UFO Blog Hop ~ My turn!

 

Hi! Thank you for stopping by! I have soo many UFO's that it's hard to focus on any one of them! I am overwhelmed at times that I can't seem to find the time to get to them because I am sidetracked by shining objects.... new fabric.... new ideas... new puppy is putting a huge damper on working on anything at this time. She's fearless and a bit of a counter cruiser, total polar opposite from Belvedere. As I try to cut fabric she's jumping up and grabbing scraps. As I sew, she's rummaging thru my batting scraps. Oh my gosh, to get sewing time in I'm kenneling her up which fills me with guilt! 

If you are like me, you have several projects in the works. To help motivate you to work on your UFO's it helps to turn it into a game. (I got this idea from a guild that I visited.) Fill out the below 'My List of UFO'S sheet, roll a dice each month, that number is the project you will work on next. You can download the UFO PDF from my website.

I store my UFO's in these project bins that I got from Costco. They are fabulous to grab and go when I am packing for a retreat or spending the day sewing at mom's. These bins have helped me stay organized! I'm embarrassed to say some of my UFO's are 10 plus years old.

Another UFO I have can also be considered a way to handle scraps from previous projects. I save all my scraps and I cut them down to 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" squares and stash them in a bin. I plan on making a postage stamp style quilt with them eventually. I also think it would be fun to make a granny square quilt too. These squares are also would make a cute scrappy cosmetic bag. My bin of scrappy squares is a great way to manage those small pieces of fabric that I hate to throw away. I know I'm in great company and you understand, LOL...

Here is what I consider a 'shiny object'.... brand new fabric bought for a special project.

We are expecting our first grandchild in October, and this is the next pile of fabric I will be working with for a couple of special projects for new baby girl. We are over the moon excited!

I purchased these soft flannels for some receiving blankets for the new little one.

 I was able to get these done!

I made a set of four blankies for our new granddaughter. We can't wait until her arrival in October! These blankets are fun and easy to make. I use 1 and 1/4 yards of two different flannels. I sandwich two coordinating flannels right sides together and then square them up and round the corners. Pin it all together and sew a half inch seam all around leaving a 3" space for turning. Clip the corner curves... then turn right sides out. I like to do a decorative top stitch all around. That it! All done! They are warm and snuggly and wash up well. I even have a little extra flannel to make some burp cloths to match. 

Hope you have fun blog hopping!

Happy Stitching,

Cindy and Josephine

Monday July 25

Just Let Me Quilt

Lianne Makes Stuff

Karrin’s Crazy World

Ms P Designs USA

Time4Stitchn

Scrapdash

 

Tuesday July 26

Creatin' in the Sticks

Quilted Delights

Days Filled With Joy

Kathys Kwilts and More

Food For Thought

 

Wednesday July 27

Stitching Farm Girl

BeaQuilter

SelinaQuilts

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Quilt Doodle Designs (You are here!)

Quilting Gail

 

Thursday July 28

Patchouli Moon Studio

Quilt Schmilt

Lynns Blog

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Home Sewn by Us

 

Friday July 29

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Inflorescence

Words & Stitches

Just Sew Quilter

MooseStashQuilting

Fallen Off the Wagon....

  I fell off the wagon, or should I say space ship. At the beginning of the year, the UFO challenge sounded like a wonderful idea. I still think it is. I know far too well that life happens and other deadlines get in the way. What I'm saying is this whole idea is flexible. I am sure many of you have been making progress on projects and probably even completing items off your list. I haven't totally abandoned the UFO idea. Since the last time I posted about my UFO list, I have been on a few retreats. Fun sewing days with my bestie and weekend sewing retreats at my mom's. Instead of bringing shiny new projects to start, I have been forcing myself to bring my UFO's along. I'm happy to announce I got one of my UFO's done! Woot! Woot! Happy dance!!!! But it's not what I should have been working on. I'm supposed to have my garden quilt done. Whoopsies.... worked on the wrong project. But I'm thrilled to share with you that I have the top for my 'Just Takes Two' red and white quilt done. I have been working on this quilt since 2012... it's such an accomplishment to get this done to this point. This quilt challenged me. I learned how to do needle turn applique. I worked on my skills for sewing inset curves. I drafted quilt patterns for some of the blocks. I also challenged myself to only use fabric from my stash. So all of the red and white fabrics are bits and pieces left over from other quilts. I plan on quilting it myself. Would love to have it done for Christmas, but while looking at the calendar it seems that may be unrealistic with all of the other things I need to get done between now and then. If I get it quilted for Christmas you will hear me scream in delight! I'm hoping to transform my bedroom into a red and white winter wonderland for the holidays. I think this would also be a great quilt to display at my guilds annual quilt show in March.

I plan on putting a plain white border on the quilt and red binding to finish it off. One thing that really surprised me was I expected to be super excited when I got the last block pieced. I stayed up super late to get it done. But my feelings were mixed. I was thrilled to have completed the quilt top but sad it was done. This quilt has traveled with me to many retreats. It represents a lot of fond memories and time spent with family and friends. The boxes that this quilt filled are now empty and waiting for the next big adventure! Or maybe I will grab the Garden Party quilt box and it will travel next time with me to retreat. Whatever the project, I know it will also be stitched with stories and fond memories too!

Back to my UFO list.... I got to cross off the red and white quilt. I won't be rolling the dice like I would normally do. I will get back to my Garden Party quilt and work on that.... If you would like to start a UFO challenge just pop on over to the Quilt Doodle website and download the 'My List of UFO's'. Fill it out with six of your unfinished projects ad roll the dice....

Happy quilting,

Cindy and Belvedere

UFO Update

  I'm happy to announce I got one of my UFO's done! Woot! Woot! Happy dance!!!! I am thrilled that I finally completed my Snowball quilt. It took me a couple of days and most of the first day was trying to figure out where I had left off! My problem was figuring out how to continue the design making it much larger using what fabric I had left. I'm happy to announce my crib sized original quilt was expanded to about a twin sized quilt. A much better size for a grown man! (Granted when I started this my son was just starting high school) lol.... Does this mean I have a jump on a Christmas gift? I picked up a cream flannel backing for this quilt and will be shipping it off to my quilter. I'll let Stacy work her magic. At this point I consider this quilt done, or at least on the way to being finished! I promise I won't get hung up on the binding. As soon as it's quilted, I'll get this bound.

Here the size I left this project at.... several years ago.

As soon as I figured out what I had left for fabric, I jumped right in and started to construct more snowball blocks.

This size is more like it. All it needs is a border!

I'm pretty happy with how it looks with the border.

I have a navy blue striped fabric for the binding.

Do you want to join me with my UFO challenge? Well here's what you need to do... Print up the handy dandy UFO sheet I have made for you. (It can be found on my website under my Quilting Fun Tab on the  Quilt Doodle Website. (Click on the 'My List of UFO's' next to the UFO graphic and then you can print off your UFO sheet to fill in.) Then fill in the spaces with six of your UFO's. Grab a dice and roll it..... then that's the project you get to work on for the next month! It's a great idea! I'll post again in March around the 20th or so.... So since I got a project done,  I get to roll the dice again...... shake, shake, shake-a-dee, shake........ I got a... 5 oh uggg...... the Garden Blog Hop  quilt. I started this project  many years ago one summer.  I was part of a blog hop so all of the blocks are very different from various designers, all with a garden theme. I was one of the contributing designers.  All of the blocks are paper pieced. To add to the blocks I made a couple of garden gnome blocks to go with. I hit a road block when I started to think about how to piece them together to make the quilt top. All of the blocks are sooo different, so many different fabrics and colors. How do I tie all of these blocks together to make a beautiful quilt. I had thought it would be a great quilt to give to my dad but I waited too long to finish it. Dad has since passed away and has been gone for several years now.  Not only do I have physical issues with the design elements, I also have this emotional attachment to it too. I have a tinge of guilt for not getting it done. So it's been a UFO ever since. Uggggg.....

Let me know in the comments if you got a project done. I will celebrate your success with a virtual happy dance! Belvedere will probably do his best 'Ro- ro- rooooooo' for you too!

Have a great day stitching,

Cindy

UFO Success!

  I'm happy to announce I got one of my UFO's done! Woot! Woot! Happy dance!!!! I am thrilled that I finally completed my Confetti quilt. It's actually project that I'm writing a pattern for and have sent the pattern to my testers. Testers got their quilts all done,  but do you think I could get my quilt done and quilted. Other projects kept taking priority over this one. This quilt was fun to do and I was stuck on putting on borders and getting it quilted! Well, I took some time and went to my mom's, to work on it. Sometimes this is the only way I can get anything done is to go to my mom's and quilt with her. It's also a lot of fun to hang out with mom...

I love using the laser light on my mom's machine, it makes quilting straight lines so easy.

I also use a ruler to make sure to square up my quilted lines as I start a new 'row'.

I'm using an even feed foot to quilt. Quilting 'lines' using an even feed foot helps quilt your quilt in a jiffy! It's a great time saver if your under a time crunch.

~ Quick Confetti Quilt ~

Do you want to join me with my UFO challenge? Well here's what you need to do... Print up the handy dandy UFO sheet I have made for you. (It can be found on my website under my Quilting Fun Tab on the  Quilt Doodle Website. (Click on the 'My List of UFO's' next to the UFO graphic and then you can print off your UFO sheet to fill in.) Then fill in the spaces with six of your UFO's. Grab a dice and roll it..... then that's the project you get to work on for the next month! It's a great idea! I'll post again January around the 15th or so.... I'm not sure if I'll get much done with the holidays and all. So since I got a project done,  I get to roll the dice again...... shake, shake, shake-a-dee, shake........ I got a 6... oh my...... the snowball quilt. I started this project a few years ago at retreat. It's a quilt I want to make my for my younger son.... Ever follow a pattern thinking it would turn out bigger? I had picked up the fabric and pattern during Minnesota shop hop, many, many years ago..... Fell in love with the shop sample made the quilt following the little tiny pattern card I had only to find out when I completed it that the shop sample must have increase the pattern by four.... My winter in Minnesota quilt top was about the size of a tiny crib quilt. Ack! So it's been a UFO ever since. It's time for me to make it bigger so I can finish it for Thomas.

Let me know in the comments if you got a project done. I will celebrate your success with a virtual happy dance! Belvedere will probably do his best 'Ro- ro- rooooooo' for you too!

Have a great day stitching,

Cindy

Pssst... the Quick Confetti Quilt Pattern can be found on my website as an instant PDF download....

UFO Update....

My easy roll wasn't so easy....I have failed miserably with my UFO challenge. OMG this is hard to do! I am sidetracked by all the pretty fabric in my sewing room. I'm easily distracted to say the least! I hope that you did better then I. I did accomplish some items, just not my Confetti Quilt... I did get two UFO's off to Stacy to quilt, but they're not on the list. But alas, that means I will have to take the time to bind them when they return. I made some adorable Halloween items though... but none of these were on my list... So darn, I'm still stuck on my #3 item... maybe I will be able to celebrate next month! Do you want to join me with my UFO challenge? Well here's what you need to do... Print up the handy dandy UFO sheet I have made for you. (It can be found on my website under my Quilting Fun Tab on the Quilt Doodle Website. (Click on the 'My List of UFO's' next to the UFO graphic and then you can print off your UFO sheet to fill in.) Then fill in the spaces with six of your UFO's. Grab a dice and roll it..... then that's the project you get to work on for the next month! It's a great idea, and I'm going to try to do a better job this next month!

Let me know in the comments if you got a project done. I will celebrate your success with a virtual happy dance! Belvedere will probably do his best 'Ro- ro- rooooooo' for you too!

Have a great day stitching,

Cindy

Taming your UFO Pile

Who doesn't have a pile of UFO's in their sewing rooms. I visited a lovely group of quilters a few weeks ago and they presented this lovely idea of how to tame your UFO pile during their meeting. I had never heard of the idea and I absolutely loved it! So here's what you need to do... Print up the handy dandy UFO sheet I have made for you. (It can be found on my website under my Quilting Fun Tab on the Quilt Doodle Website. (Click on the 'My List of UFO's' next to the UFO graphic and then you can print off your UFO sheet to fill in.)  This is a great project to do with your quilting girl friends or with your guild!  To make it extra fun, bring it to a quilt retreat or gather you friends for coffee. Fill in each line with a UFO you would like to tackle. (If you don't have enough UFO's to fill in the spaces, add a few projects you'd like to do.) Now after you've filled in the six spots.... pull out a dice and roll.  I rolled a 3... lucky number 3, so my goal is to finish my Confetti Quilt this month. I'm thrilled with this roll since I've only got a border to put on this quilt and then quilt it. It's a 'easy' roll.  Now my list has some 'huge' projects. I already know I won't be able to finish let's say my Dear Jane Quilt, but this method will block in time for me to focus on this project which will ultimately help me complete it. 

Doesn't this seem like an awesome idea! Wanna join me? Print up your sheet and work on your #3 item... have some fun... I'll check back in with everyone in a couple weeks and roll the dice again. Hopefully I will have a Confetti Quilt to show you too! Leave me a comment on what UFO you will be working on!

Happy Quilting,

Cindy

PDF patterns are also on SALE thru September 30th in my Etsy Shoppe.

No coupon needed!!!