Friday check in

So Monday I wrote about my year end plans here for chipping away at that UFO list.  Here’s where I stand.

I got paid yesterday, so there should be a finish.  I have an hour of binding work to do on one quilt and it will be done.  I should finish that this weekend and post it here and make my move me down post and also post for Judy.  Whew.  Lots of posting but it will be a finish. 

My machine is ready!  So I will head up north and get that tomorrow.  Yes, in all of the rain from Hurricane Isaac.  Sadly the rain will be too much too late for this year, but if it sets us up well for next year, then maybe we can recover.  With the machine being done, I plan on sewing up the rows for my yellow LCRR, doing the BOM block that I have to pick up on Sunday and finishing the blocks on the Christmas 2 BOM.  The Christmas 2 BOM has 25 blocks to it.  12 have been finished and 12 more need some sort of coping borders to get them to the right size.  Then I have to do the 25^th block myself.  If I can get through all of that this weekend, I will be far on that one.

For mindless piecing and other work, I hope to work on a PIF quilt which is Bonnie’s Weed Whacker.  I have 75% of the strips cut.  I’d like to finish cutting the strips and then start sewing up the pairs. 

The next 2 weeks do not hold a lot of promise for sewing.  I hope to do the hand work for the yellow LCRR rows in that time, as well as the binding on another quilt.  That will get me through another payday....

Fall Plans

And now it's time for the plans themselves.

I started the year with 26 declared UFOs.  I have completed 4 of them (I think).  I need to do at least 8 more to have done one per month; 9 would be better.  That is the first goal.

Done
Seaside Rose jacket
Chiclets table runner
Purple Strings
Watermelon Slice

To Do in 2012
Australia quilt
Red hearts quilt
Yellow LCRR
St. Pat's LCRR
Christmas 2 BOM
Orca Bay
Renee's BOM quilt
Hopscotch
Huge Fence Rail

For the record everything I have started this year I have finished except for 4 things: 2 BOMs and 2 PIF quilts.  Not too shabby.  I get the last block for one of the BOMs December 1 so that may not become a UFO.  1 if not 2 of the PIF quilts may get done before year end as well as a leader-ender.  The last BOM starts mid-year and that is just the way life is.

To accomplish this, I need to do 1 UFO per paycheck (I get paid every 2 weeks) and 2 of them better have 2 finishes.  While I am out of pocket for a machine this week, there are some prep things I can do, plus 2 of the above items are in the binding stage, so finishes are forthcoming.

Fall

Well, it's almost Labor Day, which is the unofficial start of Fall.  Actually nowadays I think it might be the start of school which indicates the start of Fall, but that was way back on August 22.  But anyway, as the corn continues to turn brown and the beans are beginning that process, it's time to think Fall.

I have been away from quilting for a bit; I just finished 2 sister quilts for my nieces, one of which was migrating up to a big girl bed for the other, who decided to be like her maternal grandmother and make a grand entrance a week late.  After finishing those 2 quilts, which I loved to make, I took a quilty break.  I can only do so much at one time and since it is Fall and Back to School, Girl Scouts is more demanding of my time right now.

But BOMs wait for no one, except the passage of time.  So Friday I was done with work at 12.30 and I came home and sewed one block.  It's one of those Buck a Block ones but this one does not give enough fabric to do 2 blocks per packet; the blocks are more detailed than in past years.

So I sew my one block, run out to the LQS, come back from the LQS (64 miles round trip) and neat the school bus to my home.  We watch Iron Man while I sew up the rest of the BOMs.

I always get 2 of the Buck a Block BOM kits and this time, there isn't enough fabric to make the positive and negative versions of the block in each packet.  So I am making 3 blocks per 2 packets.  The odd numbers months will have 2 lights and 1 dark, which means the even months will be the opposite.  So anyway, I sewed up months 1 and 2 and now have a baggie with all my BOM crap in it in the red sale bag for my LQS.

The other BOM that I am in I did the block way back at the beginning of the month when I got it just to get it out of the way.

All of this was done in preparation for my beloved Janome Jem 760 Ruby to go off to be cleaned.  I had planned to drop her off at the dealer on September 1, as I had to be in Chicagoland anyway.  But Dad needed some surgery and so I had to go up yesterday.  I dropped off Ruby yesterday in the rain and I hope to pick her up on September 1.

So where am I going with this?  Oh heavens, I should get back to that.  I had time to think during all the driving I've done.

I have some Fall plans.  I'm going to put them in another post so I can find them quickly.

August

It’s been a while. Life has been both exhausting and crazy at the same time.


On a quilty front, things are moving along, albeit slowly. I need to quilt to keep my sanity but things are so busy, I am not getting enough time. So I am carving out the time as I can.

I’ve decided that my goal right now is to get as many things as possible to the hand binding stage. I need to have my machine serviced desperately and I will drop it off on September 1. But I won’t get it back for quite some time, like September 22. That’s OK, as the other aspects of my life will be beyond busy at that point, but I will need stuff to do. So if I have a pile of binding ready to go, that will help.

What was the red strings quilt, which is now just the red hearts quilt, is to this point. The Australia quilt has been there for a few months. I am now starting the process of joining all the yellow LCRR blocks together after FINALLY finishing quilting them all last night during the Olympics. I have 2 more quilts I’d like to get to this point as well. That would make for 5 things that would need to be done and frankly that should be more than enough. 4 are UFOs.