Three down...

I have been tackling my UFO List with a vengeance these past couple weeks. 

Attached bindings on UFO #59, #66 and #70. Check, check and check. I will hand sew them down this weekend while I am at our annual quilt show.

UFO #13 I gave away to a friend who was way more excited about it than I was. 

UFOs #7, #29 and #48 I sold on ebay. Who knew? May they rest in peace in someone else's house.

And #12, a set of six snowman blocks from a block swap years ago, I gave to another friend who needs to make a snowman quilt for a friend for Christmas. Win win. 

Last weekend, at our monthly sew-in, I finished the tops of four of my oldest projects. Two of them are over ten years old. It felt like such an accomplishment. And the surprising thing was that I still liked all four of them. While I was at it, I used my scraps to make bindings for them also. So now, I just need to quilt them up and BAM! I'm ready to go with the binding. 

This kaleidoscope quilt was a project I started at the first quilt retreat I went to when I began quilting. The fabrics were not my first choice, but the ones I had picked out initially didn't work properly to achieve the kaleidoscope effect. While I'm not a floral lovin' gal, this print had an excellent repeat for the kaleidoscope pieces. The black open spaces would be great for some decorative quilting, but I'm leaning towards just doing an allover design to finish it and moving on. And if I had been thinking, I would have picked up all those loose strings laying on the top before I started taking pictures. 

This eye-searing bright Mickey quilt is actually from a class I taught years ago. This was one of the models I had worked on for the class, and all it needed was borders. The pattern is called Hidden Wells. It's no longer in print, but you can find skads of tutorials online. It's an easy strip-piecing pattern, but every single seam is on the bias. I spray starched the tar out of it to keep it from stretching as I was assembling it. Especially as I was attaching the borders. 

Next up was my Native Rainbow, a quilt I started at a retreat with Laurie Shifrin years ago. Last year I had assembled the blocks at one of our sew-ins, but it took me a while to pull it back out and put the borders on. Now it's ready to be quilted. I love how this one turned out. I loved the grape fabric that I picked for the outer border and had so much fun pulling colors from that for the center blocks. I think I might have also been planning on enlarging this at one time, because I found enough cut pieces to easily make an entire second quilt. I wonder what I was thinking. Maybe I just wanted a variety of blocks to choose from. Who knows. I am very pleased with how this one turned out and look forward to quilting it.

I suppose I shouldn't really say I've completed this last top yet, as I still need to attach the last outer blue border. But I was able to get the bulk of it assembled last weekend, which is a step up from the box it's been in. This is a block draw from about ten years ago. Our group used to do a monthly draw, where each month, one person's name was drawn from a hat and they picked out a main fabric and gave a fat eighth to everyone in the group, who in turn, would make a 12" block and return them to you throughout the month. If you remember, in my early quilting days, I was in a relationship with anything patriotic, and this silver-specked blue tone-on-tone was high on my list of beloved fabrics. Yes, silver-specked. Yep.

I love the crisp contrast between the blue and bright white, but am a little less enamored now with the sparkly silver bits. I'm hoping that once it's quilted, I can run it through the wash a few times and the silver specks will wash off. I'm assuming it will, since it's left a gratuitous trail of silver glitter every where it been in the last ten years. Even as I put together the blocks last week and was cutting the strips for the outer border, it filled up the crevices in my cutting mat with silver residue and my rotary blade sparkles like a shiny new penny nickel. I can only imagine what the inside of my bobbin casing must look like. 

I am thrilled with the outcome of this top. I love that the blocks are made by my friends who I quilt with. While I usually do most of my own quilting, I would like to send this one out for a custom job. I'd love some feathered wreaths in the setting triangles and large open areas between the blocks, and continued around the outer border. 

I'm headed down South in a couple weeks for the holidays, so I don't know if I'll get to quilting these tops before the new year, but I certainly feel like I've made a productive dent in my stash of projects. I almost think I should reward myself and start something new...

 

Comments

[Mary Flynn]

How awesome to have so many finishes and to still like them. So many times we tuck something away to only pull it out later and realize we aren't in love anymore. The quilting will really make them POP...and you'll swoon again! Well done!!!

[Michele]

Wow! Congratulations on getting so much done! They are all beautiful too! Can't go wrong with Mickey :-)

[Donna]

How great to have finished so many tops! It does feel good to get some of the UFOs finished and put to use. I hope to do the same in the new year. I do love the blue quilt - can't see the silver sparkles in the photo :)

[Miriam]

Congratulations on all the work you have done on your UFOs. Well done on your finishes!
I love that blue quilt.

Hope you having a great holiday.

[Michelle]

Your list is so organized!

[Holly]

Wow, those are lovely. Congrats on making so much progress on your list.
I heard about all the snowfall in Alaska. Is that affecting you, or are you still South after the holidays?

[Gina]

Hi Allyson, I found you on somebody else's blog list, and stopped for a look. Being a cat person, couldn't resist the name of Fat Cat Quilts, especially as we have a very FAT black cat here in Melbourne Australia!
The other reason I kept on reading was your stunning scenic photos. I spent a week in Alaska (Juneau) in 1973 when my first husband and I spent three months touring the USA. We came up there on the Alaska Marine Highway (does it still exist?)from Seattle, and I went through about 8 rolls of film just on the coastline before we got to Juneau! Some great memories of a fabulous place...I've just spent about 20 minutes looking at your blog. I'll be back!