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.

Yesterday in the mail was a wonderful surprise. Three FQs and two  coordinating spools of thread all tied together in a neat package.  This is what Shelly at Prairie Moon Quilts sent me when she drew my name from the participant of her End of Year Countdown.

Thanks, Shelly!

It seems that after I have a big finish, I need to step away from quilting for a bit to catch my breath and work the kinks out of my shoulders.  Here it is the 15th of the month and I have had 3 “big” finishes.

• Quilted, bound, labeled and turned in directions for Deadline IV
• Finished piecing Scrappy Trips.
• Quilted & bound Sydney’s quilt from gifted swap blocks

The first two items are on my to-do list for this year. The third is a bonus, but doesn’t get me off the hook for finishing the rest of my list.  There may be a lull, but it just means I’m not sitting at the sewing machine. For the past few days, I’ve been playing with quilting ideas for Deadline III and I’ve settled on one.  Now to get it marked on the quilt, the quilt layered and to start the quilting. I really want to have it finished before the end of the month.  I also need to get the rest of these rail fence blocks trimmed

M is for Monkey Wrench is this month’s block in Dorothy Young’s Alphabet BOM. We are now half way though the series, but it’s still not too late to join the fun.  To join the fun, join the   Yahoo! Group apocketfullofmysteries.

The rest of my blocks can be seen HERE.

I just finished stitching down the binding on Deadline IV and have made a matched pillowcase.  Now I have to hand stitch down the label and the hanging sleeve. Once that’s done I can wash the quilt to see if this batting I used will shrink up.  I’m thinking it won’t now that I look at The  Warm Company website.  I think this is Soft & Bright, not Warm & White. Oh, well, it’s done now.

Earlier this week I was looking for yellow lead for my marking pencil – I found black, white & pink lead and kept finding packages of machine needles.  I sorted them universal needles to the left, specialty needles to the right.  The blue box has needles in it as well.  I think I’m set for needles for a while.

Oh – the yellow lead? Never found it. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t dig deep enough or if I simply don’t have any. I did find some yellow chalk marker which worked for my project.

With a new blog, I have to make a new claim at Bloglovin.