DaGMT 2013 Update 2

It may have been overly optimistic of me to think I could do a consistent 20-30 minutes a day of sewing for this challenge this year. I am still adjusting to my new schedule and more often than not by the time I get home, make dinner, help with homework and do a small chore or make lunch for the next day I am beat and in bed before 10:00 pm. Which for me is akin to hitting the sheets as soon as the sun goes down.

However as I mentioned in Update 1 I did use this month's commitment to really look at my UFOs and see if it was just a matter of minor finishing touches, or did I actually have projects that were not even started yet.

Blue and Yellow Sampler

  
This is my OLDEST UFO. A sampler quilt I made more years past than I am even willing to admit to at this point. I had started by hand quilting it. However the more I work on it I realize I am not that happy with the colors and fabrics to put that sort of effort into it. I want to finish quilting it on the machine just to say it is DONE.

VQF 9-Patch Round Robin

Several years ago I had participated and even coordinated several group projects. This was our last group project and also our most simple. Just a selected fabric and at least two 9-patches per participant. I finally put them into this setting during this past summer while I was out of work. I need to make a back and then it will be simply quilted by machine.

Candlelit Quilts Orphan

I did not make this small quilt. One day as I was at Candlelite Quilts during an open sew day the owner was cleaning out a cupboard and was going to throw this away. I rescued it. It needs a back then to be quilted also.

Green and Gold

This lap quilt has been kicking around for a while. If I remember correctly the top had been made during a guild workshop around 1999. And I sandwiched it together for an afternoon session on learning to machine quilt about 4 years ago. I worked on this today and hope to finish it in the next couple of days.

Christmas Ripples

 This is a sample I made for the same quilter that came up with DaGMT. I had thought about perhaps making a cut to turn this topper into a tree skirt. However I think I like it better as a topper and will leave it that way. This needs a backing and then to be quilted.

Sudoko Quilt

I think this one is about four years old. The local guild did a sort of round robin where everyone was given a sudoko puzzle to begin with - then assign your fabrics a number and recreated you completed sudoko puzzle into a patchwork. Which I had to have a coworker complete the puzzle for me as I never seem to be able to solve these puzzles on my own. I must say that when I first got this project back I was rather disappointed. The other people in my group I felt had much nicer tops with a lot more effort put into them. Some had pieced borders or applique and mine looked like a poor cousin next to them I thought. And the print I chose as my focus fabric seemed to just get swallowed up with the other colors. I did not even recognize that this was mine for several passes. I am thinking it needs the blue border replaced and large applique in the two white corners. Because as it is I really am not sure I like it at all.

Class Sampler in Purple & Green

Between 1998-2001 I taught a beginner's quilting class though the Employee Recreation Committee of the company I was working for at the time. As a result I made sample blocks of all the patterns I was teaching my students / coworkers. Sometimes I would make two in different color ways to show them how placing the same fabrics in different ways could completely change the look of even the simplest block. The last year I taught my class finally guilted me into putting the blocks together and I basted the quilt. I have been working on it on and off because I really want to hand quilt the entire thing. However as it is almost king sized I am not sure just how long this is going to take .....

Old Comforter

I don't remember just where this comforter came from. But I do know it had been filled with untreated cotton which after a washing had all balled up and migrated to one large lump on a corner. So I opened the bottom seam, removed the ties and emptied the resulting "pocket" of the raw material. I need to insert the new batting I have and re-tie it.

Sunshine Delft Blocks

A few months ago I read an article in Quilter's Newsletter called Collecting Beauty about a collection of New York Beauty quilts owned by Bill Volckening It included the templates to make a variation called Suspension Bridge. Of course not having nearly enough other things to do I decided to try my hand at this. Except, whether by design or not, when I photocopied the foundation pages I realized my blocks will be half the size of the original. Oh well - perhaps smaller means I will finish it.


 

My Tree Skirt

And lastly my Christmas Tree Skirt. Which I started several years ago after realizing that I had made one for several members of my family and yet was still using an old pink sheet for myself. However this was begun without a pattern and I think I have seriously mis-measured the angles of the "slices" In fact it is so large in the middle currently that I could actually make a REAL skirt out of it for myself. I need to do a lot of gathering in the middle. I don't mind that it will had a LOT of fullness elsewhere - and I had planned to do a ruffled edge. We shall see....






Of course I have other projects which I consider UFOs as well:

• A wool appliqued coat dress
• An 1806 style day dress
• A Regency over-coat
• My Holy City quilt that has the city and one angel completed
• My underwater quilt using the cool marbled fabric wave I bought a few years back
• Some mending
• A skirt that needs a new waistband