UFO Busting #120

 

Happy Saturday!  Let's get our quilt on!  This week I'm celebrating an actual UFO finish.  Started in late 2017 I present to you Blue and Gold Star Cross.

I really had to rack my brain to come up with my quilting motifs.  But once I got them going they just flowed.  You can read more about the quilting of this one here.

Now that a UFO is complete, it's time to help a newer project not fall into that category.  Hopefully this weekend this little red, white and blue project will find itself basted and quilting started.  Fingers crossed.

Speaking of fingers crossed and holding breath...that's how Chris at Chris Knits Sews left me last week!  She is a woman on a mission.  She is working hard to prevent a UFO from happening.  She has a baby quilt to finish and STAT!

She left us with the pieced top and I LOVE the pattern she landed on.  I think it's perfect with these fabrics.  Like a child, I'm banging my scissors on the table yelling more!  I want to see it quilted!  Her deadline for the baby shower was today and I'm hoping she got it all finished right on time.  I'm cheering for you over here!  

Also celebrating a UFO finish with me is Bernie over at Needle and Foot Fine Fabrics.  Bernie has created the most adorable little farm quilt for her granddaughters.

I hope this sweet little quilt, absorbs lots of little giggles from the sisters as they share picnics and lay back and look at the clouds on it.  Bernie did have a little red bleeding mishap (I hate when that happens.  Why does red misbehave so badly??).  Go congratulate her on her finish and read bout how some quilty friends help Bernie save the day and get that red behaving like good fabric should!

Now let's see what you've been up to this week.  Link up below and tell us all about it!

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Star Crossed--UFO

 

I'm super excited to share another UFO finish!  This little wall hanging is from a free pattern on the Juki website called Star Cross.  I've actually made this wall hanging two other times, but decided a few years ago to go brighter in fabrics and add a bigger border.  I think it was pieced around the end of 2017 and has sat waiting ever since.

I'm actually kind of glad I drug my feet on this one.  Three years ago, I don't think I would have been brave enough to play with scallop type quilting in borders.  I would have whined and said the math's too hard.

Joke is on me.  Sometimes you don't even have to use math!  Just consistency and registration lines.

For the quilting, I went with Aurifil #2135 Yellow for the yellow, white and center blue fabrics.  For the blue fabrics and scallops in the border I used Aurifil #2775 Steel Blue.  Aurifil #2784 Dark Navy provided the match stick quilting in the border.

For the ruler work, I used Natalia Bonner's 4-in-1 and mini 4-in-1 rulers and I am IN LOVE.  Instead of having 4 or 5 rulers to juggle as I moved from motif to motif, I only had two.  I didn't lose them and I wasn't stopping every few minutes to pick a ruler up that my quilt pushed off the table.  That in and of itself was a time saver.

Though kind of time consuming, you can tell from the picture above to the picture below how all those 1/4" match stick lines help those scallops subtly stand out.  

Adding the denser quilted lines in a darker color thread really allowed the scallop quilting to take a step forward, giving the border the illusion of dimension.  Never be afraid to experiment!

From a distance, you really can't see the quilting in the border.  So I guess the question is why go to all the trouble?  Answer, it provides that extra little ah factor as you approach the quilt.  That little thing you didn't expect to find.

And just for fun, I threw in a little flange binding to really frame this one.

Star Cross is the 4th UFO I have tackled this year.  Hopefully, it won't be my last!  Now I'm headed over to Cheeky Cognoscenti to join in on her Long Arm Learning linky party and check out all the other quilty eye candy!

UFO Busting #119

 

Happy Saturday!  I'm getting kind of a late start, but better late than never.  This long weekend, has a few quilt shop stops in store for me and hopefully, a whole lot of quilting.  

I've pulled out a few smaller recent finishes hoping to baste them up and get them finished!  If I feel I need to piece something, I've pulled the Pat Sloan Out of This World quilt tops back out.  Pat started releasing blocks again last month.

And this week I celebrated a quilt top finish...the Crazy Flamingo Quilt.

There is a mistake that is driving me NUTS, but I"m leaving it.  I mathed wrong.  But hopefully, the future receiver of this quilt will never notice.  Hopefully they will be too busy looking at all those pink birds...so I need to let the quilt craziness go.  

Here are two things I'm okay with being crazy about...first is Helen at Midget Gem Quilts and her Polaroid quilt top finish.  I could show you Helen and the whole quilt top, but I'm only going to give you a snapshot (see what I did there?).

With a little help from her bee group, Helen now has a beautiful and fun quilt top to play with.  Make sure you visit to check out the entire top and read about how this little UFO came together.

Second thing I'm crazy about is Gail at Quilting Gail and her Bouquet Murder Mystery Quilt.

Gail quilted this UFO on her domestic sewing machine and man ol' man did she do an amazing job!  Make sure to visit Gail and check out some of the up close pictures of the quilting.  So much yumminess to see!

Now what do we want to see??  What you were up to last week, of course.  Link up below and show us!

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UFO Busting #118

Happy Saturday!!  Welcome back to another week of UFO busting.  Last week was so busy, I forgot to show up to my own party.  But it was all about the animals with a family trip to the zoo and I had birds on the brain.

Literally.  But that's okay because there are birds all over my sewing table.  I've been working away on the flamingo quilt.  I managed to find the perfect backing fabric at...wait for it...Walmart.

I officially have all the panel borders pieced together, so all that is left to do is trim up that panel and get this put together!  To celebrate I even matched my manicure to my fabrics.

My other exciting news, is I finally have my own computer again.  I will no longer have to borrow one to keep up with the blog!  This also means I can break out the EQ8 again...and I've already started.  

I LOVE a good asymmetrical sampler block quilt!  So I've decided to start designing one of my own.  Maybe host it as a quilt along?  This picture is of me playing with graph paper.  I have a more put together one going on in EQ but I'm not quite ready to share it yet.  I'd love to hear if you'd be interested in another quilt along...maybe next year?

Enough about me, let's see what you were up to last party.  I wasn't the only one with birds on the brain.  First up we have Anja over at Anja Quilts and her finished Penguin UFO quilt!

Look at all those handsome penguins!  They look all dressed up and very dapper.  Make sure you hop over and congratulate Anja on her finish.  She got all her penguins in a row.

Next up we have, Donna Lee at DonnaLeeQ and some special pillow cases she made for her daughter. Peacocks!

When her daughter had a special request for pillow shams and cases to match her bed spread, Donna did what any mother would do, she made pillow cases and shams.  Make sure you check out her finished project and bonus towels.  Also, there maybe the cutest picture of a chicken I've ever seen!  But I'm not giving that away...so go see!

Now it's time to see what you were up to last week.  Link up below and tell us all about it.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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UFO Busting #117

 

Happy Saturday!!!  I swear time is speeding up.  It feels like I just wrote last week's post.  Even though the clock keeps ticking, I did get all my blocks for the Christmas coin quilt pieced.  I just forgot to grab a photo of them.  A little adventure on my day off lead me to a town 45 minutes away with a JoAnn Fabric.  I decided to indulge in a little retail therapy.

It all started with that blue cherry print screaming my name and the other fabrics just fell in line.  Don't you hate when that happens?  I know, I don't either.  I have two patterns in mind for this one.  Both are patterns I've written and might just end in a give away when this top is finished.  

My next retail therapy purchase will be a surprise gift for a friend who LOVES flamingos.  Again, it started with a panel and it gained friends.

I had no idea this much flamingo fabric existed...let alone in one store.  But as one purchase leads to another, I found myself downloading a book for the Kindle.  I'm kind of excited to dig into it because it's all about how to use panels!

The book is Learn to Quilt with Panels by Carolyn Vagts (not an affiliate link).  This book is suppose to give example layouts for panels and walk you through the process of creating your own layouts using different styles of panels.  I know I have several panels just laying around in my sewing room, so any direction on using them can only lead to finished quilts.  I'm pretty excited about this book.

Enough about me, let's see what you were up to last week.  First up, we have Karen at Quilts...who is working up a storm.  She's got tiny hexies slowly growing into a quilt.  A cozy looking sweater and some hand quilting that left me drooling!

Make sure you pop over to check out everything she has going on!  It will definitely satisfy all quilt cravings you have.

Next up we have Gretchen at Gretchen's Little Corner and a quilt finish!!!  I LOVE the colors in her quilt.  I will always have a found place in my heart for blue and yellow/gold quilts.  

Not only does this quilt have beautiful fabrics, but lots of beautiful hand embroidery blocks.  Please stop by and congratulate her on this finish.  Those hand stitched blocks are definitely something to check out.

Now it's your turn.  Link up below and show us what you've been up to this week.

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UFO Busting #116

 

Happy Saturday!  Welcome back to another week of UFO Busting.  A time we cross things off our lists, add things to it and sometimes just plain ignore it.  This week I managed to squeak in a tiny amount of quilting and finished up a new project.  A stars and stripes wall hanging.

I had picked up the fat quarter bundle a while back and just love how it mimics hand dyed fabrics.  Not sure if I should keep the quilting simple or go all out.  What are your thoughts?

How about my thoughts?  I am in love with the progress that Rebecca at Cheeky Cognoscenti is making on her Moda Modern Building Blocks!

This is one of my all time favorite quilts, with my own version in some limbo of finished begging me to come back to it.  But Rebecca isn't just excited and celebrating this, she finished up her OMG goal last month, which deserves huge pats on the back!  Any time you can cross something off a list it is celebration time.  She also has a linky party called Long Arm Learning that kicked off last week.

Don't let the title fool you.  This party is for everyone, long arm and domestic quilters too.  I think we can all learn from each other.  So make sure you visit Rebecca and learn about her party and congratulate her on the awesome week.

So now it's your turn.  What have you been up to this past week?  Link up below and tell us all about it.

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UFO Busting #115

It's Saturday!  And it's time to get down to some UFO Busting.  UFO Busting what does that meaning?  Maybe it means you are slaying those unfinished projects with finishes happening all around you.  Maybe it means your UFOing is a bust and you have new projects ever where.  What ever it means to you, I do hope you'll join in our party and link up below.  

This week, my UFOing was a bust and not a one was touched.  I did celebrate a 2020 finish of two baby quilts made from a bento box pattern.

You can read more about these super quick and easy baby quilts here.

I decided this week it was time to get back on track and make a to-do list since nothing seems to be getting ta-done.  One thing I forgot to put on my list that had to take precedence was face masks for a certain collage girl.  Time flies and this Sunday my niece will be returning back to college and needed super cool masks to take with her.  Aunt Tish to the rescue.

Hopefully she will be stylin' and profilin' in her new 3D masks.  

Now it's time to buckle down and concentrate on that list.  Tuesday will be here before you know it and it will be time to see how I did.

Let's see that you were up to at the last party.  First up we have Maggie at Making a Lather celebrating a UFO finish, her 2018 Square Dance finish.

Make sure you stop by to congratulate her on her finish and read about the fun little bit that's on the back of the quilt.  I think she just saved some patchwork blocks from becoming a UFO.

Next up we have Gretchen at Gretchen's Little Corner and she's been seeing stars...Ohio Stars.

These stars are part of her rainbow scrap challenge project.  I just adore the civil war fabrics she is using and can't wait to see the whole thing finished!  Stop by and check our her progress.

Now it's your turn.  Link up below and tell us what you have been up to this week.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter