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 for January

Like everyone else I'm making a New Year's Resolution, but not about losing weight (started this in October and have lost 25 pounds so far), or to exercise more often (I got a new FitBit and I'm working at over 11,000 steps a month), or eat healthy (I've been doing that for two years now).  No, this year's resolution is to take it easy this time.  

My lists of things to do for One Monthly Goal have been 4 - 20 different things, which now I look back at it, I've been reacting like a mad woman trying to get all of it done.  I mean really, I'm a high school computer teacher who works very hard all day with no prep time to assess students formally in school, so I take their work home and mark it which takes approximately 2 hours a night.  Then I need to relax and de-stress by sewing quilts and painting, and I sew one to two quilts a month.  Most of the quilts are queen size.  And I go to a painting class every Monday, then come home and try to fit in painting at least 2 hours a week.  Enough already.

It's called "One Monthly Goal" for a reason.  ;)  

So here's my ONE goal.  Finish quilting my pixelated sunflower.  Anything else is a bonus.  I've sandwiched it and now for the quilting which are tiny little circles to represent the seeds, and then the pedals.  It will be beautiful when done, and this one is close to two years old, from the sewing and quilting already.  If done, the blog entry will be a post of major pictures.  I want to put this into the Fraser Valley Quilting Guild Show this June with the theme of Canada 150th.  It's my own design.  It's for the farmers of the prairies, growing sunflower crops.

Thanks for your time.  Hooking up to Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal.  

OMG for July

Well it's official.  I'm on summer holidays.  And although you would think that would give me more time to quilt, it's not so.  I had something to do or someone to visit every day this week, and next week is filled up as well.  Don't get me wrong, it's nice to catch up with everyone but seriously, there is so much to do, and quilting just gives me a moment to myself as well as relaxes me.  So I promised myself, no matter what I will take the time to sew and quilt.

So what is my goal for this month?  I'll make it very simple.  I want to finish up a number of jobs for quilting.  They're piling up.

Here are three on my list but I'll be happy with just one completed.

Deco by Siobhan Rogers

Sunflower by myself 

It's all sewn together and sandwiched, now the quilting.  A crafty class by Leah Day.

I've already done two of the blocks, and now the rest.  I love the look of this quilt. 

That's enough.  Linking up with OMG  from Red Letter Day.

Been Ages but Look what's happening

What a rough month.  Anything that can go wrong did go wrong!!!

Troubles at work, and troubles finishing my quilts for my first quilt guild entry.  I didn't do just one entry, I did 4!!!  But there was another one that I wanted to finish and that was the Norma quilt which is also called the star quilt.  There were a number of people who completed the quilt and every one of them looked different.  So I'm wondering what mine would look like if I finished it?  Hummm.....

But there were others to do and others to completed.  So here are two of them.....  (this is for you mom  ;)

The first one you've seen already, it's the first block of the month that I finished last year.  It's by Material Girls and I'm sure it's still on their web site.  It's a quilt that's made with two layer cakes and the only thing that I did different was to put a 3 inch border around every block and I used the same material instead of one of the layer cakes.  The results you've seen below:

All pebbled quilted (circular) the size of your nail on your pinky....

Then there was Gro's quilt....  Loving the colors as usual...

But this one is the killer......  This has left a permanent callus on my finger and you'll see why....  Here is one of the things I promised to complete (See my list on this link).

Done......  Well not quite.  But at this point I'm not doing anything because after a while (and it was two weeks solid every night to put all the pieces together then applique two more corners and do the vines all around, and then.....  Jee whiz, it was nuts!!!!  But Done!!!

From this...

To the completion....  Thank goodness!!! Another UFO of a year and a half done!!

But as for the other one, didn't even touch it!!  To learn to do different styles of quilting is crazy!!!  But I'll complete that one and another that I started at Sew Fresh Quilts - Elephant Parade!!! Finally I want to complete my SunFlower Pixelated quilt.  That would be three unfinished quilts in one seciton of time..  TRYING AGAIN!!

Learning to Quilt from Craftsy.

Complete the Sunflower Quilt

Elephant Parade - lots to do.

3 months worth of work. for the 2015 Finish Along

UPDATED:  This is my blog entry to state what I've finished in 3 months from January until now.  Really need to keep an eye on that so I don't miss this entry.  Here's a list of what I said I would do...

1)  Finish off the Craftsy class that was a  BOM online.  I completed it last year and it turned out to be a lap quilt.  My goal was to join another class on Craftsy that shows how to free style quilt each and every block in a different manner and since I really wanted to work on my free style, that's was my goal.  Here is the before picture:

Here is the after picture.

and here is the after picture.

All free styled "stitch in a ditch" blocks

Only one block totally done but class was
an hour long to watch and then practice.

2)  My Pixelated Quilt. I was 1/2 way done.  It's a sunflower.  I entered this in the finish along.  But didn't even get to it in January because of exams and all (I'm a teacher).  So here is a picture of what I started with in January.   

Here is the middle picture.

More rows

and now here it is completed....  The top at least!!!  I need to take a better picture...  this doesn't do it justice...

OMG, it will take a while to quilt so I need to put only this one on the next quarter group.   I really do have to do better.... 3)  This was the most important goal of the 3 months.  I entered the quilt in my guild's quilt show in June and all quilts are due in April.  It's a wool and flannel quilt that needs to be complete.  Here is what it should look like...  As I said I had to complete all corners and edges.  Took me a month to do one corner so I KNOW I had to speed it up.  I also had to   sandwich it and  hand quilt all of it.  Echo around each flower..

The Start - all 12 blocks done no corners

The end....  two corner blocks done.

First one

2nd one - they're identical, but the branches are different

So did I do all that I wanted, no, but I did move it on a little.  And I still think I can make my goals for entering these quilts in a contest.  Soooooooo  bad girl.... bad girl!!!!!  Need to get going....

First Quarter - 2015 Finish Along - What I'll do.

I had so much fun the last Finish Along with Andrianne from the On the Windy Side, I want to do it again.  I said I would finish 6 quilts and although I didn't get them done, I sure was busy getting a lot done in the months between.  Really kept me on track Katy, so here we go again.

1)  I found a free Craftsy class that is a BOM online.  Loved it!  Highly recommend it.  Look at the top below.  Turned out great in a lot of psychedelic colors.  It's a lap quilt.  But it's not quilted   I joined another class that shows how to free style quilt each and every block and I have really been working on my free style, so that's my goal.  It will take a lot of time, with 12 different styles on each block.  I figure that will take me at least three months to do.

2)  My Pixelated Quilt. I'm half way there with 2 1/2 inches squares.  It's a sunflower.  Coming along so well, But now I'm thinking of entering it in a quilter's contest, so I really should get going. 

h.

3)  This one is the most important.  It's a wool and flannel quilt that needs to be completed in 3 months because I did enter it in my Guild's Quilting show coming up in June.  And I have to not only finish the corners, but quilts each section.  Here is what it should look like...  As I said got the corners and edges to do, Sounds like just a little work, but it's so much more.  There are even more flowers then what is here.  All is on flannel as you see from some of the blocks included.  This will be the major challenge.

Good luck to me!!