It is time to pick the unfinished quilts (UFOs) that I am going to commit to completing in the first quarter of this year’s quilt finish-a-long (FAL). This is my first FAL so I want to pick UFOs that have been hanging around for a while and that I am sure, ok pretty sure, that I will actually be able to complete as promised.
My first choice is the 2011 Block of the Month (BOM) with Quilt Essential. I managed to get all my blocks done in 2011 and I even started working on assembling the quilt top in early 2012 but I never finished it. This Sunday is the annual BOM quilt show and we are supposed to have our 2011 quilts done and hanging in the show. I’m pretty close. I just have to finish sewing on the binding and cut off all the threads.
You can see why it takes so long to hand sew on the binding…..my little, furry quilt helper loves to take a nap in the middle of my project. I don’t have the heart to disturb the princess so that I can move on to a new section.
My second choice is my Blue Hydrangea quilt. This is the first quilt top I ever made. It hung around my sewing room for a year before I found a long armer to quilt it for me. Unfortunately he forgot to use the beautiful wool batting that I provided (he used a plain cotton blend) and he didn’t quilt the individual flower blocks they way we had discussed. It hung around for another year waiting for me to put the binding on. I procrastinated because I wanted to use a striped fabric on the bias but I had never made biased binding before. I’ve almost got all the binding on now but I still want to pick out all the stitching on the floral blocks and replace it with some free motion quilting that will show off the blocks. I’m a newbie free motion quilter (FMQ) so hopefully I don’t wreck the quilt.
My final FAL for this quarter will be my Blue Odyssey quilt. I saw a beautiful wall hanging in an old edition of Quilt Mania. I decided to try and duplicate the design and change it from a small wall quilt into a king size quilt. I went a little overboard buying fabric. When all is said and done I bet I will get at least one and quite likely 2 quilts out of the leftover fabric. I need to finish the FMQ and then put the binding on….my least favourite part of making a quilt.
Update: 2013JAN13
I’m feeling ambitious today so I am going to add one more project to the FAL. It is a fleece baby/twin quilt. Once again it is one of my many UFO’s waiting for the binding to be hand sewn on to the back of the quilt. I had an emergency appendectomy a few days ago so I am not able to sit at my machine and sew/quilt for a couple of weeks. I have no excuse not to stretch out in the lazyboy and do the hand sewing.
Life In The Dog House 