the freemotion quilting of the NaGISA tops for Mr. Hernandez and Heather while Dad's quilt is at Katydid's Quilting studio. First up at the television is one of Kelly's quilts that only needs to be bound, followed by the last 15" of hand quilting on her almost finished 1930s reproduction quilt. I also keep an applique project in my purse that will take however long it takes as I pull it out whenever I find myself unexpectedly waiting on something (or watching a show with Scott when I don't have any quilt bindings to stitch on or quilting stencils to work up).

There are two other significant things for me to look forward to in 2011. First, I'm going to start learning how to do machine quilting in earnest. Gotta take advantage of Patty's close proximity while I have it! I'll still pay her to do my most important quilting, but I'm going to grab that bull by the horns and get comfortable with long-arm quilting as well as free-motion at my piecing machine.

The second item of anticipation is really exciting! As my second daughter wraps up her senior year and flies off on her own grand life adventure at a college far away, I'm going to treat myself to a first of hopefully many years of quilting retreats. In addition to our local guild's retreat, I'm going to take a Judy Neidermeyer class at Quilting by the Bay in Panama City, FL, in February. Both are near enough to attend from my home, so no travel expenses keep me from participating. Later in the year, though, after the Air Force has moved us to Kansas, I'll do my first travel retreat - which is to come right back to the region in October and take a three day course with Jacueline de Jonge (from the Netherlands!) at Quilting by the Bay. Can't wait for the fun!