13 Finishes in 2013 - The Recap

Last January, I set a rather ambitious goal to finish 13 projects in 2013.  Call them UFOs or WIPs, or whatever, the truth is these quilts-in-progress were just languishing in a basket in the sewing room, taking up space and making me feel guilty.  Here was my original list:

 1. Jelly Roll Quilt - Finished March 9, 2013

2.  Fairy Tale Friends Finished - February 21, 2013.  Donated to Project Linus.

 

3.  3 x 6 Bee Blocks - I thought I had enough of these aqua & red blocks to make one quilt.  Turns out I had enough blocks to make two quilts.  I didn't quite get them finished to complete my May goal, but they were both finished by June 8, 2013 and both were donated to Project Linus.

4.   Citrus Quilts - I thought I had 10 blocks.  Turned out I had 48 blocks! so I ended up making 3 quilts and asking for a few more from the most recent round of the  3x6 bee so I could make one quilt a little larger.  These 3 were completed in August.  I have the final one on the list for 2014.  Two of these were donated to Project Linus, but somehow, I couldn't part with the third one. 

5.  Granny Squares Quilt.  These blocks were from a couple of online bees in 2011, so I had plenty of squares to finish this quilt. It's one of my favorites, in fact.  It's also the only quilt I've had the pleasure of quilting on a long arm (thank you, Marcy!)  This one was finished in April.

6.  The String Blocks Quilt  was finished in October. 

7.  The Bow Tie Quilt was finished in September.  I really had fun quilting this one.  I called the quilting motif a Double Daisy, but the ladies in the guild thought it looked like Sand Dollars.  Whatever it was, it is finished.   Yay!

8.  Bento Block Quilt - I finished this one in December.

9.  Breath of Avignon Quilt - I haven't made any progress on this one, so it will be tops on the list for 2014. 

 

 

 10.  Ari's anthropologie knock-off duvet cover was finished in April, 2013 as a graduation gift for Ari and her husband, Mitch.

11.  My Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt is really coming along.  I am actually amazed at the progress I've made on this one, so while it's not really finished, I'm not going to count this as a fail, either.  It's a great project for wintertime, since it's all hand-stitched, so I'm going to put it on the list for 2014 again and see how far I get.  I'm really pleased with my progress on this one.

12.  I have made 2 Weekender Bags from the leftover HSTs from the Swoon quilt, so I'm going to count this one as finished, July, 2013.

13.   I've made virtually no progress on my Basket Blocks quilt.  It's still sitting there in it's little zip lock waiting for some attention.  So this one is going to the top of the list for 2014.

There were a bunch of other finishes in 2013, and one day I will get around to figuring that out, but that's it for this list.  While I didn't get to everything, I'm not going to beat myself up about that.  Overall, I'm pretty pleased with what I did accomplish, and that's good enough. =)

I'm debating whether or not to try to do 14 in 2014.  Is that too much?  Especially considering that my WIP pile is considerably smaller than it was last year.  There are these two unfinishes of course - the Breath of Avignon and the Basket Blocks.  

And then there are a bunch of others.  Some have been sandwiched.  Some are just finished quilt tops. 

And a few are just unfinished blocks - or blocks yet to be made.

It will be interesting to see what quilty pleasures 2014 brings, won't it?

13 in 2013 November Update

I really thought I was doing great on this 13 in 2013 challenge until I looked at the calendar the other day.

Here's the list I started with in January:

1.  Jelly Roll Quilt, finished March, 2013
2.  Fairy Tale Friends, finished March, 2013
3.  Teal/Red 3x6 Bee Blocks, finished 2 quilts, July, 2013
4.  Citrus quilt(s), finished 3 quilts, August, 2013
5.  Granny Squares Quilt, finished March, 2013
6.  String Blocks Quilt finished October, 2013
7.  Bow Tie Quilt finished September, 2013
8.  Bento Blocks Quilt (sandwiched and ready to quilt)
9.  Breath of Avignon Quilt
10.  Anthropologie Duvet Cover, finished April, 2013
11.  GMFG - this one is about 2/3 completed
12.  Lark Pinwheel Quilt - I used most of the blocks for Weekender bags, so I'm counting this one as finished
13.  Basket Quilt

On the one hand, I feel like I've accomplished quite a lot so far this year.   On the other hand, I still have a ways to go, and we're now officially into "gifting season", and I have high hopes of making a lot of my gifts this year.  In addition to that, I have several swaps and some donation quilts that need to be finished by various deadlines.  Yikes!

But I did finish my October goal, which was to complete the string blocks quilt.  That makes 9 out of 13 completed.  I still have the Breath of Avignon blocks and the Basket blocks sitting in their little plastic bags waiting for their turn.

Even though I had the bento block quilt sandwiched at one point, I decided it wasn't quite big enough to be useful, so I took it apart and added borders at each end.  About the time I finished doing that, I found enough blocks for one more row, so I decided that I needed to add them to the quilt or the extra blocks would forever languish in the orphan pile.  I took off one border and managed to add the extra row with only a minimum of fuss.

It is sandwiched again now, thanks to an incredibly hot and sweaty marathon sandwiching session on the primary room floor the other day.  I sandwiched it and 5 other quilts that day.  I bought king size batting and there is simply not a place in this house where there's room to lay out something that big. A king size bat will make about 3 large-ish quilts, so for an extra $5.00 (with a JoAnn's 50% off coupon), it makes sense to buy the bigger size.  My friend came in and talked to me while I was working, so the time just flew by.  It was a pretty productive day, despite the fact that I was totally worthless by the time I got home, and spent the rest of the day watching Season 7 of Hell's Kitchen.

So my ALYOF goal for November is to quilt and bind the Bento quilt.  It shouldn't be too hard, right? 

And if I'm really on top of things, I'll get the other two quilt tops put together.  Honestly, I would be totally jazzed by that.

I might just pull this off.

WIP Wednesday... 4 finishes and a WIP

I'm not exactly sure how it got to be the 10th of October already, but here we are.  It is officially fall, the weather is cooler, the leaves are changing, and here in Florida, the humidity has dropped to reasonable - even pleasant - levels in the wake of quasi-Tropical Storm Karen.

I finished the string block quilt which was my October goal in my 13 in 2013 challenge.  It went a lot faster than I thought it would.

Barely an afternoon's quilting and it was finished!  I was amazed.

I tried a wood-grain quilting pattern, and I have to say, it was kind of fun.  Certainly nowhere near perfect, but I'm satisfied with it.

I did a herringbone design in the first border.  Looking at it now, it might be further apart that it should have been, but I don't dislike it at all.

And the outer border is kind of a wonky diamond design.  And frankly, I really like the stripey binding.

So, this one is a wrap, and I'm ok with the results.

And I finally sat down and finished the last of the scrappy trip along blocks.  I really love the combination of dots and solids that Leona chose.  So happy!

Since Leona only wanted a quilt top, this one is a finish also.  I love how the square blocks look like they are on the diagonal.  I love how the colors play together.  It took me a bit to decide how to lay this one out, but I'm glad I chose the traditional layout.  The quilt is 7 blocks square, or 84" x 84"  Glad I'm not quilting this one myself!

I finished my latest Weekender Bag.  This is the one I started as the demo for my class at Derrel's of Pensacola in September.  I did this one in blue, and used Lizzy House's Castle Peeps as the focal fabric.  I must be into stripes lately.  I really like the stripey piping on this one too.

I had a lot of fun with the Castle Peeps in making this bag.

And I finally took photos of the last of the citrus quilts.  This is the one I kept - mostly because Abby liked it.  It may yet be a Project Linus quilt, but somehow I just couldn't part with it.  I love how the blues in this quilt make the citrus colors pop.

I tried a leaf design on this one, and it was a lot of fun to do.

Yup!  I kinda like this one.

I got the rows put together in my Starflower quilt.  Would you just look at those points???  Amanda's method for perfect points is, well....  perfect.  Honestly, they all look like that.  How did my daughter get to be so smart?  Now all I need to do is to cut and attach the borders....

So, that's what's been going on around here in the last week or so.  I'd love to know what you've been up to. 

13 Finishes in 2013 - September Goal

I'm doing OK with my 13 in 2013 goal, but I'm still behind. 


Here's the list I started with in January:

1.  Jelly Roll Quilt, finished March, 2013
2.  Fairy Tale Friends, finished March, 2013
3.  Teal/Red 3x6 Bee Blocks, finished 2 quilts, July, 2013
4.  Citrus quilt(s), finished 3 quilts, August, 2013
5.  Granny Squares Quilt, finished March, 2013
6.  String Blocks Quilt
7.  Bow Tie Quilt finished September, 2013
8.  Bento Blocks Quilt
9.  Breath of Avignon Quilt
10.  Anthropologie Duvet Cover, finished April, 2013
11.  GMFG - this one is about 2/3 completed
12.  Lark Pinwheel Quilt - I used most of the blocks for Weekender bags, so I'm counting this one as finished
13.  Basket Quilt

And I did go on a sandwiching spree this week and got three quilts sandwiched; the string block quilt and the bento block quilt are sandwiched...

And the bow tie quilt is DONE!

It shouldn't be too hard to finish both the string block and the bento quilts since the worst part of the job is done.

I've made wonderful progress on the Grandmother's Flower Garden - more than I ever expected - but I still have a couple of long rows to do to finish the top...  and I think I'll count that as a finish.  If I decide to hand quilt it, it may be another couple of  years before this one is done.

So, with three months left in 2013, I have 5 quilts left to finish.  Two of those are already sandwiched and ready to quilt, so they are well on their way.  I think I will be able to finish the GMFG top by the end of the year. That will just leave the Breath of Avignon and the Basket quilt to finish before the December. 

Who knows, I might actually make it! 

Progress?

At the Emerald Coast MQG meeting on Saturday - our 2nd birthday, BTW - I was lucky enough to win the block lottery... 41 luscious wonky cross blocks in shades remiscent of days (and nights) at the beach, befitting our Emerald Coast heritage.  So, Sunday night, while WH was watching football, I decided to head into the sewing room and putter around.  I messed around with arrangements of these blocks on my design - um... - floor, pinned them in rows, stacked them all up and put them in a pile.

Since I wasn't really into the football game, I dug around in the WIP basket and decided to put together what I thought was my September goal for ALYOF - my bag of string blocks. 

Having those pinned in rows and piled up ready to sew, and knowing I was behind on my 13 in 2013 goals, I decided to get out the bentos and lay them out.  Done and done.

Football still taking over the den, I laid out my starflower quilt.  It took up the entire floor, and I even had to weave blocks around the legs of the ironing board, but I ended up with a layout I liked.  (It's gonna be awesome!!)

Then yesterday, starting about 8 am, I decided I was going to make it happen.  I sewed for about an hour and a half and the string blocks became a quilt top.  Easy peasy.

Another couple of hours, and the bentos became a quilt top.  I was cookin'. 

After a fun lunch date with my friend (and former co-worker) Shandra, and a nice long nap, I came back and put together the wonky cross quilt. This one was a bit more of a challenge since I had to make an extra block and fix a couple of size issues, but eventually it was done also...  And it was still light outside.  (I should have gone out immediately to take photos but it was getting dark and threatening rain, so these blurry, poorly lit I-phone shots are all I have at this moment - sorry.)

Ha!  Three quilt tops in one day!  I was pretty pumped so I decided to try putting the starflower quilt together - especially since I was afraid to pick it up, so it was still on the floor, being walked on, rolled on, and stepped over.  Amanda's directions are easy to follow and my first hexagon/star combo went together like a dream. 

So I decided to put the first two stars together.  Definitely NOT as hard as it looks.  Amanda's instructions are really quite good, and stars and hexies went together perfectly.  I ended up with the first row entirely together (which was good, because now I won't have to roll over blocks with my chair any more.)  And it was only 8 pm. A truly productive day. 

It wasn't until this morning that I realized that there was just one problem...  My goal for September was Bow Ties.

Oops!