Ninth Finish of the Year

 My typical goal is to average two quilt finishes per month, and I'm running behind this year. Three months in a hotel certainly didn't help my finish numbers. That said, at the end of the sixth month, I've got nine finishes, and that's not too bad. 

When I was trimming this quilt for binding I had it laid out on my quilting table, and I realized how well the quilting showed up in the dimly lit room. You can see the different quilting designs, but it's still hard to see that the far right hand corner is spirals too. I do have overhead lighting in this room, but the quilting showed up better with the lights off. 

Today I got the binding finished and this twin sized quilt is finished! I even wound bobbins for my next quilt in the FMQ queue. 

I haven't let myself do any piecing because my main goal has been to get the bags sewn for the scooter rally we are hosting in November. 

All of them are sewn, and now all that needs to be done is to run the drawstrings through the casings. I can do that in the evening while watching TV, so it's all easy from here. I still have to make the rally quilt, which will be raffled off and proceeds will go to our local food pantry. I've been looking forward to making this quilt, because I'm finally getting to make the steampunk themed scooter quilt that I've been wanting to make for years now. 

All of the rally bags were sewn on this vintage lovely! 

I'm going to have to come up with a strategy now. I have 7 grandkids asking for new quilts, I have two baby quilts to make, and a birthday quilt for DD#2,  plus the rally quilt. I also have a dozens of UFOs in various stages, plus a closet full of quilt tops to finish. Just the 17 quilt tops I have from my hotel sewing added a lot to my quilting queue. When I'm really busy like this, I've found a couple things that help me move things along, even with a bunch of new starts. It's basically a New Start/UFO buddy system.

1) I use UFO's as my leader/ender project. I can piece remaining blocks, or piece borders, or even assemble rows of a quilt as leaders/enders. If I need to sew rows together or sew on a border, I can switch and use the New Start as my leader/ender, but by pairing the piecing of a UFO with a new start I'm doing double duty. 

2) If I'm cutting a new deadline quilt, assess if I can cut something I need for the next step of a UFO. For example, is it a UFO because I haven't cut borders, or sashing, or background fabric to finish the blocks? I can easily think of several UFO's where this is the case. So use the buddy system on the cutting. 

3) Basting on the buddy system? For every deadline quilt I baste, I baste at least one UFO. 

When it comes to quilting I'm limited to my hour per day of FMQ. As long as I stick with that one hour per day, my arm doesn't complain of strain, and I'm finishing quilts. 

I haven't been as good about the hour of FMQ per day habit as I should have been since I've been home. DH still wasn't home though, and his schedule helps me keep mine on track. He was actually deployed for four months, but I came home for the last month. He gets home today though, so next week things will go back to a normal schedule, which won't feel normal after having a different schedule the last four months. Even his work hours were different in Yuma. 

I hope some of those tips help someone out there. It's time for me to get back on track!