Teddy in the cabin cushion

I had this pieced panel that has been left to wait since September 2009 until I picked it up again this month.

I had been hoping to finish it in August but I never managed to quilt it until earlier this month. I decided on a straight lines quilting design off-centred.

And finally last week I made the cushion cover with some teddy bear fabric that I had in my stash from a few years ago.

My cushion is now finished and teddy is now sitting very comfortably in Miss Strawberry Shortcake's room.

Celine

Autumn wall-hanging

This month, I used a panel I pieced together in October 2009 as part of a challenge to make a skinny wall-hanging.

My starting point this month was this little panel where I had initially sewn the 4 blocks in 2 x 2 rows but I decided I had made enough cushions lately, so I unpicked the panel to sew the blocks in 1 row of 4.

I also used this long-forgotten panel to practise my free-motion quilting and browsed the very resourceful  Free Motion Quilting Project blog before setting on the Sharp Stippling stitch.

I finished sewing the binding last night.

One less UFO in my sewing room, yeah!

Celine

From a lonely teddy to a treasure cushion

This little lonely bear panel was very lonely on my wall since I finished it in 2008 or 2009. It was to be a baby wall hanging but never got finished.

Until this week, when I decided to turn it into a secret pillow / pocket pillow/ treasure cushion / pyjama tidy, you can choose the name!
I cut my panel with a gentle curve to make a pocket in front of the pillow.

I made the body of the pillow with a lovely teddy bear print fabric I had stashed away.

And here is my finished item that I was planning to sale but has been claimed by my daughter already. 

Celine

One floor cushion

It is only early May but I have (already) finished a UFO! I found this pieced top early in February this year. I had pieced it between 9pm and midnight one night of late November or early December 2007 at my LQS mystery night. This was our warm project. The aim was speed over accuracy (cutting several layers at once and fast chain piecing) and it is obvious that accuracy wasn't the focus as points don't always match or are cut off.

Because of the size of my pieced top, it would have made a wall-hanging. But I didn't like the idea of hanging a (badly) pieced quilt on the wall for everyone to look at so I decided to turn it into a floor cushion. I ripped off one row of the top to have a square piece. I added a thin red and a thin black border before quilting my top. I decided to play with the quilting a little and went for a base of squares with echo quilting at different width.

I like that this is now finished and will be useful! And I quite like how it turned out in the end, even if it isn't always well done. The kids love it and have already enjoyed sitting on it, jumping on it, walking on it.... it doesn't bother them that the piecing is not perfect obviously!
Celine

My new zig-zag cushion

Well, it is not even the last day of the month (here at least) and I have finished one UFO! It was even finished last night. I have made a new cushion for my sofa.

I started with this panel that I had pieced in August 2009 for a challenge on the BQL group, the aim was to work with half-square triangles only.

When I digged out this little panel, I wasn't sure how to quilt it so I tried to find some inspiration from a great book I refer to regularly Quilting Makes the Quilt by Lee Cleland. I loved the idea of a decorative stitch off-set from the seam.

I love the effect of the "zip" stitch I have used. I don't tend to use decorative stitch on my quilts, but cushions are a great base for experimenting!
Well one less UFO in my sewing room and one more cushion on my sofa.
Celine

Just before the deadline

I finished one cushion before dinner tonight (Saturday 31st, although I think my post will be published on 1 April Australian time). I have been meaning to do it all month and only picked it up this afternoon. Nothing better than a deadline to get things done!
Anyway I started this cushion I think in January 2010. I had done the middle and the first round of logs (red ones) and I had all the fabric cut. When I picked it up again today, I couldn't remember how to do it properly so after the fourth attempt at adding the first block log I finally got it right!

I love the fabrics I used for the cushion but I didn't really like the method to make it. It is a "stitch and flip" method where you prepared your quilted pieces and sew them together in a way that leaves no raw edge on the top or backing so it is neat and finished once it's pieced. And although I didn't enjoy the method to make the cushion, I really like how it turned out. It looks lovely finished on the sofa in the living room, so much better than in pieces in a plastic bag under my sewing table!
Celine

Mystery UFO finished

I finished one UFO yesterday

but I can't show a picture as yet because I need to send it to the recipient first, hence the name for now of Mystery UFO.

Of course I am happy and proud to have finish one UFO of my list. But I am also ashamed it has taken me so long because this was a friendship project. I gathered the blocks in the Spring last year with a view of assembling and finishing the quilt to send it off in the summer. But life got in the way, I spent most of the summer with no energy, resting most of the time and being signed off work. Then I went back to work in September and I must admit I did pick that project first because I had so much to catch up with. So I only picked the blocks again towards the end of last year with the idea of finally making the quilt. I managed to piece the top before Baby Daughter was born but didn't go any further so, of course, it had been waiting since. Finally earlier this month, I picked it up again to add the border, quilt the top and this last week add the binding. The quilt is now finish and ready to fly!

Celine

One finish for January

I guess the time stamp on my post will be 1st February but it still 31st January for just under 3 hours so I can report my first finish for the year and the month but my 6th finish since I joined the group last year! I managed to put the last stitch on the binding of one UFO tonight. I finished a candle mat that I started in November 2010. This was for a swap and with the instructions given, we were making two at a time. Of course I finished the first one then and there to send it in time for the swap. But the second one was half pieced and languishing in a plastic bag until last month. I finished piecing the top in December and was hopeful it would be all finished by year end.

But that was before Baby Daughter made her entrance into the world on Christmas Day! Anyway, it is now finished and I will be able to give it away as a birthday present later this year.

Celine

Another UFO finished - Macintosh Rose

I finished sewing the binding on my Macintosh Rose wall-hanging last night so it is now ready for my Mum for Christmas. It isn't a surprise as she has seen the work in progress (it took over 18 months to complete...) but I know she likes it, started in February 2010 and finished in December 2011.

This is the second Macintosh wall-hanging I make her. I have used fabric that hand-dyed in the summer of 2006 for the focus fabric for both wall-hanging so they match and she will be able to hang the second one next to her first one.

I am on a roll as this is now my 5th finish. It feels so good to clear up my UFO that I have digged another one out that I am hoping to finish by the end of the year so I might be here soon! Watch this space.
In the meantime, I wish you all a very happy Christmas.
Celine

It is becoming to look a lot like Christmas!

We had our first dust of snow this morning, last day of school. Sadly, it was all melted by lunch time but at least it was pretty this morning.

Although we put up our tree last week-end... before the tree skirt was finished, I am proud to say that  it is now finished and around the tree, I did the last stitch on the binding last night.

I made my skirt using blocks I made and received from the Christmas Scrappy Block Swap I took part in in August 2009! I know that was a looooong time ago... My blocks have been patiently waiting to be used since then. I only got them out about a week or two ago and decided that this was the year I was going to get them into a quilt, they were not going to wait yet another year until next Christmas.

This one is a real UFO when you think the blocks were pieced about 30 months ago. This is my 4th finish this year (and second in about 2 weeks) and I am hoping to have another one to report very shortly, only needs the binding now... Watch this space!

Celine

Advent Calendar ready - just on time

Well, I don't know how long an UFO has to be left alone to officially be considered a UFO but I feel this panel was belonging to my long UFO list. I bought it at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham In August to make an Advent Calendar for my daughter - Miss Strawberry Shortcake. I was very good and pieced the top in September, thinking that I would have it finished well on time.

And then because Advent Calendar are not put in use until December, it was left on the side for later. So it was only last week-end that I digged it out from its plastic bag as it had become a WIP (work in progress) to start quilting it. I completed the free motion quilting over 2 days and finally on Wednesday (30 November!) I was able to prepare and stitch the binding during the day to finish hand sewing it before going to bed.

All is well in the end, the Advent Calendar was ready on Thursday morning and full of chocolates on Thursday night when Miss Strawberry Shortcake returned home. Although she can't recognise the numbers yet, she has fully understood the concept and work as a great team with her brother to find their daily chocolates in their respective calendars! This is now my third UFO finished this year, will I be able to squeeze another one before Christmas? Watch this space!
Celine

Second finish

How long has a WIP got to be stashed away for it to become a UFO? I suppose as long as it is stashed away for a while then it adds up to the UFO list. Back in March, I started a purse for Big Boy. And although I made good progress and it came along quickly, I didn't finish it there and then. I only had the binding and zip to sew on for it to be finish but I didn't. Maybe because I am always slightly nervous when it comes to the zip. Anyway I promised myself that Big Boy would have his purse to buy his Father's Day present at school so I had to finish it this week-end. I got it out last night and finished it before going to bed. And the zip wasn't so difficult to add in the end!

Big Boy was very happy with his new purse when I showed him this morning!
Celine

My first finished this year and it is a re-finish

About 5 years ago I made a "Jeu de l'Oie" wall hanging from a pattern in "Marie-Claire Idees" for the birth of my friend's daughter. The "Jeu de l'Oie" is a traditional French board game.

The quilt took a few months to make as I did all the applique in each individual "square" by hand. She received her present when she was about 6-month old.

My friend hanged the quilt in her daughter's bedroom. However they remodelled their house about 2 years ago when baby # 2 was born and the quilt was too big for the new bedroom. As there was quite a large "border" around the quilt, my friend asked if I could trim the quilt to a smaller size. Of course I agreed and took the quilt back to reduce its final size. I took the binding off and trimmed the quilt off last year in the Spring. I then sew the binding back on again. Once the binding was on, I realised that I had stitched it to the back of the quilt rather than the front. I hate unpicking so I decided to try a decorative stitch on the front to finish the binding, also thinking that would be the faster option. Well, it looked awful and I really hated it. I only did half of the side length but the binding was moving slightly and the stitches were not consistant so that meant more unpicking to do :-( I was so annoyed with myself that I put the quilt aside and didn't touch it again until about a month ago when I was determined that the quilt would go back with my friend next time we saw each other (which was planned for last week-end). I took the quilt with me when we travelled back to France for our holidays and spent the journey unpicking my horrible decorative stitch. When that was finally over, I could sew the binding back on, making sure I put it on the front of the quilt this time. I blind stitched it on the way to our week-end and finished it off during the week-end so that I could finally hand it back (about half an hour before we all left).

Anyway, I am really pleased that I could hand it back over to my friend and that meant I could also cross this long-standing UFO off my list.
Celine

First post

Where should I start for my first post?
Well, when I first started patchwork, I couldn't understand why people would have UFOs. Why move away to a new project before finishing the current one, how naive was I then.... I guess the Internet (and temptation for new projects) was not as widespread then plus I hadn't been in any swaps yet. Anyway, a couple of years down the line, I probably have more UFOs that I would like to admit. So do I really need to make a list which will most probably embarrass myself or can I plunge straight into my first attempt at finishing something? I think I'll start being a bit shy and presenting my first project, for which I need some advice to move forward...
Last year in the spring (EU spring so about March or April), I started a Macintosh Rose for my Mum, I was vaguely hoping that it would be a Christmas gift but it was nowhere near finish in December as you can see below:

Anyway last Saturday at our group meeting, I took it along and added the fusible bias:

Now I have a dilemma, what should I do: borders or not? The original pattern has a plain fabric border about 2' wide in a complimentary colour but I am not sure what to do. My focus fabrics are all hand-dyed so they are very variable in colours. Should I finish it off with some binding or add a small border - which colour?
What do you think? Any comments are welcome!
Celine