I finished Ladder to the Stars October 13, 2013.  Quilted, bound and labeled, you may remember this picture:

Why the wait? My pattern for this original design is published in this month’s issue of The Quilt Pattern Magazine!

I designed this quilt using 9″ blocks for The Main Street Strippers Quilt Club at Heritage Fine Fabric in Belton, Missouri to use for their 2008 raffle quilt. The quilt finished at 88″ x 105″ which is bigger than I wanted. So, I scaled the blocks down to 6″ and made myself a smaller quilt. My top was finished in April 2009, but then it sat waiting for quilting inspiration and skills to develop.

In September 2013 I joined the quiltdesigners list and less than a week later a call went out from TQPM for projects for upcoming issues. What a luck! I sent in a photo of my top and they said they wanted to publish the pattern.

Eck! I had the instructions for the blocks and sashing — written at 9″, so I madly started revising and completing my instructions.  Then I needed to test the pattern. That’s when I pulled from my stash, browns, greens and beiges to make a second quilt.

I got the pattern written and the 2nd quilt top made. It was then on to the quilting. Inspiration struck and I had a plan.  It’s a good thing I had a test quilt as it turns out my vision and quilting skills just weren’t in-synch.  Given the timeframe I had to work with, I moved on to a compromise of my vision to meet my deadline.

I quilted the top at Quilted Memories using the pantograph Feather Me by Meredith England. Coats & Clark Star thread #0815 – Americana was used on the top and white pre-wound Superior Bottom Line in the bobbin. Hobbs Bleached 80/20 with scrim is the batting.

For the record the blocks in the top are various red, white and blue “scraps” from my stash. The blue cornerstones, sashing, setting triangles, border and binding is Michael Miller Krystal in Royal Blue. The gold star points and accent border is Robert Kauffman Fusions in Antique and the red border is Paula Nadelstern Holiday Luminosity Prismaglass in Red.  The sashing was paper pieced and the borders are mitered. For the backing I found a length of red and blue stars on white which came from Mom’s stash. It says Signature Classics by Oakhurst Textiles on the selvage.

After washing the quilt measures 57 x 67.

After a week of NOT working on the baby quilt, I cleared off the cutting table and traced the notes onto the music staff so I could work on the third line of music. I really need to cut the 4th border and get it traced off as well so I  can start it when I get this one finished.  This time I’m stitching a hoop’s worth of staff and the notes instead of stitching the staff then going back and doing the notes.

Last night I also discovered that the pocket on the back of my ‘busy bag’  is large enough to hold my Kindle in its case.

Now to pick colors for my next quilt.

There has been very little quilting or knitting this week.  I think the wind got knocked out of me when I saw my embroidered border with the pieced top on Monday. I will get up and finish the quilt – sooner than later, but I really do need to do laundry.

To get in front of the sewing machine I set my timer for 15 minutes and over two sessions, I finished 40 of these modified 9-patches for my Jared Takes a Wife.

Yesterday afternoon I escaped and made it to the quilt shop. Yes, the count is up. I picked up some “neutral” FQs, backing for my Stained Glass top and a kit for a mini 10-minute table runner.

Last night’s 15 minutes was making the mini table runner.

I need to see about getting some more of the fabric. My husband thought the fabric would make a great tie.

Perhaps this weekend will see great progress on my March goals, the laundry will get done, the baby quilt finished and my niece’s prom dress hemmed!

A box from Connecting Threads came in the mail this morning. If indeed the box contained a “Small Book” my stash report would look good  Sunday.

This is what was in the box:

I suppose I will have to count this gorgeous fabric IN this week. It is for a quilt that will be auctioned off next January or February. I suppose I could have waited to get the fabric, but I saw that it was all in stock and opted to buy it now.

Over on the Quiltville’ s Open Studio in Facebook, a Quilt-A-Long is starting on Monday — either Jared Takes a Wife or Smokey Mountain Stars. I enjoy quilt-a-longs, but I don’t participate as much as I would like for a variety of reasons – most often because I have what seems like hundreds of UFOs and I don’t want to start another quilt until I get something finished.

My leader/ender project is Bricks & Stepping Stones. I’ve been working on it since mid-November sewing scrappy lights to scrappy black 2″ squares.  Only in past week have I started sewing the 2-patches into 4-patches (top right pile of 4-patches). No bricks have been cut.

The bottom right pile of brown and white 4-patches are pieces from my Candy Sunflower Seeds (The Chain Event by Dorothy Young) quilt top that is a UFO to complete this year. Candy Sunflower Seeds ended up in the UFO pile when I realized instead of using a creamy white I used a bright white to make the 4-patches and it simply won’t do. So, when I finish the quilt, I’m going to have this stack of 4-patches left over.

Now my UFO Quilting Logic.

Since there are no bricks cut for Bricks & Stepping Stones, there is nothing to keep me from repurposing those black & light 4-patches and using them in Jared Takes a Wife. By swapping quilts out I keep my quilt in progress number steady and don’t add to the count that I’m trying to reduce.

The brown & white 4-patches?  When I finish Candy Sunflower Seeds, instead of tossing them into the orphan box, I’ll make Bricks & Stepping Stones, up-sizing the bricks to match the 4-patches — but I don’t have to count this a quilt in progress until I know for certain I’m not going to have to take those 4-patches apart.

My UFO/Quilts in Progress count remains the same. I get to participate in the Quilt-A-Long and eventually, I’ll make Bricks & Stepping Stones.

Next time, I’ll explain how I’ve decided on the colors for my Jared Takes a Wife – it’s nearly as convoluted.

A casual comment Sunday night has me renting time on the long arm to get this top quilted, bound, labeled and delivered by Friday.  We’ll see if I can make it happen.

I’m not positive how much fabric I started with, but I used nearly all of it between the quilt top and backing, which I had to piece. The batting is pieced as well.  I found 3 pre-wound white bobbins in my bobbin box, so that’s what I’m going to use along with the light beige thread on the top.  Now to scheduled time on the long arm.

Saturday evening I finished the log cabin quilt, although I still need to wash it.  It is quilted it with concentric diamonds starting in the center.  This is the same way I plan to quilt Scrappy Trips. Controlling the quilt and treadling was interesting. But is was do-able. Of course this was a tiny quilt comparably speaking. I even applied the binding and stitched it down on the treadle.

As for whether or not this was a “new quilt” or a “UFO” I guess is doesn’t really matter since it is a FINISHED quilt.

Hop over to Patchwork Times to see what other are working on.