2016 Finish Along – Q1 Goals

It’s that time of year again – for me to set some goals, and to plan a bit ahead, with some help from the online quilting community.

I participated in the 2015 Finish Along with some success – I completed four quilts over the first half of the year, before losing steam and then becoming buried by the holidays.

I’m participating again, because it was a great experience for me, and it held me to some goals. I’m competitive (even against myself) so it’ll be fun to see how this year stacks up against last year.

I’d already done some preparation for the 2016 Finish Along, without realizing it. I took a good, long look at my projects, and eliminated a few that were never going to be finished, because I’d fallen out of love with them. Now, my WIP list for 2016 is updated, even with brand new projects that I started in the last couple of weeks.

Without further ado, my goals for this first quarter of the year:

To finally quilt and bind ‘Charmed, I’m Sure’. This beast has been sitting in my pile for too long. I’d like to get it quilted up and into rotation sooner rather than later.

To quilt and bind this scrappy baby quilt. I pieced it on a whim, and even started quilting it. I just need to finish the quilting, and then I can bind it.

To quilt and bind ‘A Swirling Sea of Stars’. I’m so excited to have completed this quilt top, finally! I just need to decide on backing it, and figure out how to quilt this monster. There are A LOT of seams to conquer here.

To complete my Fibs and Fables quilt. It’s not even a complete top at this point, and has a lot more piecing to go. And I’m still waiting on fabric to arrive, so that I can complete cutting.

I’ll leave it at just the four projects for this first quarter… Somewhere in all of those, I’ll need to get a leg up on piecing the rest of my projects.

Charmed, I’m Sure

Almost a year ago, I stumbled across the pins and bobbins Made in Cherry Quilt-Along, and decided that the project was a great way to use the charms I was receiving from a swap. It was also a great way to stay motivated in managing my scraps.

Being who I am, I of course had to draw the design up in EQ7.

The original pattern by Sarah Fielke didn’t include any borders, but I liked the look with borders.

If you look closely at the illustration to the left, you can actually tell that I did my quilt-y math wrong. The black, inner border isn’t wide enough. It needs to be twice as wide.

But no matter. I realized my mistake well before I actually added the border. I actually finished the center of the top months ago, in June 0f 2012. I also recognized some issues that had taken place in the cutting, causing some major waving in the big triangles.

I then folded it away, to await my participation in a second charm swap, to get enough for the border. Unfortunately, real life conspired against me, and I wasn’t able to join in.

So, the top sat, unfinished. For quite a while.

Until I decided that I had gotten through enough of my scraps to do the border. Ha! I ended up needing to cut 51 charms my stash, which I accomplished yesterday. This was after spending a day picking apart the major seams of the top, to fix the wavering issues.

Very late last night (or very early this morning, depending on your definition), at around 1:30 AM, I finished adding the second border. It was entirely too big to photograph in my apartment, so I took it to work, thinking I could have a couple of students hold it over a railing. That didn’t happen, since I spent work working on a report and catching up on tasks. Plus, I have a sinus cold going on, and staying away from Kleenex for too long was not an option.

So, once I got home, I took advantage of my balcony once again, and caught a photo.

I present to you, Charmed, I’m Sure:

Overall, I’m pretty happy. I was very worried, as I pieced the final border, that I would have too much pink, yellow and green in it. I have very little blue in my stash, and by the time I got toward the end, my charms were definitely leaning toward the warmer side of things.

Cool beans for me – the inner border used up the remainder of a fabric in my stash. The backing and the binding will also come from my stash. Happiness.