April Challenge

This is a quick post about the upcoming Lovely Year of Finishes Goal Setting Party.

In April, I will finish one of my Common Thread Quilt Guild UFO (Unfinished Objects) Challenge projects. I wrote about this challenge in my March Goal Setting.

South-west art quilt to finish by the end of April

I originally entered five UFO projects to complete. I wrote that there was a possibility of completing two of the projects:

• Snippet flowers in a vase from 2008 (ready to FMQ if I can find it); and
• South-West art quilt from 2010 (I've written about the project in September 2014)

I did find the Snippet flowers quilt (it was stored under the bed!) but I really don't like the borders that I put on it. It's ready for some thread painting though, so once I undo the borders, I'll start on that part of it. It will not be ready for the guild challenge since the deadline is our May guild meeting.

I will therefore finish my South-West art quilt by the end of April! Come by and see  me at me at the April Finishing Party.

I am presently visiting relatives in Vancouver BC. We spent some time driving through the mountains. I can't wait to review my photos to see if there is another art quilt that I can start (after I finish this one of course). Stay tuned.

Many Challenges

To encourage me to keep blogging (I don't need encouragement to quilt!), I've decided to write about a few challenges that I'm participating in.

2015 A Lovely Year of Finishes - March Challenge

I was hoping to participate earlier this year but as you can see, it didn't happen.

The world - crazy quilt style

My goal for March is to complete my Music Challenge quilt for our Guild. Since the deadline is our April meeting, getting it completed before March 31 would be perfect. When we joined the challenge, we were given a fat quarter of music fabric. It has to be incorporated into the quilt (as little or as much as we want). The quilt should illustrate or be inspired by a piece of music.

It took me a while to decide, but I finally picked "Imagine" by John Lennon. It all started with a quilting pattern of people holding hands - what could be better? To make this interesting, I decided to make a 3D quilt. The centre is the world, made from fabrics that represent various cultures and nations, pieced crazy quilt style. I've completed the piecing of the world and have embroidered and embellished it with ribbons etc. I haven't added beads yet since I need to FMQ it first. I'm still not sure how I want to do this yet. I guess I have a couple of weeks to figure it out.

Background

Music Challenge Quilt - so far

I've completed the pieced background and have started FMQ it. I want the "people holding hands" to be the focal point of that section, so I'm still trying to figure out how to finish FMQ it. After that, I will have to attach both pieces together.

What I learned:

• I'm really happy that I took the time to write about this project because the pictures I took have shown me that I have a lot of work to do to get those "people holding hands" to show up.

See you at the end of March!

Common Thread Quilt Guild UFO (Unfinished Objects) Challenge

Our guild is hosting a UFO challenge. Since I had to register just before I left for China in the fall, I made some very quick (and possibly not great) UFO choices. It's a good thing that I have kept my list of quilting projects up to date. I only had to review it to come up with some UFOs for the challenge. Here they are:

1. Snippet flowers in a vase from 2008 (ready to FMQ if I can find it :-(  )
2. Batik quilt from 2011 (needs interesting FMQ since it has too little contrast)
3. South-West art quilt from 2010 (working on it during my lunch - occasionally)
4. Strip-quilt number two from 2012? (needs to be FMQ)
5. Completing my mother's whole cloth quilt from 2002 (hand quilted)

I think that the deadline for the challenge is our May meeting. At this time, two of these projects have a fair chance of getting completed; the South-West art quilt and the Snippet flowers in a vase (if I can find it!).

Frayed Knots Spring/ Summer Garden 2015 Block Exchange

I've included this block exchange as a challenge - cause it is! Having to make 23 blocks by a specific date is definitely a challenge for me. 

We have a choice of many sizes of blocks, as long as they have a 36" perimeter. I'm keeping mine simple by making 9"x 9" blocks. The background has to be pastel colours. I keep forgetting the word "pastel" probably because I don't usually do pastel! It was terrible - I had to shop for pastels :-) 

Some exchange blocks

I am making an assortment of blocks since I don't have the patience to make 23 of the same blocks. It turns out that there aren't that many patterns for 9" x 9" blocks, but I finally figured out that they are essentially variations on 9 patch blocks, so I can either expand a 6" block, or reduce a 12" block. That will give me many more options. I'm not very good in math, so I use grid paper to calculate the sizes. Gotta love grid paper!

Here are a few of my blocks. I have 10 blocks completed. Only 13 left to finish before June! Very do-able.

Check out other participants in the March 2015: Lovely Year of Finishes

Celebrating My Achievements

In this age of instantaneous, it's important to take the time to think back on our achievements. So many things take time and even though they may be fun to make, it's important to reflect on not only what we've finished, but also what we've worked on and what we've learned through the process.

In our quilting group, the Frayed Knots, this year's challenge was to list and then finish as many of our UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) as possible. We all agreed that it felt good to find and list our unfinished projects. Some of our members had over 60 UFOs! My list of nine was much smaller...and I managed to finish one!!!

Handwoven blocks from the Friendship Coverlet

My oldest project dates from 1991 when I wove blocks for a friendship coverlet. My blocks are beautiful but I haven't done anything with them, except to weave a few more years ago so that I could eventually make a throw. Technically, it wasn't a quilting project, but I've decided that I would add sashing around each block to make them all the same size and then add borders. All of the squares have a wool weft and a cotton warp. They are wonderful but if I leave them just in wool, I'll never be able to use the throw since I'm allergic to wool! That's why I'd like to back the throw in either cotton or flannel (pre-washed of course!!!) It's thanks to this challenge that I've started thinking about finishing this project and even bought sashing and border fabric. I'm not sure that I have the "perfect" fabric yet, so it may take a while to actually start finishing it!

I learned a lot as I prepared this list. It turns out that many of the projects on my UFO list were not finished because I wasn't technically ready to finish them. Five of the 9 projects are almost or actually ready to machine quilt - but I've only this summer bought a machine that I could use to free motion quilt. I'm really looking forward to practicing my free motion quilting on them. This will probably keep me busy for the rest of the winter! I have a couple of Craftsy courses that will help me get them done. I'm looking forward to posting the results, eventually.

Since preparing my list of UFOs, I've used the list to keep track of the project that I've started and completed this year. Actually, this blog represents that list well, except that I don't often post unfinished projects, except for the quilt-along projects. Or that's what I thought until I reviewed this year's blogs. It turns out that I did blog about a few UFOs, mostly because of the events that brought them about: Ricky Timm's Convergence quilt that I started before seeing him in July; and then the needle turn appliqué class with Kathy Wylie. These are still UFOs, otherwise I would have announced their completion to the world through my blog :-)

What I learned through this year's challenge:

• A project doesn't have to be completed to bring you satisfaction. Sometimes just getting it a little further along is a real accomplishment.
• Projects often get finished when they are ready (or I am ready) to finish them. Sometimes it's a matter of learning or getting better at a new skill; and sometimes it's about waiting for a great idea on how to proceed. Either way, there's nothing wrong with waiting.
• My list is no longer called a UFO list, but rather my List of Ongoing Projects. After all, it really is all about perspective!