January Finishes

My Friends Who Quilt decided to go in together to create this blog to post our UFO Challenge finishes! Hi! my name is Gina, and I blog over at Sew Much and More. I'm a little late to post my January finishes but I do have finishes... completed projects! Yea!

 

My first finish was a denim prayer quilt! I make prayer quilts for my church ministry. So happy to be able to get this quilt to the recipient. A dear friend was scheduled for open heart surgery for a heart valve procedure. Praises, the surgery was a success and he's home now recovering!

 

I love all the shades of blue! I follow this tutorial to make my denim quilts from recycled jeans!

 

Here's a photo showing the back. You can also see some of the untied threads. The quilt is presented to the congregation, each person says a silent prayer and ties a knot in the threads. Knots can be tied on top of knots (prayers on top of prayers). To learn more about prayer quilts you can go here and here.

 

Next up, I participated in the Dare to Dresden blog hop hosted by Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt and Christine at Quilt Monster in my Closet. They are very talented ladies, visit their blogs every chance you get!

 

I completed 3 Dresden projects!

 

 

This was the first mug rug I've made! It was so easy and fun to make!

 

It's been cold here in Arkansas and this mug rug works perfect for a cup of hot chocolate and extra marshmallows!

 

I love how the nested Dresden pillow turned out! The pillow is 20 x 20 inches and the Dresden measures 16 x 16 inches. I love the blue and white, it makes me think of blue porcelain dishes.

 

Next I made a denim Dresden rag table topper.

 

This was a last minute idea, sometimes those are the best! The ragging will look better after more washings. It's made from denim jeans my two sons can no longer wear.

 

It's reversible too!  I'm an instruction follower and I was winging it on the Dresden table topper and surprised myself that it turned out so well!!

 

Here's one more photo with a vase in the center!

I don't want this blog post to be too long, so I won't get into my February UFO's. I'll let you know what they are in a separate post.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Gina

 

 

 

 

January's FO - February's UFO

January UFO project - done... that is, except for the quilting. It really does feel good to have a project (almost) completed. I just need to quilt it then it will be absolutely done! I revealed this quilt Saturday morning at my LQS's Strip Club session.  It was a huge success. My LQS is wanting to display it during the 4 days of the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop March 14th - 17th. Let me tell you, that was the ultimate compliment! Now I just need to quilt it!!

I didn't get the Chenille Scarf completed...wait a minute...I didn't even get it started... it was just a project I wanted to do...a thought...so does that count as a UFO if it was just a thought?!! Ummm??

Now on to my February UFO list: 

1.  Quilt my January FO for Shop Hop display.

2.  I was rummaging through a bin looking for more black and white scraps and I found some Kaleidoscope blocks that I started about 2, maybe 3 years ago. Oh My Goodness...how could I have forgotten about these blocks and how amazing they look!!! I may need to make one more depending on the layout. I will have to do a sashing and just sew them together...easy peasy...right? Right!

If I remember correctly, all these designs came from 8 one yard fabric cuts, stacked on top of each other with design matched up. I will need to re-fresh my memory on how these blocks are done!

Okay, that's it for me now. I'm awaiting to see what you guys have completed and what project(s) you plan to complete for February.

For my January project I'm doing a Chenille Scarf made with my new Olfa Chenille cutter that I bought myself before Christmas. Of course I had problems from the start...not with the cutter, but with my intelligence. I needed to cut the fabric on the bias but failed to open out the fabric. I had a big "M" instead of a single strip of bias cut fabric. Needless to say I had to find a YouTube video that showed the correct way to fold and cut bias strips. I saved the video to my favorites because I'm sure I will be referring to it often. I also just found another method to fold for bias strips...this one seems easy also and I'll have to try it out. Actually the second one may be easier to use when working with a larger piece of fabric...interesting. Anyway, it is my plan to have the scarf completed by the end of this month.

I thought that maybe the scarf was not a big enough project after I found out what you guys were doing so I've also included a quilt that I started last Spring. Its a black and white star/diamond quilt. It finishes 68 x 80. I've completed 2 blocks and have 28 more to go (1.4 per day)...or 112 squares (5.6 per day). I think I can do it. I would love to have the quilting finished but I'm not committing to that part...if I do that will just be extra. 

This is what I have thus far...2 completed blocks. Today I was able to complete 8 more squares which will give me 2 more completed blocks...yey! I love this design because I don't really have to worry about matching up seams except for maybe the center of the star.  And no...I did not take a black and white photo. I decided to use up some of my black and white fabric stash. I think its going to be very striking when completed. 

Okay...can't wait to see what you all have done thus far. 

Talk soon. 

Happy Quilting! Happy Finishing!

DeAnna

Our 2013 UFO Challenge

Good going Gina...you have us started now with the below email you sent to us..Good Luck and Happy Sewing (and completing)

Welcome to the 2013 UFO Challenge!  I hope you had a fantastic end to 2012 & are having a wonderful beginning to 2013!!

 

Do you have your UFO list complete? Or at least know what project you want to complete by Jan 31st? Our definition of UFO is of course an Unfinished Object or it could be considered a WIP for Work In Progress or it could be something new that you've been wanting to make and have not started.

 

Regarding your list - you can assign a project to a certain month or you can just have your list & when a new month rolls around just pick from your list. I hope that makes sense! On the first of the month we can email each other a pic of the completed item and/or DeAnna & I could blog about it (since we have blogs). I'm good with how ever y'all think is best!

 

What else can you think of we might want to do for motivation/ inspiration?

 

Good luck & get to your sewing machines or get to your needles for hand stitching! 

Gina