Summer UFO List Part 1

The Quilters on Ravelry cheer each other on to finish UFOs...the enticement is a fat quarter for completion of at least one project each session. This is my official list for the summer:

1. Gold Sash QOV. These blocks were donated by quilters around the country for Moda's Just One Star project. I have 200 blocks to work with, so there will be many many many QOV posts in the foreseeable future.
2. My second design for the Just One Star blocks. I am making alternate square-in-square blocks, named Stars-n-Squares.
3. My third design for the Just One Star blocks is a simple Log Cabin Style. I am adding red and blue strips around some of the odd size blocks.4. Quilt and Bind the Boxy Stars (pattern from Bonnie Hunter). I'd love to teach this as a class at my LQS, and ultimately donate to Quilts of Valor.

5. Arizona Flag Centennial Project. I overlapped the pieces so it looks complete in this picture, but right now, the red and yellow squares are in 8-patches, and I am going to add a black border. This needs to be quilted and bound by Sept 1, assuming it was chosen for the state traveling exhibit.Stay tuned for Part 2!

Stars

Quilts of Valor needed some donation blocks, so these will be in the mail tomorrow, on their way to the Dallas Quilt Show for people to sign. The blocks will eventually be made into a quilt to comfort one of our returning soldiers.

Completely unrelated, Kendra has a new fascination with my camera. She's actually pretty good! First is her favorite stuffed animal, Monkey Dog:
Then Mommy...
And one of our cats...
and Daddy!

Making Progress

I've been quilting on the longarm, trying to finish a Quilt of Valor. The pattern is Mystery 12 from Persimmon Quilts. Nothing too fancy, just some loops in the background and squiggles in the gold area.

An older UFO, "Hidden Stars" a block of the month from Marti Michell, started in 2005.
The pattern originally called for alternate squares of a busy floral, fussy cutting the large roses. I am not that kind of girly-girl! My first thought was to find a light denim blue to match the light blue in the patchwork blocks, which would have been a great plan five years ago. Alas, my LQS didn't have anything suitable when I went shopping a few weeks ago. Rather than spend time searching for something to fit that perfect mental image, I settled on this forest green. I think it looks great so far - just masculine enough while still being a soft complement to the other florals.

And, TA-DA!!!! A finish! I started this bargello quilt at my first Quilt Camp in the Pines, July 2004, just 6 months after I made my first quilt. The class was taught by Louisa Smith and she actually had us turn a section of the strips to create a twist in the design. Great idea, but six years have gone by and I can't even find pictures of that layout now.
When I picked out the fabrics, I had the local quilt show theme of Mardi Gras in mind, so I went with yellow, purple and green. I am still debating adding some applique to "explain" the Mardi Gras colors, but really, who am I kidding? A much better idea is just to get it quilted and donate it to the small quilt auction, or maybe keep it as a spring display for my classroom.

Hello out there!

We're back to the school year routine, which means I only get to sew on holidays! Well, on the occasional Saturday I can squeeze in time to do things like put borders on a QOV mystery from Persimmon Quilts:
Of course, my photo skillz are horrible, and I chopped off the borders. You can see a few bits in the upper right corner! Great pattern, but I have no idea how I will quilt it. I need to do something all over (pantograph suggestions anyone?) or it will languish for at least a year.

Then I needed a quick project, so I grabbed some fabric that I bought on a whim this summer during our vacation in Minnesota and made some placemats. Left side is stack-n-slash, and the reverse is a log cabin with the Minnesota fabric in the center. They will be a Christmas present for a snowbird friend who splits her time between Arizona and Minneapolis.

Sunday Sewing

Well, I had hoped to be a better blogger in 2010. It was a busy week back at school, and all my projects are at that middle plateau which isn't very interesting to photograph.

During vacation, I got the first phase of seaming done on my mitered square blanket:All the colors are sewn together in groups of three. Now, I need a lesson on mattress stitch along a cast-on edge, then I can get the blocks together and start the border. I wanted ALL the squares to intersect, but my layout didn't work with the number of blocks I made...you can see the pairs on the left are different than the design on the right.
I only had time to get one top quilted on the longarm during the holidays:
I used Judy's Freeze Frame pattern for the center, and added my own piano-key borders to make this Quilt of Valor. It just needs a label and then it's ready to go in the mail.
I am steadily knitting my Noro Striped Vest during TV time. Kendra is fanatical about Disney princesses, so we have the videos of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella on constant rotation. She's napping right now and I'm enjoying the AZ Cardinals domination of Green Bay this afternoon! I'm trying to get a couple blocks done each week on my paper piecing quilt but it's a gift, so no pictures to spoil the surprise.