Finale for 2012

Hi ladies,

well...congratulations on getting to the new year with some of you having at least one finish for December! Your efforts took us to 392 finishes for the year...not quite our 500 as we'd hoped for but.....it was only our second year and we were reaching for the moon......

You know what they say.....Always reach for the moon, cause even if you miss, you land among the stars!! and you're all stars to us!

If you never achieved your goal of finishing all your UFO’s….never mind!!!!   There’s always this year so leave us a comment  if you want to keep with us….you’ll notice we’ve wiped most everybody off this list…..so we could start afresh…….and that would mean you  would not have  managed to get all the blocks for the block of the month….but don’t stress....we have a surprise which we'll reveal to you soon....so just be patient.......they will be available for you in 2013…just in a different way (and it won’t cost you a cent!).

Here's to many more finishes in 2013

Sew many hugs

Wendy and Dawn xox

Christmas table topper

This table topper was almost a finish for last year.  The blocks were from a Christmas Ornament block exchange for members of the Creative Quilting Forum in 2008.  The fabrics I have sashed them in, and the border fabrics  were from a noodle swap from about the same time or even earlier, with the same forum’s members. 

Before last Christmas I had sewn the blocks together and – well I remembered that I had started the quilting.  When I pulled it out this month I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had finished quilting it and had put on the binding. It was just waiting for the handstitching, and a label to be made. 

Now it is finished and waiting to be used at Christmas this year.  It will be so good as all the blocks are signed by the makers, so holds lots of memories.

April finish

This month I pulled out some orphan stained glass blocks I made I cant remember when.  But after  talking to my daughter about them we think it must be more than 8 years, as she was still living at home and she had said she would like them when they were finished.  So better late than never, and she would still like them.  I decided the best thing was to make cushions, and she wants to put them on her bed.

I remember that I was trying different methods of doing the applique on these ones.  One was done with no vliesofix, one with vliesofix, and the third one I dont remember what I did differently. 
Now to choose the next UFO to work on.

A Round Tuit

This one’s been a long time coming…..

made from friendship blocks that were swapped in our guild a couple of years ago…

sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting….

for me to get around to it……

and the circular pattern says it all….

here’s my March Finish….

‘A Round Tuit’

The blocks were made….just putting them together, sandwiching, quilting and binding….

Now, that wasn’t so hard, after all!!!!

Don’t know why it took me soooo long!

Sew many hugs

Wendy :O) xo

 

February Finish

Another Finish for 2012

I finished the hot pad that was made with a friend in mind.

big enough to put two large casserole dishes on

More detailed photos can be found on my blog HERE

I am claiming this as a finish for Sew its Finished as I have had the blocks since 2010 ;-)

HUGE January Finishes……

What a start to the year ladies!!!!   You are truly ay-may-zing……and so inspiring…….Dawn and I nearly lost our breath as we counted up our finishes for last month……..

SIXTY-TWO altogether

…..that’s incredible, considering last year’s entire total was 228….

You girls have managed to accomplish more than 1/4 of all last year’s finishes in only one month!!!!    Holy Guacamole!!!!!!!  Incredible!  What are we going to achieve THIS month???!!!!  The sky’s the limit, I say! I can hardly wait to see!

For those of you who are kicking themselves under the table now for not quite making January’s deadline for the first surprise we promised you, Dawn and I have been discussing how we really didn’t give you much time to plan a finish so……….any finishers in February will qualify for both January and February’s blocks which we talked about here.

Maria’s given us a sneak preview of the ‘gift block’ all finishers received for January….how slick is she!!!….. now, you really have no excuses…..and seeing as it’s a leap year this year, you still have 27 days to get at least one UFO completed!  Whaddya say????

As Dawn and I added up the totals, we thought we might just touch on a few housekeeping matters just to clarify……

*  A ‘’finish’, in Sew It’s Finished terms, must be a completed UFO from your pile of UNFINISHED OBJECTS…..this can be small, big, individual, a pair or a set, but they must be from the depths of your cupboards and have been sitting there for more than a couple of months (before Dec 31, 2011) and are annoying the irrits out of you because they’re still UFO’s!!!!   After all, that’s what our blog is all about!!!

*’Completed” means just that……it has to be completed…finished, terminado, cesado, accompli, finito!  Nothing left to be done to it but used/gifted/hung/shared…..you get the idea!

*Posting – When you post about your finish, could you please indicate within the post  which finish it is, when the item was started (can be approximate if it’s been faaaaar too long!),  what you needed to do to finish it, whether it was just the binding, sew a button on, quilt it, etc and finish with your name.  Just be aware that we now have 100 members, and some of you do share the same name so poor ol’ Dawn and I get so confused!!!!!   If you share your name with another member (you can check the finishers’ list on the right hand sidebar), can you add the first initial of your surname as well please???  That way, we won’t do our heads in quite as much as we normally do! LOL

* Labels - you’ve probably noticed the cloud of labels in our right hand side bar and wondered why on earth we have so many and what do they do??   Well, when we are looking for something in particular, say… how many finishes Dawn has done…..we can click on the word ‘Dawn’, and every post that is labelled ‘Dawn’ will be listed!   If you haven’t labelled your posts, finding info quickly is just not going to happen!   Soooooo. when you write your post, it’s important you add labels to the end.

How you might ask?????…  Once you’ve written your post, over on the right hand side of Blogger, there is a list of ‘Post Settings’….the first one is, you guessed it, “LABELS”.  Click on ‘labels’ and it will open up with a box you can type in,  plus a list of labels that have already been generated.  Your labels' for each post MUST include…

1 your name,

2 your blog name …..and….

3 which finish it is…..we’d love you to put both your overall finishes (12th finish) and this year’s finishes ( 1st finish 2012) 

You can either type them in, in which case, if they’re already in the label list, they’ll come up in a dropdown box which you can click on;  you can click on the existing labels listed, or you can just type in one that summarises your post…eg.  embroidery, stitchery, piecing, Dawn Hay Designs, etc.  You’ll get some ideas from looking through the existing labels if you’re not sure….don’t be afraid……you won’t get it wrong, and you definitely won’t be sacked!!!!! LOL

*Full House – we do have a full house at this moment…..100 bloggers have joined our ‘little’ group to commit to attacking their pile of UFO’s and make way for some new ones!   We do have people wishing to join, but Blogger will only allow us a maximum of 100 so, with this in mind, we would ask that if you feel you are no longer interested, or if  life circumstances just won’t allow you to put UFO’s high on your priority list at this point in time, could you let us know by dropping us a quick email?  We certainly won’t be offended , we’ll  understand completely and that will allow those who are waiting patiently in the wings a chance to join in and benefit from your collective enthusiasm.  If circumstances change and you’d like to rejoin, you are always more than welcome!!!!

And talking about welcoming………A HUGE big welcome to all our members……we’ve had a few changes since Christmas with a few leave the group and a few more join so we’d just like to say, we love having you with us……the encouragement is overwhelming and we’re so happy  you’ve chosen to DELVE into your UFO piles with us, with the goal of not SHELVE–ing too many new ones in two thousand and TWELVE!!!!!  (ewwww…it’s not getting any better with time, is it??? LOL)

Sew many hugs

xo Wendy and Dawn :O)

 

Take two....

Well, I don't know about you, ladies but I didn't achieve my goals of UFO finishes for 2011, and after talking to Dawn, she didn't either so........

we've decided to keep our blog running this year to see how we go!    Let's just say last year was a warm up, a trial run, so to speak and this year we'll 'take two'!!!! 

With that in mind, we will need to begin with a new blog button for 2012 won't we???

Here it is for you to copy and paste onto your sidebars with a link back to our SEW IT'S FINISHED blog for others to come and look at your amazing finishes, which is sure to inspire them to achieve what you lot have this past twelve months!

Remember, even ONE ufo finished is one less than you had before, so don't be hard on yourselves if you didn't reach your target.

I've started already, with one UFO that was begun in 2010 and has been sitting there, at the safety pin stage for most of last year, ready to be machine quilted.  I'm quite proud of myself as the quilting has begun and I figure it will be finished by next week if I keep plodding along!!!

We have another member to our blog too......welcome Kathleen from Rose Prairie Quilts .  I'm sure we'll be seeing a few finishes from her in  2012, along with all of us! *wink wink*

Motivation is a huge encouragement on our blog.....you ladies are fantastic at motivating each other so it got me thinking about a 'blog motto'.... Now I know this is pretty bad, but there are not too many words that rhyme with 'twelve' so, here goes......
Our blog motto should could be........

Let's delve, not shelve in two thousand and twelve!

....told ya so!!!!  Let me know what you think?!

Looking forward to seeing many more completed UFO's in twenty twelve...

Sew Many Hugs,

Our Surprise for you….revealed!!!!!

Hi Ladies,

remember I told you that Dawn and I had been chatting and we have a surprise for each of you, and that you’d better get onto finishing at least one UFO by the end of the month????

Well................ we can reveal a monthly ‘reward’ if you like, for each of you that complete at least one UFO by the last day of a month. Whether your finish is big, little; old, a bit newer (but not new!); one or many, it will qualify you to receive our gift for the month. Yes, you ARE hearing reading correctly.......you WILL receive a gift EACH month you complete an outstanding UFO that must be from last year or before.

How are we going to do that, you may ask?

Well.....Dawn and I have been thinking long and hard and thought you guys could do with some rewarding for all the hard work you’ve been putting in ..... delving into those piles of ufo’s so, between us, we will be designing a “Seasons of “ BOM for Sew It’s Finishers, but only if you blog about a UFO finish from your list on the SIF blog by the end of the month . Each month there will be a new design for a block which will be in both stitchery and appliqué format and then on the twelfth month you will receive finishing instructions to complete your quilt.

Remember, no completed ufos for the month = no block!...sorry, but we need to encourage you to get those oldies out of the cupboard!!!!

We would be more than happy to see progress photos of your gift blocks on the SIF blog too.....I know...we’re sneaky but we want to keep inspiring and encouraging as many of you to finish your older UFO’s so that you want to get our gifties each month!!!

So.....let’s get to it....you have just over a week to go before the first gifts are sent out...so make sure you have a finish posted by then.

Hint: If you’re worried you’ll miss out, work on a small finish this month so that you can squeeeeeeeze it in before next week!

Can’t wait to see what you complete!

Sew many hugs...

Wendy and Dawn xoxo

A shattered finish…..

  My weekend was spent watching videos whilst it rained outside and stitching on the binding to finish my “Pretty in Pink” Shattered Tiles Quilt.   It was started in March, 2010 at a workshop which you can read more about here and here.

And finally, here she is…Pretty in Pink…..

…even Ralph wants to get in on the act!

Number 1 down for 2012……now, to check my list and ‘delve’  for another to attack!

sugary hugs

xo Wendy :O)

 

Another Little Finish.

Sew pleased I have completed another one of "Christmas Sew-A-Long" Stitcherys.

One more to go !!!!!!!

Maria
http://maria-lifeontheblock.blogspot.com