UFO Busting #49

This week has been all about finding balance.  Balance juggling old projects and new ones.  Balance in using time for quilting and dealing when there is no time quilting can be done.  The stars aligned and I was able to find a bit of both.

My old--I pulled out a UFO that is on my PhD (projects half done) list and decided it is high time to get it quilted.  Bundle Buster Baby Quilt will be seeing its finish soon.

I'm trying my hand at an all over design and hope that the squarish swirls do this quilt justice.

My current--to keep things in the here and now moving in the right direction.  I focused my attention to the Pat Sloan A Flower Bouquet QAL.  Last weekend Pat released the two setting instructions/designs for the quilt along.  I, of course, will be choosing the asymmetrical design.  Part of the design is adding different strips to off set the blocks.  This made me realize, to the drawing board I must go to pull additional fabric from the stash!

The drawing board and design wall must be one and the same because that's where I ultimately ended up.  I tried different combinations of stash fabrics until I landed on something that felt right.

I'm glad this happened, because adding the new fabrics allowed me to pull this gray Grunge fabric for this week's block, Containers.

My new--hand piecing.  Yep you read that correctly.  Most of last weekend was spent hours away from home at my daughter's archery tournament, which was running behind.  We ended up not getting home till almost 2 AM, but that's a different story.  All of that away time and seeing several people participating in Elm Street Quilt's Hand Piecing QAL got me to thinking...why am I not participating??  Finding yourself with hours to kill miles from home is the perfect time to give it a try!

So I have prepped the pieces for the first block a basic four patch and I'm ready to give it a go.  Now if the mood strikes me and I can't be near my machine, I can work on a project anytime, anywhere.

Now let's see what was going down at last week's party.  We had a UFO finish!!!  Gail at Quilting Gail celebrated her first UFO finish for the year!!  That's a lot to cheer about.

For those of you who do not know Gail, she hosts the PhD (projects half finished) program over at her blog.  The goal is to finish at least 12 UFO's in 2019 and you earn your PhD bragging rights.  That's a huge thing.  Twelve projects no longer crying on your shelves, begging to be finished.  Plus it encourages you to finish all projects you start this year as well.  Make sure you hop over to congratulate Gail and read more about getting your PhD.

Now let's see what you've been up to this week.  Put down that box of chocolates long enough to link up and tell us about it below!  I'm using the new Inlinkz for the party this week...fingers crossed it works.

Inlinkz Link Party

One thing is for certain...our behinds may have been dragging when we rolled in Sunday morning, but it was all worth it.  I'm happy to say baby girl (can I call her that when she's technically and adult?) won first place for the high school girl division at the tournament.  Hopefully, she has just as good of a shoot today.

Island Batik-Magnificent Minis

I'm so excited to show you my first complete challenge for Island Batik.  This month our challenge was to create a miniature quilt no larger than 24" square for the Magnificent Mini Challenge using fabrics provided to us by Island Batik.

UFO Busting #48

Great news!  The ground hog saw his shadow, so an early Spring is ahead.  I do hope for the little fellows sake, he's right.  We would hate to fire him and hire a new one.  No sleeping for the ground hog equals no sleeping for the Tisha.  This week I managed to sneak in as much sewing time as I could.  I have a long list of things I want to cross off and February is the shortest of them all.

The retreat puppy quilt has been all pieced together.  This makes me so happy.  I can't wait to get it all basted up and headed toward a finish.  I can see me and this pack of puppies enjoying a warm cup of tea and a good book.

Block 6, Garden Inspirations, of Pat Sloan's A Flower Bouquet QAL found it's way to a finish.

And three more little doll gowns managed to get cut out.  These should sew up super quick.

Most of the other quilting that happened this week fell under the planning category, leaving me with not much to show for it.  Everything in its time.

Now let's take a peak at what all linky dance moves you were up to last week.  Since Valentines Day is right around the corner, let's check out this stunning red and white quilt pieced by Chris at Chris Knits Sews.

This beautiful Feathered Star Quilt lived quite a long time in UFO land but that is 100% okay, because Chris's quilt has come alive as a finish.  She recently had her quilt quilted by a talented friend and man did she add some yummy quilty texture to this baby!  Make sure you hop over to Chris's page and check out all the details on this quilt.  If you aren't hit by Cupid's quilty arrow, I will be shocked.

Now let's see what you've been up to this week.  Link up below and tell us all about it.  We want to fall in love with your projects too.

An InLinkz Link-up

Next week, I will be sharing with you my first completed challenge project as an Island Batik Ambassador.  I can't wait to show you all the fun I packed into this quilt.  It may be mini, but I promise it will be exploding with fun.

BOM-Day Dreaming of Layouts

Last year's break from blocks of the month must have recharged my quilt along juices.  I am keeping right up with Pat Sloan's Out of this World monthly quilt along and the weekly quilt along A Flower Bouquet.  The first of February brought the second block in the Out of this World QAL, Space Shows.

Island Batik---the Magic Boxes

This is the moment you have been waiting for.  A huge moment.  A box of fabric you have been anticipating for a week arrives and your mind is blown the moment you cut the tape sealing the box.  It's like Christmas, your birthday and any other present receiving holiday all wrapped up into one.  It's the moment your first shipment of fabric from the Island Batik Ambassador program arrives.  All you can do is sit and bask in the glowing light that is all those beautiful hand dyed fabrics.  Wait, what's that noise?  Is that actual angels singing?  You are paralyzed...you can't...even...anything...

Then you slap yourself back to reality, grab the camera and start snapping pictures because fabric this beautiful...must be shared! (Warning what follows is a post full of many pictures of beautiful fabrics!)

Look at all that quilting yumminess!!!

UFO Busting #47

I decided about Wednesday that the party must happen!  No dark clouds raining on my parade this week.  Happiness is a choice and sometimes that's a hard thing to remember.  I got to celebrate my first finish of the year this week, with my guild challenge project--When You Wish--Mountaineer Style.

I've also decided to reflect on my current goals and how I'm doing on getting my PhD with Gail at Quilting Gail.  So far my UFO's are a bust...not a good bust.  This is what the project list looks like as of now.

PhD List 2019		Finished		Starts in 2019		Started	In Progress	Finished
Morning Star				Out of This World BOM		January	x
Ocean Sky				A Flower Bouquet		January	x
Variable Star				Dog Gone Cute		January	x
Psychedelic Cat Lady				Roses and Arrows QAL		January
Holly Jolly Christmas				IB February Challenge		January	x
Unicorn Quilt				IB March Challenge		January	x
Up From Here				Guild Two Color Challenge		January		January
Bundle Buster Baby Quilt				IB April Challenge
Christmas Star Blossom				IB May Challenge
Midnight Mystery				IB June Challenge
My Secret Garden				IB July Challenge
Four Square & Left Over				IB August Challenge

No UFO's are finished, but I have finished a project started this year.  So to stay on task I have decied to set some specific goals for the month of February.  

When You Wish-Mountaineer Style

This is my first official finish for 2019!!  At the beginning of January I issued my quilt guild's first challenge project (with hopes to do a total of four this year); make anything but only using two colors.  You can use various shades of the two colors but only two colors.  I decided it get working on mine ASAP.

I have been crushing on this free baby quilt pattern called When You Wish at Bonjour Quilts for a while now and decided now is the time.  I am happy to report that this mini quilt is 100% from the stash.  No new fabrics were purchased to make this quilt.  For my color scheme, I went with one of my favorite combos...blue and yellow/gold.  Queue the WVU fight song!