Friday 24 October 2014

19 Years Is Not Very Long.

My first UFO completed is:-

RED SQUARE
It has been a long time coming.  This quilt was started as a "Block of the Month"  by the Town & Country Quilters, Levin in 1985 and was completed in 2014 - making it 19 years in the making.  It has been partly handquilted and partly machine quilted by Paula Shailer (Rabbits Foot Quilting).
I am so pleased to have this huge 100" square quilt now proudly in its new home on a queen size bed.  


My second UFO to be completed is:-   


My Orange Symposium Committee Waistcoat
which MUST be finished by the end of November 2014.  Update on progress to follow..................

Tuesday 21 October 2014

The Madness Begins.... (a.k.a. The Beginning of Omigosh)

I couldn't resist.... last night I cleared a workable space in my sewing room, ignored the mountain of paperwork on my desk, set the kids to making dinner, and went to make a test block of the Omigosh quilt.  An hour or two later I decided that "Omigosh" is not an entirely accurate name.  A more appropriate one would be "Omigod WTF Was I Thinking!"


The pieces are small, no doubt about that - cutting 1" strips and making them into four patches results in very small blocks.


Adding the setting triangles doesn't really improve the size issues.

And then when you've made one little four patch with triangles, and you're sitting back feeling rather pleased with yourself and patting yourself on the back... reality jumps up and smacks you across the face - you gotta make MORE!!  Lots, lots more!


And that's just for the Churn Dash block - let's not even mention the nine patches which haven't been constructed yet!  How big are we making this quilt again?

Vickie

Sunday 19 October 2014

Size Doesn't Matter

It may be small but it’s a finish.......

Can you believe that this has been waiting to be filled and slipstitched closed since our Quilt Retreat in June!  Does the word useless come to mind.

We won’t mention Vickie’s ‘marvelous’ new plan to convince us all to do Sue Garman’s Omigosh quilt, I should be honest and admit that it didn’t take much arm twisting. Sue Garman is one of my favourite designers.  I have made her Twas the Night Before Christmas which I hand appliquéd and Afternoon Delight which I am working on at the mo is one of hers as well.   I feel that one will be on our UFO list for a very very long time.  I am still deciding what colourway to do.  I really like the look of it done in the Civil War reproduction fabrics but as it is very similar (just crazier!) to Afternoon Delight I’m thinking I need to go different.  Any ideas?  I have seen it in brights, blues and solids and they all look great.

I am hereby blocking all incoming messages from Vickie.  Next she will have me doing a Dear Jane, that will be when she starts her second ........ and she calls me CRAZY!!!!!!


Janelle 

Someone should have defined the mission statement...

Perhaps when setting up this blog we should have been a little clearer on the purpose.  The idea behind it was to finish our UFOs.  And how's that working out you ask?  Not so much!

While browsing Fabric Therapy's blog the words "going nuts" leapt off the screen.  Hmmm... sounds right up my alley that does!  Further down the page was this gem made by Tazzie Quilts and designed by Sue Garman (the designer of one of Janelle's 'what was I thinking' projects).



Now that is what you call a scrap busting quilt.  And just in case you're not seeing the 'nuts' bit - those little nine patches FINISH at 1.5" square.  No, that's not a typo, the whole nine patch will measure just one and a half inches.

As everyone knows, insanity loves company.  I emailed the craziest person I know (Janelle), and ever so politely suggested we each make one of these quilts.  Once she picked herself up off the floor (after falling off her chair in excitement, I'm sure) she agreed it was a marvelous idea, and she then suggested Leigh and Sara be roped in invited to participate.  And it's true, insanity is catching, because they also agreed it was a marvelous idea!  Well, they laughed for quite a while and then there were some rude words thrown my way.  But after that, I'm sure they all said, "Marvelous, when do we start?"    

Wednesday 15 October 2014

The reasons why...

My biggest reason excuse lately for not getting much sewing done has been issues with my right shoulder.  Now that it's finally healing well, I have to own up to the fact that the biggest problem is actually that my room resembles a tip more than it does a sewing room.


Therefore, my first mission in The Great UFO Objective (vs. 2014) is to sort my room into some kind of order.  Not an easy task - it is located at the end of the house and has tended to become a bit of a dumping ground.  It's hard to know where to start!

Vickie





Tuesday 14 October 2014

UFO = Monkeys

This is a quilt that I struggled to finish because it was so not my style.  Fabrics were chosen to match my daughter’s room and she wanted big squares.  The piecing was done very quickly but then I struggled to get onto the next stage as it just felt like a waste of my quilting time, I had far more exciting things to do J.  

After much hassling from my daughter I decided I needed to get the monkey off my back.   She is very happy with it and it is lovely and warm and more importantly it is finished.



I am still plodding away on my ‘Afternoon Delight Quilt’ designed by Sue Garman.  Need 320 tiny nine patches made -  hmmm what was I thinking. 

Link to: Sue Garman's Blog 

Sue Garman's completed quilt "Afternoon Delight"


I really want to get the Christmas wall hanging and Christmas table runner finished and ticked of my UFO list by December (thats DECEMBER 2014!!! Just so I can’t say “I didn’t say which December“ ;-) )  so they will be my priority over the next 6 weeks.  Neither of them have much to be done so it shouldn’t be too demanding.  The wall hanging stalled because I struggled to come up with an idea for quilting the large moon so I will see how I go.

And just to keep me motivated...



Janelle Gattsche