Happy New Year!

It’s January 1st and time to review my 2010 quilting goal.

Tracking the goals here on my blog made me accountable, and helped me meet most of my goals.

• Keep up with the Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler block of the week. This is a quilt I started in 2007.  With 140 6-inch blocks this is not something you whip up over the weekend.  I finished 21 blocks in 2010 before making the deliberate decision to take a break from the quilt in October.  I have a total of 69 blocks finished for this quilt.
• Clear my scrap basket.  I no longer have a scrap basket, but boxes of pre-cut strips, bricks and blocks.  I finished dealing with my scraps back in May.  Since then for the most part I’ve kept my scraps dealt with as each project was finished.  Last night I cleared the small pile which had accumulated in the last couple of months.
• Finish New Starts.  Mixed results.  There were 13 new starts.  4 quilts are quilted.  Three got as far as becoming a top. That leaves 6 which I’m still working on. This includes an embroidered project which I haven’t started cutting fabric for, a block of the month which won’t finish until sometime this year, a shop hop sampler from May, a quilt which needs borders, a mini quilt due this April and a quilt-as-you-go strings project.
• Complete the top of  the Carolina Christmas Mystery Quilt. I used my blocks to make a twin quilt top, and two baby quilts.  One is still a top, the other was completed.
• Complete 4-Patch Stripy.  Completed this quilt in April, along with a matching pillowcase in May.
• Complete my  Double Wedding Ring Quilt.  If there is one goal I’m disappointed in not completing it is this one.  This quilt was started 21 years ago.  A couple of years ago I decided to get on the ball to finish it for our 25th wedding anniversary.  In January I finished piecing the quilt then I spent the rest of the year working on the hand quilting.  I’ve completed the quilting on 37 of the 56 blocks, so I’m well on the way to finishing this quilt.  This  link is to the posting when I finished the 4th row of quilting in October.
• Complete the Music Quilt.  Music Lessons, as we ultimately called the quilt was completed in January.  My husband loves that it’s long enough he can tuck it under his feet and still pull it over his head.
• Complete the Green & Cream Swap Quilt. This is another quilt that is further along due to being on this list than it would have been with out the list.  Not finished, I am working on the hand stitching from sewing together the first two rows.
• Complete one baby quilt.  There were three new babies in the family this year.  Each one received a quilt.  There is Lucy’s Pink Carolina Christmas and  Miah’s Tree Farm.  I also finished a Bright Tossed 9-Patch and a Modern Tossed 9-Patch.  The third baby – Eleanora received Spring Breeze, a quilt I finished several years ago. It’s blue like her big sister’s quilt.
• Quilt one of my Bonnie Hunter Designed Quilt tops. Since I found Bonnie’s website  Quiltville.com I’ve become a fan. Over the past couple of years I’ve made several of her free patterns and a couple of the mystery quilts.  When I started the year I had 3 quilt tops completed:  Orange Crush, a black and white Strip Twist, and  Old Tobacco Road.  Oklahoma Backroads was my current leader/ender project, the Carolina Christmas Mystery was underway and I knew I would be taking at least one class from Bonnie in May. I completed Oklahoma Backroads in September.
• Complete Dancing Flowers. Dancing Flowers is an applique project which had been languishing for about three years – primarily because it was applique.
• Attend a Quilting Workshop.  The Kaw Valley Quilt Guild invited Bonnie Hunter to be our guest speaker in May.  She also conducted two workshops – Texas Braid and Blue Ridge Beauty. Now I have six Bonnie Hunter designed quilt tops!
• Enter a Quilt in the Guild Quilt Show.  I entered Music Lessons and Springtime Flowers.
• Move a UFO to Top or a Top to Quilt.  I completed this early on by completing my Ladder to the Stars quilt top.  Row Quilt, the Red, White and Blue Chain of Stars, and No Blue Geese in my Tropical Garden all became quilts in 2010.

I’m pleased with my results for 2010.

This past month I  had 4 quilting goals:

• Continue quilting the Double Wedding Ring
  
• Make progress on Cream & Green quilt
• Complete center of Blue Ridge Beauty
• Finish quilting center of Compass Lone Star

The only one that I missed completely was finishing the center of the Compass Lone Star.  I started quilting on it, but discovered my tension was off.  I’ve got ripping to do before I can work on it again.

I made progress on the  DWR, but not as much as I hoped.  At this point, I’m still 7-8 weeks from completing the quilt. I figure 2 weeks per row for 3 more rows and then another week or two for the binding.

I definitely made progress on the Cream & Green quilt – I finished quilting 12 blocks and have two rows together — although I’m still working on the hand work on the last seam I completed.  We’ll see if I get this done by the end of the year.

Complete the center of Blue Ridge Beauty.  That I got done.  One of these days I’m going to have to see about getting fabric for the border.

Additionally, I quilted and bound my Red, White & Blue Chain of Stars and made two pillowcases to go with it.  I made a cute little bag, and 4 string blocks.  Finally, I quilted No Blue Geese in my Tropical Garden.  Alas, about the time I ran out of bobbin thread I discovered I managed to quilt pleats into the backing.  The good news is since the backing is so busy, I’m going to be able to stitch the pleats in place and call it good.

Now on to December’s goals.  They suspiciously look like November’s goals.

• Continue quilting the Double Wedding Ring
  
• Make progress on Cream & Green quilt
• Finish quilting center of Compass Lone Star
• Fix the pleat and bind  No Blue Geese

The first three quilts are on my list for Finn’s NYE UFO Challenge.  The DWR is on two other challenge lists and the Cream & Green quilt is on one other challenge list.    We’ll see how much I get done by the end of the year.  I’m not tossing in the towel, but I am realistic enough to realize that I’m not going to finish all of these quilts.  Fortunately these are just goals.

Now, if I can just stop starting new stuff or working on quilts not listed.

I’m off to put in another Harry Potter DVD and do some hand quilting.

It’s a mixed bag on last week’s goals.

• Finish quilting Row 5 on the DWR – No!
• Quilt at least 4 blocks on the Cream & Green quilt –Yes !
• Piece at least two rows on Blue Ridge Beauty – Yes!

Working from the bottom up.  I got going on the Blue Ridge Beauty and finished the center — and in the process sewed one block into a  row wrong and the top half upside down.  I fixed that yesterday and before and after pictures were posted.  The Cream & Green quilt, I’m up to 12 blocks (total) quilted ( I think I was aiming for 9 total), the first row is assembled and I’ve got two blocks on the second row assembled.  Which brings me to my  DWR.

I finished the 4th ring, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.  There are three more rings on this row and three more rows after that!

So, this weeks goals are:

• Finish row 5 on the DWR — no excuses
• Finish assembling row two of the Cream & Green quilt
• Put row 1 and 2 of the Cream & Green quilt together.

I started to leave the Cream & Green off, but I need to finish it for a couple of challenges by the end of the year.  Also, if I put the walking foot back on my sewing machine, it will “prevent” me from working on anything else. — Which in this case is a good thing.

See what progress others are making by following the links over at Bari’s.

No pictures today, but I can report that I completed everything that was on my list and then some.

• Get at least two rings on Row 5 quilted on the DWR – Done!
• Quilt at least two blocks on my Cream & Green quilt – Done!
• Rip out the quilting I’ve already done on the Cream & Green quilt – Done!
• Write up entry for Amy’s Creative Side – Blogger’s Quilt Festival– Done!

I’ve nearly completed 3 rings on the 5th row – so I managed to quilt 4 rings this past week.  The Cream & Green quilt is coming along nicely — I ripped out all of the previous quilting, quilted 4 blocks for a total of 5 and have the batting prepped for the remaining 15 blocks.  Finally I wrote and posted my Blogger’s Quilt Festival entry early last Friday morning.

So what’s on my list for this coming week? — More of the same.

• Finish quilting Row 5 on the DWR
• Quilt at least 4 blocks on the Cream & Green quilt
• Piece at least two rows on Blue Ridge Beauty

These are the minimum it will take for me to make my monthly and yearly goals.  — Well really need to move faster on the DWR, but again I don’t think it’s realistic.  I’ve bumped up the count on the Cream & Green quilt, because I need to have time to put the blocks together and then quilt the borders.    I’m off from work the week after Thanksgiving, so I hope the 11 day stretch gives me a concentrated time to make a chunk of progress.

Check in next week to see if I’m as successful as I was this week, the links on Bari’s blog to see what others are planning to accomplish.

Just a quick note of my progress on this week’s goals so far.

• Get at least two rings on Row 5 quilted on the DWR – 1/2 of the last block on row 4 done.
• Quilt at least two blocks on my Cream & Green quilt – have one done
• Rip out the quilting I’ve already done on the Cream & Green quilt – have ripped out 3 of the six
• Write up entry for Amy’s Creative Side – Blogger’s Quilt Festival – written and ready to post tomorrow.

Off to work on the DWR.  I wonder what I can find to watch on television tonight?

Maybe I need to put on my list of things to do is write the  Quilter’s Accountability post each week.  I  didn’t get much done last week -and I can’t tell you why.  So, let’s go back to the previous week’s goals:

• Quilt on the DWR – at least one hour a day – I’ve gotten distracted and it shows
• Piece the backing for the Row Quilt – Done!
• Attach the backing and quilt top to the HandiQuilter leaders – Done !
• Quilt the Row Quilt – Done!
• Piece the Sept & Oct KVQG BOM – still not done — maybe I’ll get all three blocks done by the Nov meeting?

So on to the goals for this week.

• Get at least two rings on Row 5 quilted on the DWR
• Quilt at least two blocks on my Cream & Green quilt
• Rip out the quilting I’ve already done on the Cream & Green quilt
• Write up entry for Amy’s Creative Side – Blogger’s Quilt Festival

The DWR is self explanatory — I want this quilt done by our wedding anniversary at the end of November.  2 rings won’t get me there — I think I need to quilt one ring a day, but I don’t think that’s realistic.  This quilt is on several of my UFO challenge lists, so if I miss our anniversary I would like to get it done by December 18th – the last day to turn in finishes for the UFQ project at Heritage Fine Fabrics.  This is the last quilt on that list.  It is also on my list for the Finn’s End of Year UFO Challenge & one of my on-line e-mail lists.

The Cream & Green quilt is on two UFO challenge lists.  I have until the end of the year to finish it.  There are twenty blocks, so I need to do at least two blocks a week to get it done.  Additionally, I’ve decided I’m not thrilled with the way the quilt came out on the first six blocks I’ve quilted .

If you click on the picture you should be able to enlarge it to see the quilting on this block.  This was done with just a few registration marks.  Needless to say the quilting is not consistent on all of the blocks. I could go with it, but I tried something different tonight which I like better.

I’ve drawn out the quilting on a full sheet label (contact paper could work as well) and put it on the block to stitch around. I’ve done this in the past, so I’m not sure why I didn’t consider it this time.

Check in next week to see if I got any of this done, and follow the links on Bari’s blog to see what others are planning to accomplish.

Another week has gone by and I’ve met most of my quilting goals.

• Quilt on the DWR – at least one hour a day – perhaps 2. – 3 rings quilted since last Wednesday evening
• Start assembling Star Struck into rows. – Done
• Fix the Row Quilt. – Done

The picture above shows that I’ve turned the block in the Row Quilt.  Additionally, I’ve trimmed threads and pressed it.  It was a bit crushed after being folded up for 5 1/2 years.  At the moment it’s hanging on a hanger waiting for me to attach it to the leader.  Monday’s post shows the progress I’ve made on Star Struck.  As far as the DWR – I can’t say for certain I quilted 1 hour each day — but I have quilted on it each day.  As I write this I’ve completed 2 1/2 rings since last week.

So what’s on tap for next week.

• Quilt on the DWR – at least one hour a day – perhaps 2 (I’m beginning to sound like a broken record)
• Piece the backing for the Row Quilt
• Attach the backing and quilt top to the HandiQuilter leaders
• Quilt the Row Quilt
• Piece the Sept & Oct KVQG BOM – the meeting is Monday!

Check in to see what others are planning for this week by following the links over at Bari’s and check back with me next week to see if I get this done.

A week has gone by and I have a mixed report.

There was a single goal on my list last week:

• Quilt on the DWR — at least one hour a day –perhaps 2.

With the exception of yesterday I worked on the DWR at least one hour each day.  Most days I did two hours.  But I must not have been focusing, because I should have been able to finish the row and start on another.  Oh, well, I did make progress.

This coming week I have three items on my list.

• Quilt on the DWR – at least one hour a day – perhaps 2.
• Start assembling Star Struck into rows.
• Fix the Row Quilt.

The DWR is self-explanatory – Nov 29th is less than 2 months away.

I’m not going to commit to more than starting the rows on Star Struck. My friends and I are having a quilting day Saturday, so there will be sewing — but also conversation, laughter and ripping out.

The Row Quilt on the other hand is new to this party.  It’s been waiting to be quilted since March 2005.  This is the quilt I’ve decided to quilt on the HandiQuilter at Rocking Chair Quilts.  But before I can do that I need to turn that last block on row 7.  I could leave it, but it would bug me.  Once I get that taken care of I’ve got to put together a backing and decide on a quilting pattern – but that can be next week’s goal!

See how others did on their weekly goals by following the links over at Bari’s