Finish Along Quarter 2 (Wildly Ambitious) Plans

I totally missed the first quarter of this year's Finish Along and am determined not to let it slip by me again this quarter. It's such a great way of keeping track and I have lots and lots of UFOs stashed in various places around my house. Even getting ready to write this post I found UFOs I'd totally forgotten about.


I debated whether to do a long or a short list. A short list obviously has the advantages of being actually achieveable. But sometimes if you do a long list, you push yourself more than you thought you would. So I'm going to put more on my list than I think is really achieveable in the hope that somehow, somewhere, I will find the energy to move some of these projects on. (This is slightly outside my control in that it involves my sweet baby girl remembering that once upon a time, for quite a long number of months, she knew how to sleep all night, every night. Bloody teething. Grrr.)

Anyway, moving swifly on. Here is the list. It's ambitious. But it's also exciting. Bring it on.

1. Baste, quilt and bind my Made to Measure quilt. This labour of love is going to be hand quilted, and I love the process and I can't wait to start stitching. I'm just dreading basting because of its monstrous 80" x 80" size. ( And I just realised, unbelieveably, that I never blogged this quilt top when I finished it. Doh. See what sleepless nights, 3 kids and a mental work schedule does to your brain.)

2. Spiderweb Quilt.

I have about half my bee blocks back now. Can't wait to get the rest back and get this quilt top pieced and finished. I absolutely love how it's shaping up.

3. Carol Singers Embroidery Hoop

Yes, I know it is April, and I know this is a Christmas embroidery hoop. Obviously, I'm 4 months behind, or 8 months ahead, whatever way you want to look at it. But it is on the list :-)

 

4. Cardigan for Rachel

I was making great progress on this till I realised I had made a couple of errors and my rows aren't lining up properly. So I need to rip it back a bit and redo it. But if I don't do it soon, she'll be grown out of the size.

5. Teeny tiny hexies

Need to move this on and get a panel done to make either a cushion cover or bag from. Possibly a supertote. Or a messenger bag. A bag. Definitely a bag.

6. Kona precut Hexies.

Half of these are basted, but I have no idea where it's going. (Am I allowed to say that? Maybe not) I'm just determined that wherever it is going, it's going to reach it before the end of June. Ideas on a postcard please.....

7. Tumbling blocks quilt top. This is a UFO for coming up on 2 years now. So high time it was finished. I want to add some lettering in the top left corner first. (I am willing to personalise this with a baby name, and sell it if anyone is interested.)

8. Another cushion for my sofa, using my blogger bundle fabrics. I have a few patterns in mind for this, but haven't made a final decision. But I'll definitely be using these fabrics again for whichever one I choose. All the better if I can work in some handquilting with the matching threads.

9. Sunburst crochet blanket.

This has been sitting around for far too long Will get moving on it.

Ok - yes, like a couple of others, I am now officially exhausted after just typing out that list. So not sure what the chances are of actually getting it done, but if I can push myself a bit I might achieve more than I expect. Off now to lie down for a little rest from brain overload.

Linking up to Katy :-)

Q3 FAL Goals

It's time to list the goals for Quarter 3 Finish A Long. I have quite a few things I want to get done this quarter, before I head back to work in October after my maternity leave. This might be a bit of an ambitious list, but fingers crossed I stay on track!

1. Finish the Made to Measure Quilt. Only a couple of borders to go to get this quilt top complete, but the next one is a massive HST border and I'm not quite ready to tackle it yet!

2. Swoon 2013. I have 3 blocks done, and am doing this at a leisurely pace, but really want to have this done for the end of September. If you're still thinking about it, come over and join us on Flickr and on Instagram where we're using the #swoon2013 hashtag - we have almost 90 members Swooning again this year!

3. My crochet cardi for baby R. Not much to do on this now, and I hope to have it finished this week.

4. Placemats for my friend S - just need to quilt and bind these.

5. Liberty drunkards path cushion using these beautiful greys and blues:

6. Hexie Project: think these need to be a cushion (pillow) cover. I have almost all of them basted and need to start piecing.

7. Baby quilt. This has been hanging around unfinished for far too long. Time to move it off the UFO list!

 8. Lastly a carryover from my Q2 list - baste, quilt and bind my Ruby quilt top:

Do you think that's enough? I certainly do! Linking up with Leanne :-)

Finish-A-Long Quarter 2 - the list!

The kids are on their summer holidays and so is my hubby, so it's a bit like a mad house round at mine at the moment. So I'm going to be brief! I'm really pleased that I have 4 out of a hoped for 6 finishes this quarter - I feel that I got a lot achieved from my list at the start of the quarter and, better still, I was really happy with some of them. Without further ado here's the list:

1. Mr D's Circle's Quilt:

2. A tumbler quilt for Cindy using the Kona charm packs & 1 print FQ she sent me:

3. Some triangular placemats for my brother and his girlfriend:

4. Lastly, I made another peasant dress for baby R using some of the beautiful Little Matryoshka fabrics. This was actually one of my first finishes in the quarter, and although I posted a pic on Instagram at the time, I completely forgot to blog it.

Here is is:

I used the pattern by Sew Much Ado. I love this pattern, and bought it after I made the free infant version and baby R got to wear it only once before growing out of it. This time I made it in the 6-12 month size. R is not a particularly big baby (she's 6 months this week and only moving into 6-9 month clothes in the last couple of weeks) but she is already out of this version! I don't think that my not pre-washing the fabric helped as there has been a bit of shrinkage, but I find the pattern very tight across the chest/arm holes. However, maybe the sizing is different between the USA and Europe as the weight guidelines seem to be a bit different. Anyways, I digress. I did manage to snap a little pic of my beauty in her dress before she grew out of it - this was taken about 10 weeks ago so she is a lot bigger now! (And yes, in case you're wondering, she's a thumb sucker <3)

So there you go - my finishes. Delighted with these and can't wait to get stuck into next quarter's finish! Thanks so much to Leanne for hosting the Finish-A-Long, it definitely helped keep me on track.

I'm linking up to Leanne - pop over there to be inspired by everyone's finishes!

Finish A Long Quarter 2 plans

Now that I have rejoined the quilting and blogging universe, its time to get myself organised and finish the raft of projects I left littered in my wake last year. Luckily, Leanne's Finish-A-Long for Quarter 2 is coming along at just the right time so I'm linking up over there and hoping to have some nice completed projects to show you at the end of June.

So  here's my list! Even writing it is making feel excited to get started.

1. First up, my little boy's bright circles quilt. The quilt top was made last summer, but I ran into basting problems and did not have the energy to fix them with a big pregnant belly. Now rebasted and about a third of the way through quilting, this is my top priority project for the next few weeks.

2. A tumbler quilt using Kona solids and a pop of print for Cindy I'm ready to start this very soon, and looking forward to tackling another tumbler quilt as I loved the last one I made.

3. Baste, quilt and bind my Ruby quilt top.

4. Make another peasant dress for baby R in these lovely fabrics, seeing as the first one I made her fit her for all of 2 days!

5. I started (and had a complete craft fail with the quilting on) some placemats for my brother's new place last  year. I took them out and looked at them again this week to see if I can rescue them but one is beyond repair. So although this looks like a new project, really its a replacement finish that I need to do. I have a plan in my head (heavily inspired by Leanne's triangles mini quilt) to make some triangular placemats (using equilateral triangles) using these lovely mustard and grey fabrics, mostly from my Echo bundle:

6. I'm hesitant to add this to the list, but if things were to go very, very well, then I would just love to get my Mod Mosaic blocks from my friends in the Modern Irish Bee pieced into a quilt top and back, and the quilt finished. That's an ambitious one but I'll put it in here anyway, a bit of motivation is good for the soul!

So that's my list. Lots of good stuff on there and I really hope I can get them all done. I'm trying not to be too overambitious, but we'll see :-) Don't forget to head over to Leanne and see what everyone else is planning!