Friday, January 11, 2019

My 12 UFO Projects for the 2019 UFO/WIP CHALLENGE for 2019


Hello and Welcome to my blog!

Julie from the blog The Crafty Quilter has started a UFO/WIP CHALLENGE FOR 2019 and with plenty of enthusiasm, I am joining her!

http://thecraftyquilter.com/2019/01/2019-ufo-wip-challenge/

This will be a post filled with pictures of the projects I have chosen to use as my 12 UFO Projects.  

Recently, I took time to do some much needed organization in my fabric storage room.  Which is our spare bedroom and works excellently for this purpose.  By refolding fabrics, I emptied out 4 big totes and throughout the process of organizing, discovered a whole bunch of UFO's.  They range in small projects from pillow cases to queen sized quilts that had been set aside and forgotten for one reason or another.

With Julie's Challenge, I will be working on completing 12 UFO's throughout the year.  I am hoping that I will be able to accomplish at least one project each and every week of the year in 2019.  No, I am not setting myself up for a pit fall.  LOL.  I do realize that this is a huge challenge and most likely one I will not achieve.  Yet, with setting this goal, I know I will constantly be working towards it.  Plus, I have two other reasons for setting this goal.  My husband and I need to come up with at least $1,000.00 for dental work.  The second reason is that our extra special Miniature purebred Poodle, Mr. Shakes that we rescued from a horribly abusive place, before we left Texas and moved back to Grants Pass, Oregon.  His Vet has informed us that he has to have Ear Surgery and that is going to be well over $500.00.  Aside from a couple of other items, selling my quilts and other quilted items are hopefully going to help make these both possible by the end of the year.

I have so much faith in my Family and Friends and above all The Lord!  That the finances will be made available, first and foremost for our precious fur baby.  The remainder will also be provided, I have no doubt, as the various items that have been made with love will be shown some place to be sold.  Can you tell I have it all figured out?  LOL.  Alright, enough of my ramblings.  Beware...I do love to share and jabber.  ***smiles***




Alright, here we go.  This is my # 1 project for January.  The reason I have chosen this as my first project is because I chose to do this hand embroidery project for my Mother as a Christmas present for this year.  I found the pattern @  https://stitchfloral.blogspot.com/2018/10/fall-wedding-progress-part-1.html     and thoroughly enjoyed every part of creating this beautiful hand embroidery project.  I have chosen to make a pillow cover with it.  I am hoping to have it finished by the end of the week to share a post by date Julie has specified.

After the Project #1....I am not positive yet on the order in which I want to do the UFO's.  I must ask Julie if I have to be specific or just be clear at the beginning of the month.



This set of blocks were part of a BOM designed by Debby Kratovil.  I have thoroughly enjoyed following her blog and trying to keep up with the BOM.  Somehow, along the way, I failed though.  I can not even remember what happened as to why.  But I love applique and am very positive that I will not have any problems in setting up the blocks that I am missing.  I have all of the patterns.  I just stopped putting them together.  Well at some point this year, this fantastic BOM will become a Quilt!





This UFO is my oldest UFO and it also holds a special place in my heart.  This applique pattern is my very first design!   I took the extra close up photos to show some of the details a tad bit better.  I know that all of those pieces go with this top.  Right now, I am not sure if I will use them to finish the quilt with or not.  It will feel fantastic to get this quilt finished!!





My picture taking certainly does not do this quilt any justice.  I believe that this is one of my most beautiful quilts that I have created.  The fabrics are both Christmas prints and the pattern I used is one that my friend Carole @ From My Carolina Home designed and shared on her blog with us.  The reason that this quilt was not finished is because I could not decide on how to finish it.  Has anyone else ever had this happen?  Since I have been paying attention to alternative methods of borders, I am going to choose one of the techniques I have watched a video tutorial of and get this beauty finished.






These 25 quilt blocks were made while following Pat Sloan in her Weekly Sew Along.  I had quite a bit of fun and created several new blocks that I would never have tried on my own.  Plus, there are quite a few of these blocks that I now would just love to make an entire quilt out of.  I just signed up to do her BOM and her weekly sew along, also.



I am disappointed that this picture did not show up very nicely.  I will have to have Hubby take pictures to post in the Month that it will be completed.  In the past couple of years, I have really fallen in love with hand embroidery once again.  This is one of the projects that helped bring those feelings back to the surface again.  This quilt is going to be for my Nieces new little girl.  One of the choices that I seem to be going for more and more are easier patterns in baby to lap quilt sizes.  I am curious to see how long this phase lasts with me.



I have really fallen for Owl fabrics, Owl Patterns (quilts, hand embroidery, softies, even pillows...did I miss some?) and Owl Appliques!  Yet, I have not had the opportunity to play with very many of them.


I hope to make a big change where this is concerned throughout the year to come!  I have no idea when I had the opportunity to put this baby quilt top together.  Then the other question to be answered is what took me away from finishing this adorable fun quilt?  I am pretty positive I will never remember the answer.  Since it is on my finish list for this year, I look forward to getting it quilted and finished.  Have you done any Owl Quilts or did you discover another cutie Animal that you just fell for?  I would love to  hear all about it and even better see pictures!



I do remember my friend Deanna and I working together on this quilt.  Plus, so many other special quilts together.  I am sorry to say that we somehow stopped seeing and talking to one another.  I still love her and miss her and her smile and laughter so much.



I just wanted to share a few close up pictures of some of the fussy cutting we did.  It was very difficult to get these cute animals to be featured.  I should say that for this quilt we were using scraps and that part, I can not tell you any thing about another quilt or if we were given the scraps or what.  Sorry, but we did a pretty good job.  In my opinion.




The little smiling frogs and the long alligator smiling are both so adorable!  How ever in the world do many of us little girls grow into girls who just scream with horror at the thought of touching one of these adorable green ribbiting frogs?  LOL.   Now the Alligator, once they get big enough to bite....oh yeah, I agree with not wanting anything to do with them except at a great big distance like on TV!!



I wanted to share the Elephant also.  Mainly because I am starting to get all girlie about Elephant fabrics and patterns also.  So on to see what other wonderful adventures await me in this year of UFO Adventures!



This delightful quilt was created from June until the end of July 2018 as a week by week sew along.  The designer is Julie Cefalu of the The Crafty Quilter Blog.  I had such a marvelous time creating this quilt, I know that I will do another quilt along with her if she decides to do one this year!  HINT HINT Julie

We had company visit just as I was finishing this quilt and it was set aside and life got in the way.  I believe this quilt is my youngest UFO and I really am looking forward to finishing it.  It is always strange the way that the world works and therefore something tells me that this quilt will most likely end up being one of my last quilts to finish.  LOL.


                                    

The photo above is a quilt back for the quilt below.  I have always enjoyed creating Scrap Quilts and very often have created two sided quilts using a very simple pattern for the backing.  In that respect when you go to quilt the quilt you are not having to worry about how the quilt design you have chosen for the front will effect the back or even vice versa.



I follow Carole @ From My Carolina Home Blog and this lovely scrap quilt is one of her Majestic Mystery Quilts that she has been sharing for several years now.  Do not quote me, but I think I have made 4 of her Mystery Quilts and loved each and every one of them.   With the Top and the Backing, I need to add borders to have them match in size.  I do all of my own quilting.  The majority of the time, I use my Mothers 301A Singer machine for straight line stitching and as long as their is not much loft for quilting.  If there is any amount of loft, I just guess, then I use my PFAFF that my Father gave to me a couple of years before he passed away.  With it I am slowly learning how to do Free Motion Quilting and also use his machine for Applique with any type of fancy stitches and just have a blast.  So throughout the year, I look forward to playing and learning on both machines while finishing each and every one of these 12 quilts.  Plus, I also hope to start and complete several more quilts along the way!



This is just one of the many Christmas projects that I have discovered while organizing my Fabric Storage Room.  I do all of my sewing at the Kitchen table.  I love all of the space the kitchen table has to offer and of course the lighting is fantastic.  This quilt was made with a whole lot of love and a bunch of scraps!!  The perfect combination.




I keep my eyes open for all of these fun Christmas Fabrics at Garage Sales and Second Hand Stores due to the fact that I am honestly still in love with all of them.  LOL.  I still have a few scraps left, enough to make a small table runner.  I hope to make it this year.




These adorable little elves were added as a border just to add some extra fun to this Christmas Quilt.  I thoroughly enjoy creating Christmas Projects!




Oh Me, Oh My...this is my last quilt to share!  Plus, if I am counting correctly, it is an extra one.  That is perfectly fine with me because as I stated, I do plan on finishing as many UFO's as I possible can this year.  This baby quilt is another quilt that I am practicing Free Motion Quilting on.  It can not be a good idea to step away from it for this long of a period though.  I do not remember this one at all.  It is made with the same flannel owl fabric as used in an earlier quilt shown.  So I shall find out and let you know when I share this adventure in the month that it is completed.


Sorry that it took me forever to share my 12 plus projects.  I hope that I did not bore you in any way.  I would love to hear your opinions and suggestions in the comments.  I am a person who just uses a computer but honestly does not know how to "use" a computer.  So please be patient!  Thank you so much for stopping by!

Have a fantastic day!!

3 comments:

  1. Your projects all look wonderful, and I am sure you will get much progress made this year. Looks like you can use a computer just fine!! I am sending you a small donation to help with Mr Shakes surgery bill.

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  2. Brenda, this looks like a great list of projects to finish! Thanks for mentioning my blog and the UFO challenge. I'm so glad to have you on board!

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  3. Hi Brenda! I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to read this until today, but what a lot of lovelies you have shared. The quilt top from Debby K. blocks looks oh so pretty, as does the one you designed yourself. How cool is that?! Yes, I absolutely have stopped with a quilt top but paused for borders or some other way to finish it off. I am looking forward to much to your first finish of the new year. You will be on a mission for a mission. {{Hugs}} ~smile~ Roseanne

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