I really need to get back to sewing for Christmas. I've finished several sewing projects for Christmas, I'm just not done. This week, aside from FMQ an hour per day, I've spent more time on Christmas prep than I have Christmas sewing.
DS the Younger is active duty military, and his family is actually moving to a new duty station the week of Christmas. Nothing like moving during the holidays. I realized I needed to get their Christmas box mailed ASAP, so they can have it before the move while I actually have an address for them. That prompted me to start wrapping everyone's presents, and start getting all the Christmas boxes I'm mailing ready to go. I also got the baby quilt I'm mailing packaged. Wrapping everything I already have gave me a great opportunity to evaluate what I still needed to get.
I am not a last minute shopper, in fact, I'm normally done Christmas shopping earlier than this. I am often a last minute Christmas crafter 😉 I don't enjoy shopping, so I try to get that done early. I do enjoy sewing and crafting, so I'm more likely to "save the best for last". Of course, I often plan more than I actually leave time to do, but this year, I think I've got a decent chance of getting everything done. I likely have an extra week to prepare for local people at least. We never do family Christmas on Christmas Day, and it's usually around New Year's Day, so I get a few extra days for finishing stuff for the local folk. I only have one more gift to make that's going to be mailed, so I'm doing great on that front. I have several things to make for locals, but no quilts or complicated stuff. I do have two more quilts I want finished by Christmas, but they aren't Christmas gifts, I just don't want to have them on my UFO list anymore. They are gifts, but not Christmas specific, more housewarming gifts.
I am almost finished FMQ one of those two big quilts I want done. I think 2 more hours of FMQ will finish off the quilting, then it will need binding. It was nice doing a baby quilt between the last two big quilts, but I so want these other two big quilts done, I'm going to go straight from one queen/king to another. My arm won't be terribly happy about it, but I've been basting some smaller quilts, so I can work on something smaller after those are done.
In the last week, I sewed borders onto two UFO's. One of those I basted, and one quilt top went into the quilt closet. I've currently been working on assembling a few more UFO's that don't need borders.
I'm also evaluating other UFO's that aren't as far along.
I forgot to take a photo of this quilt on the design wall, but this is a good example of evaluating a UFO and dealing with the problem now. When I counted up the blocks, I had a weird amount of them. I could make a square quilt in a weird size with leftover blocks, or I could could make more blocks. If I made four extra blocks, I could make a large throw, so that's what I did! The quilt is just color controlled scrappy, and I had enough strips in my scrap user system to easily cut the extra blocks, and now this quilt top is in the quilt closet, waiting for its turn for basting and quilting.
I made these white/black scrappy nine patches years ago. I planned to make an on point queen sized quilt with these 3" (finished) nine patches alternating with scrappy squares. Now that I'm trying to cut down on making really big quilts, I'll likely make two or three quilts from these nine patches. I decided I'd like something more cohesive that completely scrappy, and I had a half yard bundle hanging around with no plans for it. I cut up the half yard bundle into 3" (finished) squares, and added a few fat quarters from my stash to make it a little less "matchy", but still in the colorway of the fabric bundle. Obviously, there's a lot to do fo this UFO, and if I decide to do something on point, I'll have to cut setting triangles, but that's fine. The main thing is, I now have enough cut to start working on it again.
This afternoon I counted up these blocks. I have 72, so I can set it 8x9. The blocks are just 5" finished, so I'm going to add sashing and cornerstones. I still had some of the background fabric I can use for the sashing, and I found a fat quarter that I can cut the 1" finished cornerstones from. I did the math so I know how many of everything I need to cut, so I'll be working on that this evening. I'm going to want a border on this quilt, but I'll wait until I have the center together before I decide on what I want for the border. I'm sure I have something in stash that will work.
None of these UFO's have deadlines, most will end up being donated. The important thing is getting them finished. I need to stop having so many projects going at once. I'll always have more than one project going at a time, that's a given, but I've let it get out of hand. I am very good at making use of leaders/enders, too good at it. I cut new quilts to use as leaders/enders for deadline projects, but then I've got two or more quilts to finish. This year I started using UFO's as my leader/ender projects, and that is helping me get further along. By evaluating my UFO's before I plan on working on them again, I can do things like cut sashing and cornerstones, cut the alternate blocks, plan the borders, whatever I need to do next, which then allows me to use that UFO as a leader/ender project. I've been assembling two quilts at once for years now. I just use one as a leader/ender for the other. I helps if the blocks are different sizes, or the quilts are in different colorways, so you don't mix them up while assembling, but it really does move those UFO's along.
I know I'm making some progress at least. The piles in the sewing and fabric room aren't quite as high as they were. I have some EMPTY project containers!!!! My rolls of batting are getting smaller, I'm hoping for a decent Black Friday sale on a roll of batting. If you see anything good, let me know!
I hope you are all seeing progress on your own projects, whether holiday related, UFO's are just because!
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