It’s time for our monthly UFO check in! How are you coming with yours? I am still plugging along and will be really happy to get this one off my list of things to do! You may remember me talking about this one in previous posts….it is a flower of the month series with fabric designed by Ro Gregg and patterns by Nancy Mahoney. I might have that backwards, but that is where I am going to stay. These came in kits with instructions and are from 2008….yes, 2008. I thought it would be easy to do one kit a month. After all they are small and while not terribly simple, they are not overly complicated. Trouble was that I was still working a full time office job, had a baby that October, and we were running the shop in the evenings and weekends. What time? What was I thinking? At the very least I did make it in to my local quilt shop and picked up each of the kits and have had them waiting. Because if you have one you should have them all! Right? You are with me on that right? Well, I thought it would be nice to hang and be able to change out each month. I’m much closer to that goal now!
Since they are a flower of the month, there are 12 kits. I had thought I was being smart and gathered those kits and read the instructions and got all the fabrics cut so I could work on them at retreats. Then Covid and no retreats. The fabric was still cut and waiting for me….but I now have to read everything again to make sure I’m doing the right thing. It slows my process down a little bit. In February I pulled them out thinking, great! This is a big project to get completed and I can wait to move this off my list or at least move it into the queue for quilting!
I’m lumping them all together rather than thinking of them individually because I really just want to get them done and it has been a long time. At the beginning of the month I had 4 of them ready to be quilted and one ready to be bound. But (of course) I added in an extra step. The fabric cuts for these kits were very generous so I kinda added a layer of difficulty. There was also a panel that went along with these fabrics and patterns. Of course I picked one up and kept it with all of the mini kits. With the cuts being so generous, I have enough fabric to complete an extra center block to put with the panel. Curious about the panel? You can find it here. I will say I did not realize that it was for stitchery and I thought it was something to be colored….either way, I have it.
In February I was able to finish 5 of the tops and have one more partially complete with the last one waiting in the wings. Even though I should be moving on to something else, I am going to stay with this one and get those last two finished. Most of the UFO’s on my list for March were new things to start (like kits I’ve had waiting or patterns I’ve matched up with fabric to create) and rather than cutting something new and creating a whole new UFO, I think I would be better off this month to finish these lovelies and look at the the UFO’s I didn’t get finished in January and February to see if I can finish up anything else like that cardinal cross stitch….. Progress is progress right? It sure is!
So, here are the ones that I did get ready this month….I didn’t worry about photographing the second center blocks because they are just going into another UFO. Originally I had thought that I would border the panel with these blocks, but now I am not so sure. It might be something that I scrap entirely or use the center blocks in some type of setting and incorporate the panel into the backing. I think that will need to percolate a little while longer before I make a final decision. Here are 3 of them….Lily of the Valley, Narcissus, and Cosmos.
The last are Cosmos (again), Aster and Rose. The last two to complete are Daffodil (which is almost complete) and Chrysanthemum. I might have miscut things on the Rose as I had to piece together some things and the green in there is not the green from the kit….I can’t seem to find that so I either lost it (most likely) or never had it (unlikely).
I wish I had more to show and I really was on track to get those last two completed but I got a little confused on some of the instructions. I should also admit that I fell down a rabbit hole with my kids as we have been playing a lot of Minecraft…I know…it’s a video game. However, they are now asking me to play with them and we can all hang out together while doing it and that is important. Since we are all playing together, it’s kind of like working on a group project and we can talk about ways to work together in a group which is another great lesson to learn. They can take the lead on most of the game because they know more than I do (for now) and can do things more quickly than I can (for now). But they are learning that we each have our own skill set and for them I am the Queen of Resources. Whenever we go adventuring I always make sure I have extra food, supplies, whatever needed for all of us which has come in handy many times. One of them is very good setting up farming and taking care of animals while the other is good at trailblazing so the rest of us have an easier path to follow. They still need to work on communication and not being bossy, but we will get there and hopefully have some fun while we are doing it. It has cut into my sewing time a bit, and I’m okay with that because I’m not sure how long this will last and I am starting to look forward to this time with them and being a part of their world.
If you are not terribly familiar with Minecraft…it’s too much to explain here, but I will say that it has the most convoluted series of tasks that you have to complete in order to battle the final foe (or Ender Dragon) that I have seen. However, battling the final foe is not a necessary goal of the game and one could spend an inordinate amount of time creating and crafting and building in their world.
Anyway, I think I am now off to google some Minecraft quilts to get some inspriation as that just might have to be a thing for Christmas…..maybe a wall hanging for their rooms with their favorite things from the game.
Happy quilting and we hope that you are also making progress on your UFO’s! I’m hoping that I will have those flowers complete and ready for quilting by the end of this month and who knows what else I will be able to accomplish!
Happy Quilting!
Quilting By-You 