In Between Long Arming

My inability to work on one project at a time is no secret.  So, I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear 100% of my time has not been spent quilting the Cabin Fever Quilt.  This week when needing a break from the quilt frame I worked a few other things in the studio.  First was catching up on the scrap half square triangles.

Most of these scraps were from this year's Quiltville Mystery quilt called Old Town and the binding for my Bumpkin Baskets quilt.

 I must say I'm proud of myself for not letting these get out of hand like I did a few years ago.  It's so much easier to deal with the scraps as they are produced.  

The real task will be using all of them in quilts before I die.

After debating with me, myself and I for the last week or so, I won the debate to remove Old Town from the design wall.  As I said back in March, I'm sick of looking at this one.

While pulling it from the wall I started thinking about my UFO's and how I always have about the same amount of them waiting to be finished.  I have enough UFO's to keep me busy for about two or three years but I keep starting new quilts.  The quilt on the frame is a UFO and will be finished soon and here I am boxing up a new UFO...HAHA!

Oh well, at least I'm making progress on something.  I know I whine a lot about UFO's.  And you're probably tired of hearing about my new plans for conquering them.   So, in true Lea Anne style I've come up with a new plan, HAHA!   NO MORE UFO PLANNING OR WHINING.  I'm just me working on whatever my fickle self decides to work on at the moment...well that's the plan for now.

On the WIP's cart is the mini scrappy basket quilt and the green gingham fabric for making pillow shams and curtains.  However, they are not top of my list right now.

When I started the basket quilt, I knew it was going to be a long-term project.  Cutting the low volume prints for this quilt took its toll on my shoulder and neck, so it's being set aside for a few days while I recover from being an old lady.  And as for the green gingham shams, I might work on them. 

 Right now, these scraps are screaming for attention.  So, I'll be working with these when I need a little sit-down time away from the quilter.  You can read more about these scraps here and here.

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The Quilters High

 Hi Quilty Addicts!  After my recent quilt finish, Delightful Daisies, I've been on a quilter's high.  I'm sure some of you can relate.  The quilt you've put so much time and effort into is finally finished and you LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!  The body puts out an intoxicating cocktail of hormones and before you know it, you're searching for the next high.  Wild eyed with quilt drool dripping from the chin, the dig for the next quick quilt fix begins.  I told myself to stop but the quilt finishing monkey on my back wouldn't listen until I found the perfect next quick quilt finish.  Oh yes!  This quilt designed by Gigi's Thimble is perfect!  

Perfect for many reasons. 

 

1. The (free) quilt pattern is called Cabin Fever and right now we are transitioning from winter to spring.  Perfect!  I don't get cabin fever in the winter but the quilt finishing monkey on my back had me feeling a little nutty and feverish.

2. It's small and will be perfect for a quick to finish, oh yes, the quicker the better.  I needed my quilt finish fix!

3. The first day of spring is March 20! Perfect!

4. The backing and binding were made and stored with the quilt years ago, perfect!

5. The backing fabric has daisies on it, my favorite flower!  Again PERFECT!

As the 70's tunes blared, the quilt top and backing were placed on floor to check for the quilt frame loading direction.  Oh, fiddlesticks.  The backing is too small.  The original plan must have been to quilt it on the sewing machine.  No worries, it's a simple fix.

As I boogied my way over to the stash cabinet, I realized the quilt finishing monkey on my back was barely hanging on.  Was this the result of the backing issue?  By the time I had found the perfect fabrics the quilt finishing high was gone. 

A quick look around the studio at the quilt blocks on the design wall and the new scrappy quilt on the cutting table and wouldn't you know it...that little monkey lost his grip and faded away.

Yes, I do love playing with my scraps.  The Cabin Fever project will need to wait.  Back into storage she went along with the fabrics to enlarge the backing.

Now that the quilt finishing high has faded it's back to the original plan for the week.

Today I think I'll work on the Old Town mystery quilt.  She's been singing to me all morning as I write this post...

Song sung blue
Everybody knows one
Song sung blue
Every garden grows one...

 

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What's In The Box ~ Part 8 ~ Red December

 Hello Quilty Friends!  Today's UFO quilt is Red December, designed by Esther Aliu.  A quick search of my blog for the start date yielded one mention of the quilt in 2014.

The pattern calls for over 400 tiny red circles. I made 322 and a few other shapes before she was stored away and became a UFO.  Today she will no longer be a UFO.

I've made the decision to give up on this quilt and put the applique pieces in my applique spare parts box.

This is where I put most of my applique tools, test pieces and oopsies. 

Hopefully someday I can find a use for most of the spare parts in this box.  Maybe an orphan applique quilt?

Here's the quilt in all its glory.  Isn't it gorgeous?!!  This image was pulled from Esthers blog.  The quilt was made by Gail Smith.  If you would like to purchase the PDF pattern you can find it here.  My virus protection says her blog is a threat.  I think that is false because I belong to an Ester Aliu Facebook group, and they use it often for purchasing and downloading patterns. 

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What's In The Box ~ Part 2 ~ Grandmothers Flower Garden

Hi Friends!  Do you ever have a day when you just don't feel like sewing?  It's rare for me, but it does happen, and it happened yesterday.  I didn't feel like doing much of anything but watch TV and go down many quilty rabbit holes.  Late in the afternoon, I decided I should at least take a look in the UFO box for a Part 2 of "What's In The Box" blog post.

I went through this box and organized it on Wednesday evening.  Organizing was nothing more than making sure every project was in a bag.  I didn't open projects already in a bag.  So, as I go through these bags over the next few days, I might find a few surprises hiding inside.  They were put back in the box in no particular order and shared in no particular order.

Today's UFO is three different bags of Grandmothers Flower Garden Blocks and one Sunflower block.

Let's start off with the hand pieced Sunflower. How it got here is a mystery but it sure is cute. The first thought that came to mind for using it was a simple pillow.

The same story for the next two bags of blocks.  I don't remember anything about them.  All are hand pieced and older fabrics.

These are in bag two.  

Bag three. I made these blocks many years ago but when?  After searching my blog for any talk of Grandmothers Flower Garden blocks, I found ZERO posts.  A good guess would be 12 to 16 yrs ago.  I remember working on these while on camping trips and long road trips.  Oh well, they are old and that's good enough.

In the bag is more fabric and cardboard templates for making more blocks. To be on the safe side I'll leave the these stored with the blocks.  Being fickle is something I do really well, so it's a good idea to keep them out of my stash and ready to be used for more blocks.

If all of the blocks from the 3 bags were the same size, they could easily be put into one quilt.  But life likes to throw challenges my way.  Each set is a different size. Oh, I'm certain there's a way to put them all in one quilt but do I want the hassle?  Again, only time will tell.  I love them all and plan to use them, I just don't have a plan.

Over the years I've pulled out my bag of blocks and played with ideas for setting them as applique on a large piece of background fabric.  

A Medallion style quilt, then add some applique around the outside in the blank areas to make it more interesting.

After taking the pictures above, editing and writing this blog post for today it was time to get back to being lazy.  I started looking for ideas online. After about an HOUR, I stumble across a quilt made by Lori Holt.  It was late and I needed to get to bed. So, I opted to cancel the 4 am scheduled post so I could add the following. 

In this quilt Lori's flowers are appliqued to a background fabric then snowballed and set with colorful sashing.  I like it!  Maybe this is an option but on a much larger scale.  Her style of applique would be the quickest way to finish my project.  I don't really like her style other than it's fast.  Since I borrowed her quilt image, I'm not going to tell you or show you her applique technique.  You can find the tutorial by clicking here.

If I choose to go this route, all the blocks from the three bags could be used in one quilt.  It wouldn't be the prettiest quilt, but it would be finished and have a story to tell.  What do you think? 

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What's In The Box ~ Part 1 ~ Mariners Compass

 Hi Friends!  Please tell me I'm not the only one with a huge box of forgotten unfinished projects.  It's so easy to forget them when you can't see them.  Should we take them out of hiding?  Come on in and join me with the first of many of posts about "What's In The Box".

 The sewing room plan for yesterday was to tidy things up a bit before starting to sew. That's what I was doing, sweeping under the quilt frame. While moving things out from under the quilt frame I became distracted by the containers of UFO's.  The two marked with stars are partially quilted quilts. I didn't like the custom quilting on them, so they have been stored away until I feel like taking out the stitches. Those can be dealt with at another time.  Honestly who likes ripping out quilting, not me.   The tote marked with an arrow is full of UFO's.  It's time to sort through them and make a few decisions.

The first thing to do is sort them and find a better storage solution.  Ideally, each project should have its own storage bin.  Preferably a clear container, labeled with the project name.  My plan is to slowly sort through them over the last few days of this year.  Hopefully by the start of the new year I can have them organized and stored for easy access.  Maybe if they are staring me in the face, I'll be more inclined to finish them.

Let's take a peek at the first one out of the box.  It was folded and laying right on top.  A Mariner's Compass.

This was started way back in 2012.  The foundation paper is parchment paper.  This was drafted by me with a pencil and a ruler.  Wow, I don't think I would have the patience for such a project these days.  You can see the original blog posts here.  You'll also get to see the canoe he made from 1/4" wide strips of wood, it took 3 yrs to make.

The Compass turned out beautifully, but it became a UFO because I couldn't decide on the method for adding a background fabric in order to make it square.

The plan was to add these blocks around the squared Compass.  The blocks are from a block of the month program by our local quilt guild. 12 blocks total. 

Because I still dread trying to square up the compass block, I think the quickest way to finish this project would be to quilt the Mariners Compass as is and call it a table topper.  Then the 12 blocks would be made into a quilt. What do you think?  I'm open to ideas!

See you soon with "What's In The Box ~ Part 2"

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??? UFO #10 ~ Table Runner

I pulled out this table runner UFO before finishing the last UFO quilt project, Cabin In The Woods.  The current new quilt plan was already in motion but one more small UFO for the year might be possible if I manage my time wisely.

It would quilt up quickly since it's so small. This table runner was probably made in 2014 or 15. 

The fabrics used were scraps from these three projects.  The first one is Vintage Christmas quilt pattern by Erica Arndt.

Then a truck quilt I designed because I was inspired by Erica's pattern.

Next was this quilt to use up the scraps from the previous two quilts.  And finally from this quilt scraps I made the table runner at the beginning of this post.

Now, should I leave the table runner as is or add a border.  This really all depends on whether or not I can find matching fabric in my stash.  So...

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

 

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