february UFO: quilt from another century

It seems wierd to think of 1999 as another century, but that's when this project was started.

This is most definitely my oldest UFO!

This project started when I moved into an apartment all by myself a few years after college.  I bought some pretty yellow furniture (still have it, so I'll have to remember to get a photo of that too) and had an empty wall.  I thought I'd try my hand at hand applique and this project was born.

The applique is lumpy (I was using freezer paper - this was before I learned needle turn), but it's done.  Then I sandwiched and basted it and marked it for quilting.  And I quilted some of it and then got tired of it and set it aside.  Life happened (I got engaged, married, moved twice, etc, etc, etc) and it got more or less forgotten.

While all this was going on, the blue lines marked with water-erasable marker disappeared.  At one point I did try to resurrect this and re-draw the lines, but nothing was lining up with the template and I gave up pretty quickly.  Shoved it back in the bottom of a closet and forgot about it again.

And then I was digging around for UFOs for the 2012 challenge and found it again.  And groaned.  It needed to go on the list, but I can honestly say I tried REALLY hard to find something else unfinished to replace it with!

I hear a black light will re-illuminate the blue lines so they can be re-drawn and the hubby is able to borrow a portable light from work, so that's part of what I'll be doing this weekend.  Though I sighed pretty loud and hard when #1 was drawn, I am glad to be getting this one out of the way while the weather is colder because who wants to sit under a quilt when it's 90+ outside?

I've considered ripping out the hand-quilting and putting it on the longarm, but I think I'll see this through the way I originally intended.  I doubt I'll be a hand-quilting convert by the time this is done, but when I started this I never imagined I'd enjoy hand applique and those of you who have followed my blog for a while know I seem to take on one applique project after another without complaint.

In other quilty news, I've finally caught up on the Rolling Along quilt along.  The step for Saturday was a small one followed by two bigger ones on Monday and Wednesday, so it was a bit of a struggle, but I'm proud to show off my 18 blocks!  There will be 17 (I think) alternate blocks, but I have until Saturday to relax on this project.

As you can see, as the blocks get bigger, they get scrappier.  I didn't have very large pieces of any fabric, so I'm making do.  I just hope I have enough to finish the alternate blocks, but if not, my mom still has quite a few fabrics in her stash but it will require a trip to pick them out.

I kinda wish I'd made the whole star one print becuase I feel like the borders are fighting with the star for focus, but it's too late now!

What will I work on until I get the black light and the next step for the quilt along?

My niece and nephew are coming to spend Friday night with us again, so this is the start of a project for me and my niece.  Anyone want to guess what this will be?  I'll show photos when we're done, but until then this is all you get!

And I'll also be looking for my hand-quilting thread.  Where oh where did I put that?  (More likely someone furry stole it and batted it well under something else and I'll never find it...)

Happy quilting!

Katie