UFO Busting #1

Well it all has to start somewhere and start we shall!  Welcome to the first addition of the UFO Busting party.  A place where we can link up to talk about our UFO problems, denials, progress, successes and distractions.  If we all work together, I think we can work through our stacks big and small and see some finished quilts.

I've done a bit more work on my UFO spread sheet and categorized them by big, medium and small.  To my surprise, each size makes up about 1/3 of the list.  So I equally slack on everything, big or small, go me!

So, what are my plans?  I'd love to finish Quilting Jetgirl's Wayward Transparency before the end of the month.  Yvonne will open the finished quilt (top or quilted) on January 12th and keep it open until the 31st.  I want to be part of the party! 

My quilting plan has been a bit labor intensive and I'm half way there.  I've been trying to juggle in some curves to this very linear quilt.  It hasn't been on my UFO list for very long (and I intend to keep it that way), but I have skipped over it several times for other distractions projects.

I have two other quilts I would like to tackle this month, or at least start.

I call this one, "David's Not Turning Twenty" or "Ron's Quilt."  It started out life cut out to be a Turning Twenty.  After arranging the pieces on the floor and not liking what he picked out.  Mr. Stemple started shuffling pieces around like a mad man and happily announced he had found what he wanted.  Now he just needed his mid arm quilter to quilt it.  That was, late summer?  Would I have it finished by November, when his co-worker retired?  No problem.  He should have known better, right?  He lives with me.  

Here we are early January and it is still basted and folded in the back room.  He would like me to do wood grain in the borders around the top and bottom four patch squares and swirls in the four patches.  I'm stuck on what to do in the middle section.  Any suggestions?  Let's not let this one fester any more than it has to.

Next up is the Magnolia Mystery by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs.  Tish, why is this on your UFO list?  The final piecing instructions just came out.  Well, I pattern tested it earlier in 2017 for Cheryl, so mine has been setting around waiting for inspiration to strike.  Nothing.

Now that my quilting juices are flowing again, I think I have an idea of where this one is headed.  I can hear it calling my name, I just have to make it understand, not quite yet...not quite yet.

I have a few other projects bouncing around in my head, but I need to stay focused on these three.  Will I have a finish by next week?  Or will I crash and burn and hide under that stack of quilt tops in the back room.  Stay tuned to find out.

Now it's your turn?  What have you been up too?  Have you finally stared down your list of projects that need tackled?  Are you stuck and don't know how to finish something?  Do you have a UFO finish to celebrate.  Or are you crying because you got distracted again?  Link up, share with us and feel free to grab my button below.  We are all in this big boat together.

<div align="center">
<a href="http://www.tishnwonderland.com" rel="nofollow" title="UFO Busting"><img src="http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/TishNWonderland/UFO%20BUSTING_zpsklb0j6hk.jpg" alt="UFO Busting" width="150" style="border: none;" /></a></div>

An InLinkz Link-up

My Fisnishes are Flimsy

My finishes may be mostly flimsies, but that doesn't mean they are weak.  I can finally share this finished quilt top with you!  Cheryl has released the last piecing and setting instructions for the Magnolia Mystery Quilt.  It wasn't until I trekked (okay walked outside) into the snow (light dusting) to take this picture, that inspiration has struck with a quilting plan!  I do believe I will draw up my quilting plan, so that it doesn't escape my memory.  I have a whole folder full of good quilting intentions.

After playing with all the different layouts, I'm happy to report this is the one I have landed on.  I'm still debating borders.  I think how I decided to quilt it will help determine if I add borders.  I'm loving the look of all the straight line quilting I've seen so far with this quilt online, but I'm wondering what adding some curves to the mix would do.

Confession...I've been spending a fair amount of time with another man...Mister Domestic.  Yes, David does know, he even joined in.  Ha!  It started out with fabric pine cones.  Once Matthew posted them on Instagram, I knew I had to make them.

So far I've made a total of eight and they have been gifted to members of my guild.  I have to say they were a huge hit.  David fell in love with Matthew's woven hexie star ornaments and suggested we make some for our tree.

I followed Matthew's tutorial and cut my strips for weaving at 5".  It worked, but it was kind of a struggle to make everything fit...curse words helped.  David decided to cut his slightly bigger at 5.5" and had a much easier time with the weaving process.  If I decided to make more, I will definitely go a slightly longer length.

Next up on the finished stand, is some 1930's print signature blocks.  Our guild will be participating in another block exchange after the first of the year, making signature blocks for everyone to sign.  These particular blocks will be for a secret project, but it sure feels good to have them done ahead of schedule.

Now let's talk UFO's for a minute.  Dave and I have been doing some serious cleaning of our back room.  YIKES!  My problem is bigger than I had anticipated.  But admitting a problem is the first step.  So I think starting on Wednesday, December 20th, I will host the first UFO linky party and we will call it our Quilting Confession addition.  Think of it as a safe space to support each other and talk about our quilt project hoarding collecting.  I the first step of tackling WIP's and UFO's will be to know exactly how many you have and what they are.  Trust me, you will probably feel much better about yourself once you see my list.  I'll open the second linky around the end of the month and we can talk about what we are going to work on, maybe why it became an abandoned project and what we need to do to make it a finish...then do our best to finish it, however long we take.  So I hope you will join me next week, to have a little chat about abandoned projects and conquering our quilt finishing fears.

In the mean time, I have some smaller projects I'd like to finish before the new year.

I've gathered my threads to quilt a small Star Cross wall hanging.

And I've gathered threads to finish quilting three Americana Flags I completely forgot about.  You can find the tutorial for them here.  These poor flags have been hanging out since December 2015.  I think they deserve a finish and I'll see if I can deliver....wish me luck.

Today I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social and Midweek Makers

Magnolia Progress and Other Stuff

I occurred to me last night, that I didn't share last month's progress on the Magnolia Mystery Quilt going on right now over at Meadow Mist Designs.  October's instructions were to make Half Flying Geese Units.  

I am loving the color combination of the solid orange with the lacey paisley look of the blue and white fabrics.

November's instructions are for Flower Units.  I was so excited to see these come together.  It was easy to breeze through them, chain piecing style.

Flower unit pieces beside my favorite pin cushion.  Which just happens to be a prize I won from one of Cheryl's Mystery Parade giveaways a few years ago.

I think I see them starting to bloom.

Are we there yet??

Finished!

Oh wait, what's wrong with the one in the middle?  I guess there has to be one difficult one in every bunch.  Don't worry, it has been picked apart and corrected. 

Wait, Tish, you got all of this done over night, those instructions were released yesterday??  I'd love to fuel the rumors that I am actually a robot, or a vampire because it seems like I never sleep, but I finished these months ago.  I will always remain Cheryl's faithful mystery quilt tester for as long as she lets me :)

What I did get done last night, though, was the last two sets of Spinning Friendship blocks for the block exchange next Monday.  Nothing like cutting it close, right?

Somewhere in my messy travels I lost three HST's in the last two sets of blocks.  After some dumpster stash diving, I was able to find just enough of the one medium blue to finish the last block.  The blocks are suppose to finish at 9.5" square.  Mine are pretty darn close.  I'm a seam press open girl and for these blocks the seems had to be pressed a certain way.  I'm not feeling happy about how they all turned out.  So if they don't want to use them in the exchange, I'm 100% cool with it.  I'll turn them into something else.  I'm a realist quilter not a perfectionist one.

Even though Halloween is over, how about a quilting scary story?  A fair maiden goes into a quilt shop hoping to find just the right fabrics for a baby quilt.  She falls in love with some beautiful Moda Ambleside charms and a bolt of Michael Miller Fairy Frost.  She needs the equivalent of two charm packs of the Fair Frost.  She does the math in her head, then on her phone and confidently tells the shop worker how much she needs.  Happy with her purchase she heads home.

She spends the next few days petting the fabrics, flipping through the charms like a deck of cards, and dreaming about cutting into that Fair Frost like a beautifully frosted cake.

The moment comes.  It's perfect.  Angels are singing, I think I even heard harps playing and blue birds were flying over head.  Five inch strips were cut and subcut to form perfect(ish) squares. 

Then it happened.

The sky stared to darken.  The angels and birds disappeared and a strange thick fog started forming around her feet.  Eighty 5" squares lay before her with one more strip to cut.  She knew she only needed one more square to bring her total to the required 81.  Then the horror of her situation became clear.  All that was left before her was the sad remnant of a 4.5" strip of fabric.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!  WHY???????????????

And that was the end of our maiden.  The horror of the situation did her in and she never quilted again.  Just kidding.  She whined to her friends on Instagram about her problem and decided to take their advice and piece the strip together and cut a 5" square.  The fabric is so busy no one will notice.  The end.  Don't you love when a story has a happy ending?

Today I'm linking up with Finished or Not Friday, and Can I Get A Whoop! Whoop!

Back to QAL Work We Go

Time for a bit of a project update and what I've been up to.  I have a ton going on at work, leading a system conversion from a very archaic computer system to a much better Window based platform, so when I get home in the evenings and weekends, I'm ready to unwind and not think about work.

Above is a look at my cut pieces for the Magnolia Mystery Quilt going on now over at Meadow Mist Designs.  If you have not participated in one of Cheryl's mystery quilt alongs before, I HIGHLY encourage you to hop over there and check it out.

It's been a week or two since I have caught up on the QAL's I'm participating in, so this past week was spent mainly catching up on those.

Oh, deer, just look at that moose under the mistletoe!  The moose and deer blocks caught me up on Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilt's Have A Jolly Little Christmas Quilt.  I just realized as I'm typing this, the last block will be given to us this weekend.  Could we have a quilt finish before Christmas 2017???  I think we just might.

Next up, was the The Double Star Block in Cindy at Stitchin At Home's Medallion Quilt BOM.  I am really loving me some purple and green with this quilt.

Goodnight Moon is the next block in Pat Sloan's The Children's Library BOM.  Only two more to go and this extremely fun QAL will be coming to an end as well.  I had hoped to finish up the Aurifil BOM and show you as well, but we are not currently on speaking terms at the moment.  It is packed full of applique and at the moment, my head just isn't in that game.

Taking a break from the piecing scene, David and I borrowed my mom's garage for a basting quilt session.

We were able to baste four smaller quilts, all currently waiting for me to pick them up and quilt them.

Here is a picture of David and his Poodle Quilt.  While scrolling through Instagram, he ran across Sue at Seven Oak Street Quilt's Poodle block she made for hive queen Karen at Tu-Na Quilts.  Loving all things of the 50's; 57 Chevys, girls in poodle skirts, you get my drift.  He decided to super size the block, change the piecing up a bit and create his own throw back to the 50's with some recent fabric purchases.  I'm thinking that negative space is screaming for some fun flow quilting.  What do you think?

Even after all that was finished last weekend, I snuck in some cutting time, to cut out a quilt for my daughter's 17th birthday.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog, but just incase she does, I won't let the cat out of the bag quite yet on what it is, but it is another one of Lorna's wonderful creations.  Do I have a Sew Fresh Quilts pattern obsession?  Hmmm?

I think I have confessed before, I'm a cluttered mess.  I'm an OCD person's nightmare...ask David.  However, there comes a point about every 3-6 months I can't take it anymore; the stash starts stacking up (from growth or laziness), the sewing space becomes cluttered...I have to clean it up.

So in keeping it real here on the blog (because I keep telling myself I'm not the only one who is like this), I pulled out my fabric totes to "file" the fabrics in there correct bins.

It became clear pretty quick like, that the fabric wasn't going to fit in their respective bins.  AHHHHH.

But Caroline tried to convince me everything was okay, because she fit in this newly almost empty bin...sigh.

So after several go rounds in my head I opted to purchase three more fabric bins and do the fabric shuffle.  My whites, blues and reds are in the biggest of the totes (how patriotic of me) and everything else fell in line.  So the stash is back under control and arranged in the back room.  The cats, bless their hearts, love fabric shuffle time, because the living room is transformed into a kitten playground.

I am feeling more grounded now and believe I can create once again.  I've come to the realization that with two serious quilters in the house, something must be done.  Quilting has taken over the house.  If that sounds like a daydream, trust me it's not.  There is talk about converting our porch into a sunroom/quilting room.  I do love my porch, however, we don't use it.  Why?  Because I'm inside quilting!  This would allow us to have a dedicated room for quilting and let the dinning room be a dinning room (since I'm now cooking again, thank you Instant Pot), the spare bedroom be a bedroom and the breakfast nook be...well something other than home to my Sweet Sixteen.  But, we shall see.  A girl can always dream

Magnolia Mystery

It's my favorite time of year again, mystery quilt time over at Meadow Mist Designs!  This year's mystery is called Magnolia Mystery.  I was more than happy to pattern test the mystery quilt for Cheryl as a mystery again this year.  It's been so hard to keep quiet about it for the last several months, but I'm happy to share my progress on the quilt as the clues were revealed to me.

On July 6th, Cheryl released the fabric requirements for the quilt along.  On my trip to the quilt store I knew immediately one of the fabrics I would be using.  It was a wonderful black fabric with lots of bright flowers on it.  After going back and forth picking out coordinating colors and grabbing my favorite bolt of white on white, I had my color palette secured.

Next month the cutting instructions will be released.  If you haven't decided to play along yet, there is plenty of time.  With three fabrics and a background to pick out, really it's not that scary.  And I promise this quilt will not disappoint.  Are you playing along with this year's mystery quilt?  If sewing blindly scares the pants off you, put your pants back on.  Cheryl will email you a picture of what the finished top looks like, she just asks that you keep the final layout a secret for the others that are sewing it as a mystery.

And she has prizes!!!  At the end of the quilt along, she asks that you send her a picture of your finished top or quilt and she will create a parade of quilts on her blog, so that we can all see what everyone has made.  No blog required to play, just email her a picture.  Then she will randomly draw winners from the parade of quilts.  One thing is for certain, it is going to be a great time!  Join us all and come sew along!

Today I'm linking up with Main Crust Monday.