Yes, it’s my Colorworks Dresden Plate – or what I’ve got done of it. I still lack 5 blocks, but that’s OK. This quilt is so much further along than it was on February 1st.
February 1st
Follow the links over at Patchwork Times to see what other quilters have on their design walls. And check back here after Judy posts the UFO Challenge # to see if I work on this as my UFO for another month, or make it my “current” project and pull another quilt into the mix.
Nothing in this week — well, a friend did just give me a stack of blocks, but that doesn’t count on the Stash Report — the Tops in Progress list, maybe.
As for fabric usage the beginning and ending of the week saw me cutting fabric for the dragonfly quilt. In between I worked on the Dresden Plate quilt. I cut the dark fabrics for the dragonfly quilt early in the week and then put it up to continue working on the Dresden Plate. By the end of the week I had to cut more background squares for the Dresden Plate. From each width of fabric I got two backgrounds and a dozen squares for the Dragonfly quilt. So, I guess I’m committed to the solid black for the Dragonflies. I think I have 6 1/2 yards left, plenty to do the borders and bindings of both quilts and then some. And yes, I added the black squares to the bag of fabric for the dragonflies and will work on them at the sew-in next month – unless I finish the Dresden Plate before then.
Of course, in surfing the web, I found a postage stamp quilt that I started drooling over. I had to give myself a stern talking to about NOT digging into my 1 1/2″ strip box and cutting squares to use as leader/enders. I don’t want another new project in my life at this point in time — not to mention that I have a stack of bricks to stitch together for a Fun with Bricks quilt, which I started as my leader/ender project last month.
On to the report!
Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 5.50 yards
Fabric Used this Week: 4.118 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 23.886 yards
Net Used for 2011: 18.386 yards
Check out how others are doing by following the links over at Patchwork Times.
Option # 3
Earlier this week I posted a couple of pictures of a possible layout for this quilt. Essentially dark pink blades up and down or lighter pink blades up and down. My original intent had been the dark pink up and down, but after I sewed 4 blocked together I put them up on the design wall the other way and kind of liked it.
I sent the pictures to my DH to look at. He had them opened in two different windows and kept flipping back and forth. The illusion of movement was neat. His idea was to alternate the blocks. I liked the idea well enough to do a bit of frog stitching to separate the blocks. Admittedly, I didn’t do the ripping until after I altered the picture in Paint.
Six more blocks to appliqué.
Jill’s Year of the PIGS Question #4 is:
What is your last finish and what UFO are you working on now?
As Jill said, this is an easy question. My last finish was my 5-patch Scrap baby quilt on January 31st.
I’m working on two different UFOs at the moment. At the sewing machine I’m working on a brightly colored Dresden Plate on a black background.
I started this quilt sometime in 2006. I’m using a skirt my mom made for me in the early ’90s. One of these days I’ll need to see if I can find a picture of it before I started chopping into it. This is what is left of the skirt.
There were at least two more tiers to the skirt. I had to cut into another layer to get enough pieces.
I wore that skirt frequently for 10 years (clearly I’m not a clothes horse.) I always wanted a black blouse and black slouch boots to wear with it. But never got the blouse made or found the boots. Instead I wore it with a purple “camp shirt” and some sort of black shoes. For accessories I had a “silver” concho belt and a multi-colored turquoise phoenix brooch. I finally rolled over the hem of the skirt with my desk chair one time too many and decided I shouldn’t wear it any more.
When I’m not sitting in front of my sewing machine, I’m hand quilting my Double Wedding Ring Quilt.
Last night I discovered that I only have 2 rings left on the row I’m currently working on, then two more rows for a total of 16 rings to go. I’ve blogged a lot about this quilt over the past couple of year. Clicking on “dwr” on the right of my screen take you to those entries.
Check out the link’s at Jill’s to the last finish others have had and what they are currently working on now.
Option #1
Option #2
There will be 15 total plates. Since I’m quilting them in sections, I’ll potentially need to make up my mind before I get all 15 appliquéd (there’s that word again) to the background.
The remaining 12 plates have been faced. Now to turn and press them.
Or perhaps a better title is Why UFOs are Created.
Last week I ran into an issue with my Dresden Plates. No, it’s not getting them to lay flat — although that can be a challenge — but rather I sewed the petals in the wrong order and didn’t discover it until I clipped and turned the plate. Argh! There was no salvaging that plate and since I used a smaller stitch, I wasn’t looking forward to ripping out the stitches on the 2nd plate sewn wrong, but not yet clipped.
So, I cut more petals – enough for 4 plates so I didn’t have to rip out the two plates I did back when I was first working on this project. Between this and that, all I accomplished on the Dresden Plate was getting the 4 new plates sewn together and prepping the centers . So, now there are 8 days left in the month and I’m supposed to finish the Dresden Plate because it’s UFO # 10.
So did I work on it over the weekend? No, I finished up the Dragonflies during the week and decided I needed to know if I had enough black and white fabric for the quilt. I did, so I starting cutting the fabric, essentially starting a new quilt over the weekend. Although technically it’s not a new quilt since I started the dragonflies last August.
I even held back on cutting the black squares, but that didn’t stop me from putting one block together. The yellow square was easy to cut from the yellow strip I’ve been hauling around since August. The only reason I don’t have more dragonfly blocks done, is I’ve got to trim them and that was going to take some time.
So, the Dresden Plate quilt could easily get set aside for the “new” quilt. It’s more exciting. It’s new. I want it finished by early April, and there’s no way I’m going to finish the Dresden Plate by the end of February, so give up and work on the new quilt.
But, instead I’m going to buck up, put the pieces for the dragonfly quilt in a bag and set it aside to work on next month. I’ve checked my calendar and there’s nothing on the schedule after work this week, so there should be nothing to prevent me from making progress. If As I make noticeable progress on the quilt, I’ll post pictures. But until then, I may be incognito.
Meanwhile, check out the quilts being worked on by others by following the links over at Patchwork Times.
For this week’s design wall, I have three of my completed Dresden Plates for this month’s UFO Challenge. This does not include the two I made previously because I want to realign them on the background and change out the centers. The color is not very accurate in the above picture, but it’s pretty close in this second picture.
Notice anything wrong?
Yep — I sewed the quarters together wrong — at least twice — and didn’t notice it until I was turning the plate. I’m going to be cutting more blades later this week as I trimmed and clipped. I guess I need to go through the rest of the plates to see if they are put together correctly and see how many more I need to make.
Check out other design walls by following the links over at Patchwork Times.
…a length of gold Dimples (Judy would be so proud). Although, can you call less than a yard “a length”?
Anyway, there’s enough to make the inner gold border and all of the centers for my Colorworks Dresden Plate, which is this month’s UFO Challenge.
February’s UFO started off looking like this. When I started this quilt, the plan was to make this:
Those are 15″ blocks with 3″ sashing, so the quilt would finish at 75″ x 93″. But since I can’t find these two quilted blocks, I can either pick a different quilt to work on, or approach the quilt with a fresh perspective.
Picking a different quilt wouldn’t get this one done, so I decided to try a fresh perspective. I played in EQ with several ideas and decided on this one:
This quilt has a 2″ inner black spacer border, a 1 1/2″ inner border and then finishes with a 3 1/2″ outer border. The quilt will measure 59″ x 89″. I have to dig through my stash to see if I can find 5/8 yard of yellow fabric. I may just have to make a trip to the LQS. Believe it or not, when my husband looked at the options and I told him this one would require a fabric purchase, he still picked it. I think he said something about 1 yard (I hadn’t done the math yet) wasn’t that big of a deal.
I haven’t just been playing in EQ, I’ve actually did pieced. I now have 10 plates in progress. I’ve got more cutting ahead of me.
Drop in later in the week to see how I’m progressing.
