More UFO's Bite the Dust!

There were 6 of us at the sew-in on New Years Day. Everyone brought superbowl type snack food and everyone worked on their own projects. No sports tv or radio broadcasts could be heard; only the sound of the sewing machines and ladies chattering about fabric.

Finished the top of this batik spider web. We officially dubbed it "Piece 'O Pie" because they are more like pieces of pie than of cake! I can move this one from UFO to Ready to Quilt!

This next one I started this one just before Christmas 2006, and didn't get it done in time for gift giving, so it ended up in the UFO pile. Just needed the borders completed. It is all flannels and very scrappy. The pattern is Terry Atkinson's "Cheese and Crackers". It took longer to the borders than the inside of the quilt. The pattern wasn't with the pattern so wasn't real clear on what you were supposed to do in the corners, so I just winged it, and just used all blues (no lights) in the corners. Another one moved from the UFO list to the Ready To Quilt list.

Mini Quilting Retreat at Shadywood Quilts

Several members of the sub-bee stopped in and sewed over the vacation days after Christmas. It was nice to be able to sew on my own things and not think about customer quilts for awhile. My goal was to complete things that have been on my UFO list for awhile.



First item to mark off of the list is my Fractions Quilt that has been ready to quilt for over a year!! The status is now officially COMPLETE as in quilted and bound! Yippee!

This was a fast and easy quilt, done in batiks and metallics. Most of the fabrics were purchased at Sew Batik at MQS in 2006.

Getting Organized

Puttered around in the studio today. Yesterday, hubby built a couple more shelves for me to store some of my bolts of fabric. (That's not really a big mess on the table, I had just cut the batting for a customer quilt and layed it down when the phone rang).

I'm still getting the new studio organized. Yesterday, I turned the sewing area around, and then ended up putting it back again. To finish up, just need to hang quilts, curtains and get the remaining fabric that is still in tubs and onto shelves. Having one of my Bees over later in the month, so that will give me a nice deadline to finish it up.

Been working on UFO's. Got the Fractions quilt quilted, and the binding attached. Will sit and finish that up tomorrow evening in front of the tv. Also, worked on my Bamboo and Pinwheels quilt that our 'sub-bee' swapped blocks for in November. It's a cool pattern, and you end up with two quilts when you are done. One is Bamboo and the other is Pinwheels. Picture shown is the Bamboo quilt. Got all the triangle blocks sewn into blocks. The pinwheel blocks (the other half of the triangle) are in a nice stack for later (oops I mean another potential UFO).

Pulled out another UFO. It is a batik spiderweb quilt that I was going full guns on, then got hung up on the corners of the borders. Decided today that it wasn't that big a deal, so will finish that up first thing tomorrow.

Saturday, several of the girls (sub-bee) are coming over for an impromtu sew-in. Going to pick out the fabrics for our class later in January, and then work on UFO's. We're not buying any fabric, but plan to work on something that is in process and hopefully get finished up.

Cool new toy - Pfaff Needle Punch Machine

Felt so guilty today, as I hardly worked on customer quilts at all! However, I did do some prep work on a t- shirt quilt where the customer wants me to include all the 'stuff' including the entire back of a cheerleading jacket. The back of the jacket is curved at the top, so was debating how to add cotton or whatever to the WOOL of the jacket and make it look right.

It finally dawned on me to use my new toy that I bought at Festival in November. My Needle punch Machine! Here is a closeup of where I needle punched the heck out of the layers, then did a quick zig-sag stitch over it for good measure. The extra stitching probably was not necessary, but figured if it was laundered, that would ensure that it did not come apart.
Anyway, think it turned out pretty nicely, but still have to do some calculations to figure out how to have a 21 x 15 inch center in this quilt!

UFO's and Stashbusting

OK, it is after Christmas, I have a few days before the new year, and it is time to start considering goals and objectives for next year. I have had a huge list of UFO's and Ready to quilt items listed on the side. How many new projects will I start? How many projects have I comitted to? Oh, and the block exchanges and Mystery quilts !!

Right off the bat, my Monday Bee is doing a Charity Challenge where everyone gets a yard of the same fabric and the challenge is to complete a charity quilt by a certain date, and we all turn them in a future guild meeting. They have also discovered Dear Jane. Mine has been sitting since 2005 (see http://www.shady-wood.com/quilts/dearjane/index.htm for my DJ Journey).

I've joined a BlockBuilders Bee with Greater Houston Guild. They do 4 block exchanges each year. My Thursday Bee (original name huh- we meet on Thursdays!!) will probably do several exchanges and quite a few charity projects, not to mention road trips and retreats!

So, the question really comes down to, do I WANT to finish those UFO's? Do I just need to prioritize the list? Do I just need to cull out that list and just give in to the fact that I may never get them done?

With the new studio, I actually have room to get projects out. The ones that I really want to complete, I will set up a 15 minutes a day type of commitment to work on them. I find that actually works, and it is amazing what you can complete.