1st Quarter of the 2018 Finish-A-Long Finishes.

The 2018 Finish-A-Long really does help me to organize and push myself to complete many of my UFOs (unfinished objects) and believe me there are many of them.  So I am trying to follow She Can Quilt who iss  continuing to do a 2018 finish a long which is made up in quarters.  It's a low pressure community group that encourages you to make a list of projects that have already been started but need to be finished, and boy, do I qualify for that!  

As I explained in a different blog post you link up at the beginning of a quarter and then at the end of the quarter you link up a link for each item on your list that you finished. Each link is an entry into the random draw for great prizes sponsored by our generous sponsors. There is no penalty for not finishing something on your list but the rewards are great, from material to patterns to gift cards.  The encouragement is tremendous.  And I'm really in good shape this term because I really like the Finish-A-Long.

This term it's all about finishing and not starting a new one until I clean my desk up.  Sometime even though it looks organized and it WAS organized, it gets out of hand, especially when you're Attention Deficit.  I have trouble concentrating on one thing at a time.  Well, it's great for me to work on more than one project because I get bored quickly.  But with the amount of quilts I have going right now, I need to stop, and get some of them done now.   I made a promise two years ago of not buying without finishing two quilts to get the numbers down.  I was doing great, then for some reason I started again (three BOMs this year and I know I need to stop now) so listing what I will complete will definitely help get me get back on track.

So what have I completed?   Here they are.  Only two of them, but they've been on my list a number of times and I'm very pleased with finishing them.  I also have a couple of others that were on the list but not fully completed, so they're going on the next quarter, and should be completed quickly.  Here they are:

(1)  My Vice Versa quilt which is 5 years old, and all pieced blocks.  But not together.  The quilt project is from the Sister Sampler quilts by AnnaMarie Chany. It's a wonderful book, with three different samplers you can do with friends.  It looked like a big mess (see below) but it's done now...  And on my bed.  The before:     

The after:

See the blog entry at One Monthly Goal for January.

(2)  I said that I wanted to make a quilt using 2 and a half inch strips for a quilt for the back of my couch.  I had the strips in grays and browns in batik so I was looking for a square around a smaller square.  Well I finished that quilt as well in January, an extra with my OMG (one monthly goal) quilt.  Here's what it looks like and you can see the blog entry here...

Exactly where I wanted it hanging.

Hot the design I wanted but one that worked out really well

But there are a few extra that were not part of my goal.  The Midnight quilter's quilts for premature babies (when I saw this quilts online for free at Craftsy, I just had to complete it.  It's called All Roads Quilt Pattern and this is the link to it.  But make sure you're logged into Craftsy to get it.

There's two of them.  I need to make sure quilts for the premature babies at the Vancouver Hospital, I wanted to make one a month, but I'm a little behind  :)   This will make three (did one previously) and I'm still three behind.  But looking great.  

That's it.  All done.   Good work for all of this so far.  I'm pleased.  Hooking up to the quarterly settings with She Can Quilt. for 2018 Finish-A-Long

OMG for January Completed!

 It's the end of the month, and the start of February.  I can't believe how time is flying.  A month of 2018 already done??!!  And what do I have done you ask? well, I got my Monthly goal completed!!  

Not only completed, but I even added a bit to make the ViceVersa Quilt by Two Sisters to make it a queen instead of the lap quilt.  Why?  I have enough lap quilts, and you never had enough quilt tops for your bed to change with the seasons or change with your mood.  I know, I know, not everyone is like that, but I am.  

This quilt is five years old.  It was a BOM that I joined ages ago.  I went out and bought some beautiful material that was very old fashion for a quilt that is quite modern because I wanted to see the effects, and it's so different I don't know what to make of it.  You tell me???!!

Here's what I started with this month.  What's in the box and almost all of the blocks completed except for one.  Every month we did two blocks, the same block but the inverse of it.  To the right you can see two star blocks, one with all the fabric in the center, and the other with pink in the middle and the same fabric around the star.  Can you tell where it is?

And now take a look at the quilt in it's almost completed form. It's form sister Sampler quilts by AnnaMarie Chany. It is quilted, with straight stitch, and stitch in the ditch.  Then some other places with stitching straight in larger sections.  Take a look.

Completed

Notice the quilting

Vice versa means opposite blocks

I added bigger strips in the centres to make the quilt bigger

Look at the quilting.

See the beautiful colours, it does look like this.

So I've completed what I said I would do.  And to top it off, it's on my bed right now.  It looks fantastic, and really lights up the room with the vibrant colours.  I think this quilt is one that is truly old fashion, with such a modern design.  I love it.

But there's more than that to show you.  I made another lap quilt.  This one was made with batiques, a jelly roll of beautiful browns and oranges.  Wonderful design as well.  The pattern is called blue glass but doing it with all of these colours it makes me think of Africa, because some of the patterns on the fabric look like animal skins.  It's perfect for my sofa.

Look how great it all matches.

Stitched in the ditch.

Look at the quilting around the border.

Been pushing my comfort zone with free style quilting.

Enjoyed it.

Hooking up with the OMG club (One more gone) with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly goal.for quilts that have been started and not completed since the Vice Versa quilt is five years old.   The jelly roll was a year old (saving it for a rainy day - and in BC that's been all month long  :)

This is also two quilts that have been on my list for completed quilts in this quarter of the year for the Finishing Club.  I still have 10 more to go....

The 2018 Finish-a-Long is coming

I'm so pleased!!!  She Can Quilt is  continuing to do a 2018 finish a long which is made up in quarters.  It's a low pressure community group that encourages you to make a list of projects that have already been started but need to be finished, and boy, do I qualify for that!  I have tons of UFOs, some are more than 5 years old.  When I joined a number of years ago, I found it really motivated me to complete my UFOs and rewarded me sometimes with a prize.  You see you link up at the beginning of a quarter and then at the end of the quarter you link up a link for each item on your list that you finished. Each link is an entry into the random draw for great prizes sponsored by our generous sponsors. There is no penalty for not finishing something on your list but the rewards are great, from material to patterns to gift cards.  I'm very excited to continue on as I've completed a number of my UFOs because of this encouragement.  And I know I'll continue on.

I continue to have a list, and buying patterns often, wanting to make more and more of the beautiful designs I see, be a part of the online BOM's out there, the list keeps growing and growing, so I need to stop or control this little impulses of mine  :)

But there are a number of quilts that I've started, then started other ones without finishing and I made a promise two years ago of not buying without finishing two quilts to get the numbers down.  I was doing great, then for some reason I started again (three BOMs this year and I know I need to stop now) so the Finish a long will definitely help get me back on goal.

What's on the list for January?  I''m keeping the number low this quarter so I can feel the success more.  Here they are:

(1)  I need to finish quilting my Aunt's Quilt.  I'm bring the quilt to her this summer.  Using small squares in neutral threats all over it.

(2)  My Vice Versa quilt which is 5 years old, and all pieced blocks.  But not together.  The quilt project is from the Sister Sampler quilts by AnnaMarie Chany. It's a wonderful book, with three different samplers you can do with friends. All use traditional blocks with a modern twist as you can see from some of the blocks I have completed.  Same block pattern, but using the opposite of materials to make different blocks.   It looks like a big mess below but when it's done it should be spectacular.  The only problem is that the quilt finishes as a twin, and I want a queen so I'll be doing some edits as I go along.  This is also my One Montly Project as well.     

(3) My new bard door pattern.  I have one section almost completed, and have to make the other one.  It's a pattern form SewKindOfWonderful from their book "One Wonderful Curve".  The book uses the curve ruler, which makes all curves so easy to complete, I'm just getting side tracked to complete this one.  It's definitely on my radar this quarter.

(4)   This quilt is a Pixel Quilt class from Caro Sheridan on Craftsy, a free class with the pattern.  It's the class that taught me how to do my Sunflower Quilt.  I enjoyed that so much there's the drive to complete a second one.  This is the quilt for me.

(5)  This last one is called the Midnight Garden.  I have all the blocks completed but one. When that's completed, I have to do the trim outside on all of it which is small 2 and a half squares of different greens.  It's a wool quilt so that will take time as well to do, and I want to make it queen size which means I ned to add something to the overhanging sections, a rabbit by flowers maybe.  We'll see and hopefully, so will you.  Here's the pattern picture:

I'll need to buy some black material as well for the edges.

(6)  I have the material and the pattern from to make a Paper Piecing Star Wars Characters pattern, that I would love to do.  The pattern is from QuietPlay and is approximately 5" x 15" in the end.  I have the material for around the wall hanging.  Want to hang it up in my classroom before I get back next week.  The pattern is free here on Craftsy.  And here is what the pattern looks like.

(7) I want to keep up with my Sewology BOM that you can find on Craftsy here at this link.  It's a great quilt for a sewer, containing things like a stitch riper, thread, a pencil for marking, all blocks to make a large square quilt.  I was behind on this quilt when I first started, but now I have three blocks completed, and I want to make sure I keep up.  It's over in April, so that's right at the end of this quarter.  That makes it great to be on this list.  I'm not showing a picture of it because I want it to be a surprise, but sufice it to say I have three blocks completed, and the rest to be done in April.  Once more, I'm trying to make it larger so I can put it on my quilt.  We'll see what happens.  

(8)  This one also, I have the pattern and the material (bought it three months ago) and never started it.  But it is just sitting there, so I would love to get it off my desk.  It's called Birds of a Feather from Sew Fresh Quilts.  I have the material to make two of the birds (the red bird and the blue jay) for my small antique table to protect it.  See the table pattern look below:

(9)  This is the final one for this quarter.  I want to make a quilt using 2 and a half inch strips for a quilt for the back of my couch.  I have the strips in grays and browns in batik so I am looking for a square around a smaller square.  We'll see what it turns out to be.  

 OK, that's nine quilts in four months, stay tuned to see how well I do.  

One Monthly Goal start for 2018

It's good to have a goal, everyone says that, and I'm really a list maker and a goal maker.  So linking up to Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal (OMG!!!!) is perfect for me.  It makes me accountable to myself and others that follow this blog (and most days it amazes me that people do follow this blog and want to see what I create).  Anyways, enough of that and on to the goal.

I have joined three (not one, not two but three!!!  Oh boy, another year of that!) BOMs online.  As always I love Quilt Doodles designs.  You have got to follow her work and see her patterns online.  She's starting a new BOM and her work is outstanding.  Want to see some that I made?  Click here to see both I made.  I gave one to a friend and I miss it so much (but it went to such a great friend) I'm considering doing another one for myself.  And along came this one so I can have another one.  The black one is right now on the back of my couch.  

So here I start again, on that one and two more that I'll talk about later.  This    post is about my goal for January!!!!

I plan on finishing my Vice Versa Quilt, one that is about 5 years old, and was sitting there with only four blocks to finish.  So this week I completed the four blocks and now I have to put them all together.  Here are the pieces all together (what a mess) and I won't reveal it until I'm done.

It's one of the patterns from the Sister Sampler Quilts by AnneMarie Chany.

Linking up to January's One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.  Thank you for this wonderful encouragement.

2nd Quarter Entry.

OK, so here it is at the end of February and where am I at with my 6 goals?  No where....  Darn....  I did do somethings, and I'll show you my new goals for this next quarter, although I have to tell you I might be moving, so 

Goal #1:  Complete the Secret Garden - A wool quilt with three blocks to go.

A 2nd goal Do at least 8 more fibre art leaves to add to one of my quilts.  The quilt is called Canadian Parks, all green, yellow and red.  The fibre art tree is finished and looks fantastic.  I have put it on the quilt, now for a few fibre leaves (at least 10 leaves) to splatter around the tree.  I also picked off the extra CA I sewed in by accident (I'm such a dunce!!!) when I was spelling Canada.  It was CANANADA, but now it's NANADA, so now I have to find the right thread (match what I have) before I fix this one.  I decided not to cover the Canada, keep it, because it looks so good.  And then I'm looking at using the Ink set to shade in the words more, so they are more noticeable.  It should look great when done, more noticeable, outstanding!!

The tree higher than 6 feet

CANANADA to unpick

  

My 3rd goal  is fibre art as well. I practised on two  different flowers for threading and now they are just sitting there.  Both were not completed, but I want to finish them when I was making the leaves. I want to add them to a sweatshirt that I'll make. That means finding material that matches, sewing the shirt, and then adding them.  A pick rose would be spectacular.  Ambitious I know, but I'll try. 

Here's my 4th goal.  This one was constant on my list.  I've  completed the "you & me" quilt.  All put together, but what it needs is quilting and that takes a long time because it's so big.....  It's a very simple project and only took a weekend but the quilting is taking forever.  I love machine quilting and I'm putting on squares all over it.  But that will take me at least two months, because you can only quilt for about 2 hours a day and then need to take a break.  That's the problem  :)   I have started though, in the upper corner and bottom section.

Here's my 5th goal.  It's one that's been on this list about five or six times.  It is for the guild show, and I need to add beads to it.  I have quilted it, and the thread is a perfect match.  I used my rulers and they certainly made the difference but the dark brown is all small pebbles to look like the sunflower seeds.  There are so many tiny circles on it.  I did one session of an hour (shoulders got sore), then another hour and a half at the end of February.   I'm so excited about this, my own design, my own pattern, everything is mine on this one.  I'm so excited!!!  But it's painful work quilting it.

Goal 6th:  This is another one that's been a constant on this list.  It's the quilting of the quilt that I made two years ago.  This quilt is spectacular, it's all done, but needed quilting.  There was a FREE class on Craftsy on how to do it.  When you finished the quilt Leah Day had a course on how to quilt each and every squares differently so you can learn about 15 different quilting ways.   I'm learning to quilt through this course, but I also love the quilt that I made because of the colours of the quilt.  Above is an example of two of the blocks that was completed.  But as usual I got side tracked with a couple of other projects that were also just laying around so I did them.  They were not on my list.  They'll be blogged in another entry.

Here was the final one. Goal 7 - The Vice Versa quilt Block of the Month Club form 2014.  I had all the blocks but the last two months done (it's two blocks a month), and then adding the plain material in between the strips.  So this one is also doable in one day.  It's the quilting that worried me with all the other quilting on this list, and I tend to quilt like crazy.  It is suggested to do straight quilting at an angle to complete this one. See an example of one of the blocks I have completed above.  The colours are very old fashion for a modern quilt, but I wanted to see what happened if you do that.  

And my final Goal  #8:  finishing a Quilty Box with a pattern to make "Pink Lemonade".  It's a strip quilt, all is ready for me.  I have cut out some, but not a lot.  Not much to show.  It's been 2 months for this one, and I want to get it done.  

And OK, I'm adding this to the list after the fact (an hour later) - challenge to myself, 3 more row by rows..... That's Goal #9

Anyways, that's my next quarter list with I'm sure a number of extras that I HAVE to stop adding.

Good luck for everyone.

3rd Quarter Update.

I had quite the list to do this 3rd period of quilting.  I've been extremely busy doing them and more.  Here are the ones that I said I would do and the finish products, side by side.

Quilting to complete

Art Deco by Siobhan Roger - COMPLETED

Garden Tea Party by the Quilting Company - Completed

    

Aurifil 2014 BOM - I call it the Secret Garden. - not completed. I added to the quilt to make it into a queen.  Did some quilting on the top, but still need to quilt the added pieces.  Doing "Quilting as you go" to this one.  NOT COMPLETED

My Sunflower Pattern that I made while learning Pixelation from a Craftsy class last year.  Darn it!!!.  I did do some quilting, all the dark quilting, but now I'm on the lighter brown.  This one will take forever!!!  NOT COMPLETED

Quilts to Make

Changing the 1st Grade Quilt by Me and My Sister Designs to a lap quilt - DONE

    

Celebrate Spring Panel Piece to be completed in the first month - I put the top together but need to quilt it.

Tulips by MH Designs - another one just sitting there.  Got this one done and on my table.  Only did four to fit my small living room table, but looks great.

  

Bowls for my mother.  NOT PART OF MY GOALS

 

BOM

• Splendid Sampler by Pat Sloan and a number of bloggers.  I had about 20 to catch up with, would of been happy with 10 in this quarter, and I think I've met my goal - 21 in total.  Look at these below but there are more now, since I set the goal (every 4 days a new one comes up).

• Canadian Mystery Quilt - Thought I would have 4 to do by the end of this quarter.  Have 3 done so far, so I'm pleased.  Was away for the last one and one was cancelled due to other blocks being given out.

DONE

And continuing on with the Midnight Garden BOM .  Wanted to do one a month and I've made it.  Four of them done. DONE

 

 

• And of course the Row by Row from last year.  Want to complete 15 this term, and get that USA  queen Row by Row quilt done.  I've already started the 2016 collection.  But did not meet my goal.  NOT DONE.

I painted the above myself, but the bottom is a christmas gift to my aunt.  With two placemats as well

The pattern above is from downtown Seattle - Undercover Quilts. - Wonderful quilt block to make - it's from the 2016 row by row entitled "Home"

EXTRAS (as usual:) Completed

Two new dish towels - pattern by Meags and me "birdie" . Material L's Modern 2015 Spring

Great background material

Front of pillow

Free pattern Spock by Vanda Chittenden found on Fandom in Stitches.



Crazy but pleased with all I have done.  Linking up with the  2016 Finish-A-Long