october ufo finished!

It's early in the month again, but my UFO for October is done already!

If you remember, my mom got me a jelly roll for my birthday last year...

And not quite a year ago, I took a week off work to have a stay-at-home quilt retreat.  The hubby was out of town, so I set up to work in the living room and sewed like mad.

I had seen the Basket Case quilt pattern and liked it and thought these fabrics could be perfect, so let's get out that rotary cutter!

By the end of Tuesday, I had a top.

It needed borders and I wanted to do something a little fancier than the original pattern.  And here it stalled out.

This is probably where it would be without Judy's UFO challenge.  But this month she pulled its number, so I sat down and started cutting and sewing.

I knew I wanted a pieced border and, considering the limitations on piece size, I opted for flying geese over applique.  But then should the geese go all the way around, or just part way?

(Emma is helping decide...or something...)

Though I was leaning towards part-way, I let bloggy friends help.  Part way won and I'm glad.  I made enough geese to go all the way around, so now I'll have something interesting to put on the back...if I ever finish it past a top...

So here it is...I guess you'd call that sideways since the longer side is hanging from the clothesline, but otherwise it dragged on the ground...

Finished.

Well, a top finished, and that's all I required of myself for the UFO challenge.

After my last post, I went out and took this photo, along with quite a few others of tops I've been working on and have only shown pieces of.  I'll save those for another post in a few days.

Happy quilting,

Katie

october UFO start and an amazing sale

Can you believe it's October already?

That means it's time for the next UFO challenge!

This month Judy picked #5.

That would be my Basket Case quilt.

It needs some sort of borders.

First a skinny white, then...

I'd been toying with flying geese or applique, but had only a jelly roll of the fabric.  That would limit what I could do with applique, so geese it is!

Ready to sew, but I had to take a break about now.

My mom arrived.

In the local paper last weekend, there was an ad "Material $5 Yard."

What?

So off we went - NO idea what we were getting into.

Turns out a relatively new quilt shop not so far from here had gone out of business (which I knew by driving by and seeing the sign gone) and this was her clearance sale.

My purchases.

(And the ad, if you don't believe me!)

The ric-rac will go on the back of the star flower quilt.

The green flowers will go on the back of the MSU quilt.

About 16 yards.

But that's not all that was bought...

(Lexie is checking it out!)

Everything else was 50% off the marked price.

My mom got backs for 3 quilts, quite a few books and patterns and some other odds and ends.

Long story short: we had a blast!

And my mom left here with a list of 5 quilts she wants to measure for when she comes back and we go again!  (I'm betting there will be more than 5 quilts on that list when she returns.)

I also asked to raid her stash to finish the blue/green teen boy quilt, since I'd run out of fabrics in the right colors.  Those have been washed and pressed (her stash, like mine, is a mix of prewashed and unwashed) and are ready to cut already.

But instead of going back to that, I thought I'd work on my montly "assignment" so I can be sure to keep up!

By my calculations, I'll need 110 geese to go all the way around, though I'm not sure I want to go all the way around.  Better to have too many, though, right?

My supervisor.

Shortly before she decided she was S-T-A-R-V-I-N-G

and needed to be a pest.

109 geese.

Oops!

So what do you think...

Geese all around (with solid cornerstones)?

Geese in an L around two corners?

Something different?

I want to go back and sew, but I think I need to scratch my head over this a bit longer.

Happy quilting,

Katie