It’s Kim’s fault….

If you read Peaches in Stitches, you’ll understand.

It’s that time of year to review what I’ve accomplished/completed and what I have left to do.  UFO review time.

Over the next week or so I’ll share pictures of my completed project (kinda a year in review – and no I still don’t have a working camera and I still have so much to share) and share my re-evaluated UFO’s.  Which means, I will most likely be giving away some……unsure how I plan to do that part, but it will involve audience paticipation!

Check out Kim’s handy UFO worksheet and share what you do to keep y0ur UFO’s organized, please.

Maybe we can work together and knock them out in 2010?  Anyone else up to the challenge?

Park City Girl: Quilt Festival – Fall 2009

I found this link from Ms. Amy’s blog (her entry for this festival is here) last week and decided I wanted to play along.  I have several quilts I love, but finding the right one with a good story to share is difficult.

Blizzard of 2000 Quilt aka My Millennium Quilt

Size: 80″ x 84″

Fabric Sources: 2.5″ squares, Perfume Blocks, Purple front fabric all acquired from online swaps in 1999.  Backing purchased in 2002.  Binding was purchased from Patches in the process of quilting.

Quilted By: The Patches Quilting Shoppe, Mt. Airy, Maryland

The Quilt Story:

During 1999, I was active online in many quilting communities.  One of the easiest swaps and the most popular swap was the Millennium Swap.  Cutting 2.5″ squares and adding a signature square, pop in the mail and receive a new package back from someone else.  I sent/received over 200 packets – yes.  Over 200.

Another swap I did in 1999, was a Millennium fabric perfume bottle swap hosted at The Quilting Post. I received 10 blocks total in that swap.

Way back in February 2000, we had one of our famous “North Easters” snow storms and in the process I was out of work for several days.  This is when I become creative and put together my quilt top.  In two days it was completed.

Using only greens and purples squares from the Millennium Swap and my perfume blocks (along with 2 I made).  Turned the whole thing on point and used some fabric that was given to me by another online quilt friend.

It took me 6 years to find someone to finally quilt it – I decided it was easier and simpler than me trying to do it myself with limited space.

It was finally handed to me completely quilting in variegated thread on December 9th, 2006.  The cost for quilting was $300, so worth the final results.

It is one of my winter quilts, because it is soo heavy – I might be pulling it out real soon here.

Here are few more detailed images:

Pictures!!!

Wow, apparently I’ve been holding out….lots of fun pictures!

First non-quilty pictures and involves animals….meet Mr. Robin. He is one of many robins who have arrived this spring in my yard fighting for a mate and dominance in the yard. Well, apparently he thinks his reflection is a big threat and proceeded to peck the heck out of my poor van’s window to show who’s boss. This wasn’t the last time I’ve seen him do this —I caught him in the act again the next morning on the front of the van fighting with his reflection!

Next picture is another spring related picture…my kitties enjoy the view from the back door when it’s open. I have had to install a “lock” so the kitties don’t open the screen door.

One more non-quilty picture and this one involves my Aerogarden….I can’t say enough, this is just the coolest thing ever!! It’s been 3 weeks now and I have lots of green! It’s almost harvest time:

More pictures…..can you stand it? Now for quilty images.

I signed up for a mini birthday block swap back in February and being my birthday is in April I have already received my first block from Linda Schultn. I asked for pink and white blocks to add to the Quilt Pink project I’m still working on (unfortunately those tops won’t make it into this years auctions, but definitely for next year):

Completed another quilt and presented it to the new owner yesterday. I love getting such a warm fuzzy reaction when folks see my quilts. This is Tara’s Comfort Knot Again the crazy color fabric represents the chaos of the world and the knot (being Celtic and mom/dad have irish in them) represents the calm, love and comfort of the family to protect Tara. The backing with dragons is to represent her daddy – he goes by the name of Dragon at our local Ren Faire. It is 48″ square.

And finally, MORE BINDING! I finished cutting the remaining tops bindings last night and going to be sewing/ironing them today….I’ll post my final total later on, but I love taking pictures and look how cool this is:

I do have one more series of pictures to share, but I need to retake them — they were blurry. My husband finally put up my mini quilt wire hanger that runs the width of my sewing area about 12 feet.

Off I go to sew, sew, sew.

another project done. . .

the Four Seasons “Winter” Swap is done. It will be on its way to its new owner tomorrow. Not showing it all, but I again wish I had made it for myself.

Now what to play with before I go to work and host our first Embroidery Club….

Sewing and more sewing….

I’ve been sick all weekend….very sick, I think I slept about 16 hours just on Sunday. But I’m starting to feel a little better.

I dug out an UFO that was in my “weekender” pile (I’ve broken my UFO’s down for easier completion) and it worked….I finished a quick top yesterday. I honestly have no clue or desire to keep or who to give this too, but at least it’s off my UFO list and on my Just Tops list now.

And this morning I “whipped” up my challenge block for the shop, can you guess which fabric was the challenge? I’ve had this for 4 weeks, so it was about time I did it.

Next up is my Winter Swap quilt, which should be done by end of week.

Stay tune, Manic Mondays are back and will be posted later today with 3 offerings!

My Challenge Answers

I hope to see many of your own answers to my challenge. But for now here are mine:

1. I have 2 slide shows, one to show off my completed projects and second one to prove I do make large quilt tops – - just don’t like the quilting part.

First slide show is 27 completed projects in 2007 – meaning they are done with binding and 60% of them were given to someone else.

Second slide show is to show off I do make tops, but don’t like the quilting part – so, I end up with many completed tops. One of my goals this year is to get them all quilted. Keep in mind, I do have several other tops from before 2007 that also need to be quilted.

2. My UFO list is still long – I blame working at a quilting shop. I don’t count completed tops as UFO’s, because I plan to send them out to be quilted. I hope to cut this list down to 15 UFO’s within the next month, right now my list is well over 50.
~ 16 tops to be quilted
~ Sunflower Quilt for my bed – still working on the “name”
~ Tara’s Baby Quilt
~ Dear Jane – ongoing project, figuring another 2 years to fully complete-hoping to complete at least the blocks this year
~ Circled by Pirates – for me
~ The Dread Pirate Roberts Quilt – for my son
~ Stars Around the Garden
~ Beachy-Tiki Quilt
~ Quilt Pink Tops – probably 3 before February, so shop can quilt and donate
~ Christmas Presents Quilt
~ Yellow Brick Road Christmas
~ Coffee Cups
~ Batik Block Kit
…..need to finish going through my UFO excel spreadsheet and update

3. My 2008 Goals:
~ officially have a sewing studio set up
~ get quilted my tops previously done before 2008 – 16 total
~ keep a month goal list and accomplish at least 70% of it
~ visit 2 quilt shows
~ visit 10 new quilt shops (where ever I may travel)
~ finish a queen size quilt for my bed
~ do a quilting retreat

Quilty Stuff!!

First a very BIG HUGE thank you to my SSCS partner….who ever she may be in the Netherlands….still no clue who it is. This is what she made just for me:

And I have been sewing a little bit and completed 2 more runners – better late than never and I’ll have these in the mail next week.

So, would my SSCS, please step forward and let me know who you are? Thank you again for the beautiful gifts – they will be used!!

more pictures….

I got two more things off my list….

first my Civil War Club project for January. I designed this using 3 of the blocks from the book Civil War Love Letters. Done – completely!!!

And a quilt as your go table runner. It took my 2 hours!!!!! Well, I need to finish the binding, but it’s done!!! I’m going to whipped out of few of these for gifts this week!!! Soooo, easy!

Now, need to finished up my RRBlogger Block and SSCS this week!! I’m cruising!!

Picture pages. . .

Ok, I honestly have been sewing over the few weeks an I have finished several things…

Finally, sharing my picture of my pumpkin block (that I had to redo twice). This was done for a mini swap group. I did get those blocks and I’ll share them later….

Also finished my first fabric book to go along with the baby quilt I’m working on (which will be the next picture):

Only 20 more blocks to go on this top–it’s from Celtic Pieced Illusions and it looks wild with the background fabric, but I’m hopeful the knot work will bring some calm for this baby quilt.

Finally hand sewn the binding on this table runner, need to remove of tops to be quilted/bound.

And 95% done with this holiday runner, that need just a little more quilting to hold down the red ribbon and quilt the white stars.

Oh, almost forgot my red/black/white civil war prints for my club…hope to actually finish this mini runner tomorrow. These are just 2 out of 3 blocks I have done for it.

More to come…..

Show & Tell time!!

aka…picture pages!!

Here’s what I’ve been working on this weekend….

First my selection in the new BOM over in LJ land:

And here’s my first block – Card Trick. Not overly happy with it, but the directions were for 2 colors for the cards and I used 4, so winging the dimensions to work right was a challenge.

And another table runner, I finished the binding on Friday night and most likely will sell this.

Now after my day of sewing yesterday (more yakking than sewing and ended up assisting customers), I came home and started a serious deep cleaning project. I’m about 2/3’s through it – 6 bags of craft, sewing, cross stitching and quilting supplies (going to free cycle) and rearranging my sewing stuff….I need more convienent shelving units and more usable space. With floor board heating it limits a lot.

So, any how when Carrie comes over on Wednesday she gets to see my newly arranged sewing area! Whew….I’m beat!