Friday, November 30, 2018

Over Stuffed with Stuff

Earlier this month I went to the nearby big town to check out an Art Quilt Group. I was told to bring show and tell, so I did. I enjoyed the meeting and joined the group. I will be going to the next meeting on Tuesday. Anyway, here is a link to their blog, check out the show and tell section!


On to the next UFO. This guy is from about 2003 or 04. Ricky Tims had come to teach his Caveman Quilting class to the Sacramento guild and I was able to secure a seat in the class. It was a wonderful class on freeform cutting. I enjoyed it greatly. I use a lot of freeform cutting in my work. I credit this class with inspiring some of my cutting techniques. So why did I not complete the class project? Hmm? Who knows.

My progress in class
I had all but two borders completed on the first quilt. The technique of cutting the flower yields 2 of them. I will make the second into another piece at a later time. I really like this project, so it puzzles me why I never buckled down to finish it. And over the years it has only come up for air once or twice. Other UFO's haunt me frequently.

The Mirror image flower
Recently I have been finding things that I have been looking for easily. Since the class handout was not with the project, I went to my class handout loose-leaf binder and sure enough there it was fully protected in a plastic page protector. I was able to finish the piecing and get started on the quilting.

Flower so far
I had hoped to have this piece quilted and bound by now but we went out of town for Thanksgiving. We were gone for 5 days. Got to see the grands, so it was wonderful.

Quilting so far
Fancy, schmancy whiskey glasses
A month or so ago my cousin and her husband came to visit. I offered beverages. The guys wanted to have a whiskey. I had bought some pretty, fancy schmancy whiskey glasses. Still in the box. Went looking for them. Of course, they were no where to be found (this was prior to my recent luck in finding things).  A few weeks later I was in the hall cupboards looking for something else and found these way back in that cupboard. I had looked there in the first place, but not far enough back. 

Which brings up my recent freak out. We have too much stuff. We downsized to a smaller house when we moved here 2 years ago.  We have a workshop for Sweetie and right now it is filled with stuff. I went out there looking for some boxes of photographs and ran into boxes of kitchen stuff. My new kitchen is small. Serviceable, but small. All the cabinets are full. I can't fit anything more in there. I need to get rid of stuff! I would like Sweetie to be able to actually work/tinker/play in his workshop. I have a much smaller sewing room than the previous house. At the old house anything I couldn't fit in the sewing room I just dumped down in the unfinished basement.  Now all the basement stuff is in the workshop.  I am going to make an effort over the next year to sort through and pare down my stuff.  






Friday, November 23, 2018

Another finished UFO

I believe it was the early 20's, possibly 2003 or 4, I took a class from Sue Hatt at Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Fest. The class was on Swedish quilts. I really enjoyed the class!  I had this piece 3/4 finished and it disappeared into the UFO box. Last month I sorted out some of my UFO blocks for Orphan Night and several projects showed up that I really wanted to complete.
11-1/2" x 24"
Detail of quilting design
I have been playing with my walking foot designs. This was fun to stitch!  I am a tucker. I feel the finished look is tidier if you leave tails and tuck them in after.  This guy had a ton of ends but I feel the end result is worth it!

We are up in the Salt Lake City area having Thanksgiving with our son and his family. No sewing going on this weekend. But spending time with the grands is totally worth it.  Hope everyone had a lovely holiday with family and friends!

Linking to:

Nina-Marie

Sarah

Laura

Beth

Judy

Beth

Emily

Nicole

Lorna

Friday, November 16, 2018

Out with the old

I have finished some small quilts recently. It feels good to check them off the list. 


12 1/2" x 12 1/2"

This little guy came from Orphan night. It was a donated block, probably from a previously taught class on Amish Small quilts. We decided that it would be ok to quilt it and then donate it back to the guild for their Mini Quilt Raffle next year. I am pleased with the way the quilting turned out.


8-1/2" x 10-1/2"
At one of my local quilt groups we had a demo on mini quilts. This little guy came from that class. The nine-patch blocks are 2 inches.  It was a fun demo.

19" x 22


Back in the late 90's I used to attend Quilting in the Tetons. It was a wonderful event. Quilt show and classes. Since there were no evening activities, it was a good one to take your spouse along. I would be in class all day and he would go mountain biking and we would have evenings together. This piece was from a class by Shelly Burge. We drafted our own version and then the geese were paper pieced. I had all the geese sewn and several of the background pieces attached and then this got set aside. I brought this along to Quit Fest to work on. Didn't get to it, but then we went to the lake and I was able to finish the top. When we got home I quilted it.

13-1/2 " x 15"
13-1/2"x 25"


 After finishing the geese quilt, the only thing I had with me to work on at the lake were the scraps of the geese quilt. It turned into 2 more quilts! These were going to be one, then the pieces just did not want to be in the same quilt. All of the fabric was in the box with the original project. Another thing that really pleases me is that even though all of the fabrics came from the late 90's all three pieces still feel contemporary today. The colors still work and do not feel dated.

It was great to finish an old project, I will continue to clear out the old.

Linking to:

Nina-Marie

Myra

Sarah

Alycia

Beth

Judy

Emily

Beth

Nicole

Lorna




Friday, November 9, 2018

Orphan Night

Last month at the Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Fest I helped with Orphan night. Everyone donated their orphan blocks and then we sorted them into coordinated bundles. At the event, groups of people took the bundles and made tops. There were tubs of fabrics that could be used for fillers. Fun times!


Some of the donated blocks
























Linking to: