March Goal

Goals for March ~
My one goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes is an easy one. I have allot to do to get my longarm business back up and running. With all I have going on I am choosing to be kind to myself.

This is my 2014 New Year's Day Mystery quilt top pieced in January. It was an online mystery with Planet Patchwork, an annual event which I've participated in over the years. This is the last year with Planet Patchwork which has folded. The pattern designer, Diane may be Mary Mayhem will be setting up future mysteries on her Facebook page. 

My goal is to finish the quilting (almost there), binding and a label for a complete finish. 

Other ongoing WIPs and BOMs to work on this month. Amaretto Cottage, a BOM I am doing with my friend Janie. Barbara Brackman's Threads of Memory block 2. A baby quilt for a March baby shower and I hope to get a little further on a quilt I pieced last month, The Big EZ. This will be a window treatment for my longarm studio. First priority is to get me and my longarm running and back to quilting my customer's quilts, then the windows.

Pattern photo of The Big EZ (with my red pen marks)
 

Jo

Looking forward to Spring this month too!


Post update: I forgot to include Cheryl's Easter Baskets QAL to my list of WIPs.
Part one was posted Friday on The Olde World Quilt Shop blog, this is the link.
I have my HST papers printed out and am ready to get started on this little guy :0)

New Year's Day Mystery

New Year's Day Janie and I had a wonderful time working on the Mystery quilt from Planet Patchwork.  An Oldie But Goodie is the name given to this quilt project. Here is an image of the top from their website.

 Dianne, the designer for this project made some changes in the layout on purpose as she based this quilt project on an old quilt she found. To quote her...

The basis for this design is an antique quilt top that followed me home one day.  Unfortunately, the dark brown and black fabrics were flaking away as I held it up to admire it.  I decided it was too far gone to try to restore it, so the next best thing was to attempt to recreate it with new fabrics.

You might notice that a few of the Anvil blocks have been turned in the “wrong” direction, which is exactly how the original quilt top was made!

This is the first block we laid out, it's called Anvil... turns out there are two blocks that will be alternated. The second is the large HST which we had cut but that's as far as that got :0)

There was more eating, football and visiting than sewing which meant we didn't keep up let alone finish our tops, but we had fun and it was a great way to start the New Year!

Question... for the layout, turn some of the blocks in the wrong direction as Dianne did in order to reproduce the original quilt top? Or go with the traditional layout? Which would you do?

It was very nice to have some time off for the holidays.  This weekend will be more football with the Pro playoffs while I finish blocks for this quilt as well as two more quilt projects I have in the works. Amaretto Cottage and a Tree of Life quilt. Monday will be back to work longarm quilting quilts promised 'after' the holidays :0)

Enjoy your weekend! Thanks for checking in

Looking forward to a new year and finding out what you all are up to :0)

Stars and a Mystery

As promised, this is the quilt I purchased a few weeks ago at Honey Run Quilters Holiday Craft Fair. Theresa Wright made this quilt for a store sample several years ago. It's quilted by Cindy Needham with beautiful feathers and radiating stitches from the center. I fell in love with the stars and layout at first sight. Then to find out it was quilted by Cindy I knew I wanted to buy it. Cindy is a member of our guild ~ Annie's Star Quilt Guild.  Cindy came to our last meeting as a guest speaker and showed her work, mostly her quilted linens that she is so well know for.
Here are some close ups of the quilting... there is a feather wreath going thru the second layer of star points with the radiating stitches coming out of the center star...

The radiating lines going out to the border with another spine of feathers. Love it!

The past few weeks have been busy getting quilts completed and delivered by the weekend. With a notice in the mail to show up for Jury Duty on December 16th (today) I wanted to make sure everything was done not knowing what would happen this week. Happily, I was not asked to serve and now I have some time to enjoy some quilting me time and the holidays. Yea!

The Mystery is by Plant Patchwork ~ they are going ahead with a New Year's Day Mystery for 2014. Their store is going out of business and selling off the inventory.  It is not decided what will become of the website. Having done several of the NYDs mysteries I was glad to get an email today that they are posting one for 2014. Here is a link to part one if anyone is interested in joining in. It's fun and free if you enjoy doing mystery quilts. Here are pix of past quilts I made doing PP mysteries...

My favorite, Gems in the Ruff ~ 2006

2013 Mystery

Chips and Strips ~ 2012

2005

This is my least favorite, the purple disappeared. But, that can happen because it's a mystery! The fun starts early on New Years morning, depending on where you live (time zone). I usually have the Rose Parade on and have a flimsy or close to it by the end of the day. A friend told me whatever you do on New Years Day, you will do throughout the year. Fun way to make sure that includes quilting!!!

Enjoy your week getting ready for the holidays

Groetjes, Jo

UFOs for September

With one quilt finish in August, that carries two projects into September and adding a third to get that one on it's way to getting finished...

1. First up is my Medallion made earlier this year with Lori and Randy's SAL...

To do: finish FMQing, binding and a label. That's doable and a have to do this month for ASQG quilt show. Deadlines, like I don't have enough going on. Why do we do this to ourselves? Gets me up in the mornings.

2... a UFO since 2005. A mystery quilt pieced in one day with Planet Patchwork

Also doable as most of the quilting was done last year. The hangup... there is a ziplock bag containing the thread that I used, fabric for the binding and scraps for the label. That bag exists somewhere, problem is I have not been able to find out where it's hiding!
To do: find that bag, finish the quilting, binding and a label.

3... is a UFO from 2002, a BOM with Claudia's Quilt Shoppe. This pattern is still available on their website! The fabrics are vintage... all calico scraps from the 90's. Yikes!

The top is pieced. To do: Piece the backing, quilt, binding and attach the label that is ready :0) I am hoping when I pull the fabrics for this one, maybe I'll find that ziplock bag. Just thought of another place it might be in a stack of (clean/unused :0) pizza boxes I use for storing BOMs and BOWs in progress. I also made a small version of this quilt with the same fabrics. It's a finish.

I am linking up with Carrie's Nothing But UFOs. With one week into the month, I better get going!

 Enjoy the day, stitching away