Maniac Monday

Maniac Monday is back. I am hoping this will help me to stay motivated to get things done. I have way too many UFO's to continue buying fabric for no purpose. So with the Maniac Monday list I can set goals for myself for the week and see if I have made any progress. I want to get this goal of blogging often again into my blood stream before school starts back up for me on September 17th. I only have a few semesters left of my Associates Degree in Family History Research and them all of my time will be mine again. I am no longer babysitting on a regular basis, only hit and miss, maybe once or twice a month. So, I want to lay the ground work for some good personal habits. 

What does my list look like:

Below is the list of the four projects I drew out of the "hat." As I finish one UFO, I will move onto the next in line. Why four? I have no idea, just sounded like a good number. HA HA!!

1. Finish the Kaleidoscopic Kites top, formerly known as the Larger Rainbow Disappearing 9 Patch.

I have to add two more rows to the bottom edge and I will stop there and call that a good twin size. I will be donating to our local food bank for Christmas gifts.

2. Start and finish the Kaleidoscopic Kites RS Baby Quilt top.

This one is not on the list, but because I am trying to finish UFO's, I have decided not to leave other UFO's in my wake. I will just sew these blocks up into a top also. I have about 37 blocks left over, so I will be making a baby quilt for my church. We give new babies a hand-made quilt and I am the one that is lucky enough to be doing that now. I love making baby quilts. Such a quick little project.

3. Work out a plan for my Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage 12 inch blocks quilts.

I made all of the blocks in the book so now I need to figure out how many quilts I will make out of them. Next thought will be who will get them. I am sure I will keep one for myself. 

4. Work out a plan for my Kaleidoscope Paper-Pieced Saturday Sampler quilt.

I am not sure how old this sampler is. I did this these blocks from a local quilt shop. I have some of mine made and the rest are just in kits. My daughter was doing it with me and got frustrated. So she gave me all of her blocks. I need to decide if I am making a huge quilt with 24 blocks, two smaller quilts, or moving her fabric into my stash. I love the blocks though, they are so beautiful!!

5. Round and Round Quilt Along.

I have gotten to this point. I need to add a few rows of alternating four patches and white strips to the top and bottom. I was so close to having this one done, why did I stop?! I don't know. I am sure I will be saying that a lot. 

I am not sure how far I will go this week, but this is my plan for now. 

TTFN

Kaleidoscopic Kites

Kaleidoscopic Kites, formally known as Large Disappearing 9 Patch. I started this quilt a long time ago after seeing this quilt on Fresh Lemons Quilts. I love it, I always love a good rainbow!! I thought that it looked like a disappearing 9 patch and that I could make this quilt using a bunch of 5 inch squares I had sitting around. I started making 9 patches and because of the number of shiny new quilts I saw, I put it aside and never went back. After all this time I have decided I need to start going through my UFO's and get working on them. I put the names of all of them in a "hat" and drew out four to start with. This is the first one that came out. 

After taking the blocks out and giving them a look over, I realized I could not make it as a traditional 9 patch if I wanted all the colors to go in particular places. I took some blocks apart and started cutting pieces. I spent most of one day sewing what I had together, only to realize it was not going to be big enough for a twin size quilt. You can see in this picture those little rectangles on the side, I am still working on my rail fence for Bonnie Hunter's Rail Fence Leader/Ender from last year. Over the last year I have cut billions of little 1.5" x 3.5" rectangles. I am sewing all of them together before I start grouping them to make a quilt. I am sure I will have more than one quilt out of them.

Finally I got my graph paper out and added blocks until I thought I had the size I wanted. Above you can see the new quilt diagram and my sewing set up. I love my sewing space. I spent another day cutting, planning, and sewing. In the diagram you can see the dark lines, that is the outline of the original quilt. I sewed and added the three rows to the right of the outline. After laying this new quilt top on my bed, I realized if I added the five rows across the bottom, I would have close to a queen size quilt. WOW!! I guess I am out of practice on math, HA HA. 

After rethinking this quilt for a millionth time, I have decided to turn the quilt on its side, add two more rows to the bottom and call it good. I will be taking the leftover blocks and making a very random patterned baby quilt with them. I can't wait to see it. 

TTFN

On the Road to Spring

Another of my UFO's that has become a quilt top is my On the Road to Spring. It started out as the Designer Mystery Block of the Month through Fat Quarter Shop. I loved the fabric, but did not want to make another sampler quilt. I have decided over the years that I do not what to make sampler quilts. I love repetition and order. I love also balance and equality in my quilts. Scrappy is very hard for me, but I am loving the process and the look of those kinds of quilts. Anyway, after I decided I did not want another sampler quilt, I just collected the fabric. One day while I was reading different posts, I came across this pattern. I loved the quilt! I decided I wanted to make this quilt and I knew just what fabric I wanted to use. So, I got busy cutting up the fabric and started sewing.

I made a small and large quilt. I will be using the small one as a baby quilt and I am not sure yet what will happen to the large one. 

One day I will get these out and quilt them. I am so excited to get old UFO's finished. How are you doing on your UFO list?

TTFN

Black and White Garden

I am happy to finally say this is now a completed top. It has been a UFO for a very long time. I started working on it about 2010. I started it at my LQS as a Saturday Sampler. I made a few blocks and then got sidetracked. Then I broke it out of UFO purgatory and finished the top around August of last year. I would like to get this finished and use it as a donated quilt for H2H. I think this would make someone very happy. I will have to break it back out again and figure out the dimensions. I then will know if I have to make it any bigger. I am happy that I can find this quilt a home. 

TTFN

A Finished Top~NTT

Over at My Quilt Infatuation, Kelly, has a link-up party every Thursday. I just finished this quilt top so I wanted to join in the fun. 

I am not sure when this Saturday Sampler started, but my first post about this quilt was way back in 2010. Over all these years, I had finished the blocks, but they sat in a box in my closet. Today, after working on the bellow project, I decided I needed to work on something different. After looking at a couple newer UFO's, I decided to work on something old. I broke this out and knew the time had come for me to make the top. Because all the blocks are weird sizes, the top does not come together easily. I had to add a bunch of pieces to make things line up. Now I am happy to show off the the finished top. I hope to soon have this as a finished quilt. I am not sure what I am going to do with this once it is finished, but it will not be a UFO no more!! 

I have been doing a Mystery Quilt in PQA, my quilt group. We have been working on Twinkle2 QAL. I decided to make a queen size quilt. I have figured I need to make 90 blocks. I have been slowly working on these blocks. I have finished 70 blocks so far. I am on the last 20 blocks. It will have dark brown in the flying geese. The next step is to add the sashing and corner stones. After that I will sew it all into a quilt top. I am so excited. This will be my second quilt with this pattern. 

Milky Way Quilt

During the time that I have been blogging and quilting, I have been apart of a LQS (Local Quilt Shop) monthly sampler. They call it Saturday Sampler, LOL!! I have only ever finished one of their quilts, that is until this quilt! I had so much fun with the colors that I knew I would finish it. Here are a few of the finished blocks.

As I am working on a quilt, I like to draw a sketch to see what I need to do finish it. I thought I would add my sketch here. Sorry about the shadow, I only ever meant for me to see it, HA HA!!

Now my quilt is a top. I need to finish it and quilt it. I think because this quilt is so busy, I need to just do an all over stipple. I hope to be back soon with it all quilted up.

Linked to Confessions of a Fabric Addict

I am also joining in with Red Letter Quilts' link-up party, OMG, One Monthly Goal. I am listing this quilt as my goal. I would like to have it quilted by the end of August. I don't think that will be too hard for me to do. I can't wait to see it finished. I hope that I have not set myself up for failure. But I won't know until I try! I hope everybody has a good evening.

TTFN

Posh Pumpkins Around the World

Way back in May of 2013, Green Fairy Quilts was giving away a fat quarter bundle of Posh Pumpkins. And I won!! 

Like I said before, orange is my favorite color. I try not to drool over fabric, but this line is to drool for. After I received it, it sat on a shelf until I decided what I was going to make with it. 

I finally figured it out, I wanted my PQA friends to help me. Last year we were making blocks for each other, so I thought this would be the perfect time to cut that bundle into little pieces. I remembered the quilt everybody was making a while back and I knew this was the right pattern. I found Bonnie Hunter's pattern, cut up the fabric, and passed it all out. I received back 25 blocks. I love them. They are just perfect. All of those wonderful fall colors I love. I had a lot of fun with the layout, but decided on this design.

Now that all of the blocks are together, I know I did the right thing with this gift. The quilt measures 48 x 72, not a bad size!

Then one of my sweet PQA friends gifted me two charm packs of Posh Pumpkins and a stack of similar fabrics. Now I can make more blocks!!

I am so excited. I can't wait to finish this quilt!

TTFN

15 in '14 Follow Up

At the beginning of 2014 I made plans,, with no pressure, to finish some UFO's. I decided that I wanted to at least move each project to the next step. Some I did great on, but I also know how life is and with starting school I hit a road block. I still feel like I made some headway and that makes me happy. Here is a follow up post on these 15 projects.

2010 Designer  Mystery BOM

I was able to get all these blocks into a top. I love it. I added this to my every growing box of tops. Man, one day I will have to make them all into quilts. 

Birdie Stitches

This one also made it into a quilt top. I love the very thin sashing. It helps separate all the colors in the edges of the blocks. 

Black and White Garden

I was able to finish each of the blocks for this quilt. I was able to get all of the stitching done on all of the flowers. Now I just need to all of the blocks sown into a top.

Double Delight

I was able to get all of these pieces made into blocks then into a quilt. I have since added a border and started quilting it. I hit a design snag with the quilting so until I feel like I want to tackle it again it is in a drawer.

Quilts for Kids Their Kit

I was able to finish this one. I loved the way it turned out. So cute!!

Quilts for Kids My Kit

This one also turned out so cute. I did the binding differently and the bottom curled up a bit. I did not know about it until it was washed. Darn!

Round and Round Quilt Along

I was able to get a few rounds sown on this top. Once I get this last round on I think it is just two rows added to the top and bottom to make it rectangular. It reminds me of Easter.

I made no progress on the following projects. That is ok!! I accomplished a lot last year even if it did not show in my 15 in '14 plans. Each of these projects will one day be finished but until then I will not stress over them. 

2011 Designer Mystery BOM

 A Year of Paper Piecing

 Apple Core

 Count On It

 Hello Moon

 Hello Sun

 Tetris Quilt Along

Trip Around the World

TTFN