It is time to check in on the progress (or lack thereof) that I have made during the last three months on my UFO’s - otherwise know as UnFinished Objects. At the start of the year I identified seven projects that I had yet to finish. Since April I have made progress on two of my projects - the 2017 Row By Rows and the English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt.
In my blog on May 6th I documented the completion of four of the 2017 Rows. Since then I have completed the last three Rows. The first Row was purchased on our trip last September to Kentucky and Tennessee from Must Stitch Emporium in Paducah. This kit included some cool fabric but was a bit time consuming because of all of the piecing. I think I made it even more time consuming because I tried to hurry through the construction. Bad idea!! The bird blocks were the most problematic because each one included 15 different pieces. Luckily everything else went together easily.
The second row that I finished was from the Quilt Basket in York. I purchased this kit when I traveled on the bus trip last July with the Panama Quilt Guild. This Row was all appliqué and used both wool and cotton fabrics. It included a lot of little pieces, especially those for the raccoon’s ears and noses. I had to use tweezers in order to get those in the correct place. I used Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 to applique the pieces to the background. Once again I tried to hurry and ended up tracing many of the pieces on the wrong side and had to redo them. You would think I would learn! The pattern suggested a blanket stitch around the appliqués but I opted not to do that. I might change my mind before I put it all together if I find that some of the pieces are not attached well.
The final Row was purchased as a kit from I Bee Quiltin’ in Norfolk - another stop on last summer’s Panama Quilt Guild bus trip. I quickly cut out all pieces needed for the Row and thought that this one would be a breeze. After sewing the sky/grass blocks, I began to work on the barn block. I quickly realized that I had measured all of the templates wrong - oh brother!! Were any of these Rows going to go together without a hitch? Luckily the kit included a lot of extra fabric, so I had enough fabric to recut every piece. The triangles still posed a problem and I ended up tracing the template onto the fabric a cutting from those lines. The kit included die-cuts of the horses, water tank, windmill, and barn quilt.
On my EPP quilt I was able to stitch one hexagon row, start another one and stitch two triangle rows to the center section. I also discovered that I could easily piece together a row of hexies while traveling in the car - a great way to pass the time and get something accomplished! I have decided that this size of the hexies is really cumbersome to work on because of the stiffness of the paper hexagons. I will be glad when this project is finished! And my next EPP project will include much smaller pieces.
The last three months I have been very busy with 15 customer quilts and 25 Quilts of Valor. I was rather shocked when I added up my work and compared it to what I had done the first three months of the year - 22 quilts compared to 40! No wonder I didn’t get as much accomplished on my UFO’s. I’m not complaining a bit, though, as I always appreciate any excuse to sew!!