I've Leveled Up Since Being Home

As my birth year becomes further away, I'm not thinking of it as getting old so much as advancing a level. I leveled up last week, and I got a few quilty things as gifts.

 My sister made me this adorable pincushion! Is it cute or what??? It's even got my initial on it!

She also made me pins to go in the pincushion should I desire to use it for that. 

I have some numbered pins that I love using when I'm laying out a quilt, but I've used them so much the numbers have worn off. I've tried using a Sharpie to put the numbers back on, but that doesn't stay on long. My sister made me some numbered pins, and since the numbers are indented on the beads she used, I'm thinking I could probably use them longer without issues. Very useful gifts!

DD#2 gave me a Missouri Star gift card, also a useful item. We're actually planning a trip close enough to them that a detour would be in order, so I'm hoping to use the gift card in person! If that doesn't work out, I can always use it online, but how cool would it be to use in person?

We actually lived in Missouri from 1988-2002, but Missouri Star wasn't a thing then. I believe the Doans were in California all of those years. Part of the time we lived in Missouri we weren't far from Hamilton. Right place, wrong time I guess. 

We actually passed a bunch of quilt shops on our last trip, and DH kept offering to stop. I only went into one shop, and I only bought a pattern. It's a little hard to get excited about buying more quilting supplies when this is a year I have so little time for quilting. I'm running through projects with deadlines that I could buy something for, and I'll use that as my guide. 

DH bought me roses and they were beautiful! Hot pink, orange, and yellow, which is a great combo for me. Red roses remind me of funerals, so he knows those aren't my thing. I think when I was a kid I saw a couple movies where the widow placed a red rose on the casket at a funeral, and ever since I've associated red roses with funerals, it's weird, I know. 

My MIL gave me some $ to put in my quilting fund, so I could really have some fun in Hamilton. 

Since I am at home now, some quilty things have been happening. One of my deadline quilts (and the deadline was months ago) was a quilt for a great-nephew. 

The pattern is Oh My Stars by Pat Sloan. The stars that aren't finished will finish in the border. My great-nephews first name means sun, and his middle name means heaven, so rather than stars I was thinking sun in the "heavens" or space. Yes, I realize stars are suns. I have a gold minky with embossed suns on it for the backing. There are about 10 different space themed fabrics in the top that I cut for the dark background. I think it will be a fun quilt. I'd really like to get this quilt finished and mailed this month. I've got it sewn into rows now. 

So the baby quilt is my main project, but my first sew day back at home was actually my birthday, and I just wanted to sew something fun. Even when I'm pressed for time, I give myself leeway on quilting. I'm only allowing myself completely new starts for deadline quilts, but leader/ender projects, I can work on whatever I want as long as it's a UFO. UFO is a broad term and means different things to different people. For my leader/ender criteria, if it's been cut at all for a specific project, it's a UFO. So, if I have a pile of 10" squares I cut for a project, even if those squares need to be sub-cut more, it's a UFO for this purpose. If it's a pile of units leftover from another project, yup, UFO qualified. Pile of orphan blocks? Fair game. For several years I allowed myself as many new starts as I wanted, and long as I was using scraps. That worked so well, that I don't have a huge amount of pre-cut scraps now. I do however, have piles of blocks everywhere, and bins with extra units, and parts of mystery quilts set aside because I decided on a completely different setting and didn't use the pieces as intended. 

The first thing I grabbed on my birthday, was this bin of HST's. They are all scrappy creams, with autumn inspired colors, I didn't curate the colors for an autumn quilt, I was busting 3.5" strips and pulled whatever I thought I could get away with in an autumn inspired quilt. I made the HST's during my scrap busting years, but I hadn't done anything with them. I knew there were enough to make a queen or king sized quilt. I also knew that I had a plan for them, but unlike me, I hadn't written myself a note stating what the plan was. I'm usually good at writing myself notes. 

I decided any plan was better than the HST's just sitting around, so I made them all into broken dishes blocks. Did I ever remember what my plan was? Sure did, after I sewed up the last broken dishes block! No worries, my plan B is just fine. I clipped the blocks in sets of ten, and not only do I have enough for a king-sized quilt, I have enough extra for a small project or two.

I can start sewing these broken dishes blocks into larger blocks, but I don't want to do that right now. I found a UFO that was also at assembly stage, so for now I'm using it as my leader/ender project while assembling the baby quilt. Assembling two quilts at once is one of the ways I trick myself to actually assembling a quilt. Blocks piles languish way too long around here!

I'm putting another baby quilt up on the design wall. It was cut out and partially sewn. I need another quilt for another great-nephew on the way, and I could use this one, but I'm not sold on this being his quilt. I have another idea I like better, but we'll see how things go. That nephew isn't due until November, so I've got time for that one. 

Basically, I'm just grabbing random UFO's and sewing whatever I can as a leader/ender. If I put it aside after one step, that's fine, it's still one step closer to being done. When the deadline projects are my main project, I know they have to be finished. If it's already a UFO, there is no timeline involved, but this way I'm not creating any MORE UFOs, I'm just making progress on the ones that already exist.