Feb 032013
 

I started work on two UFOs this week (that’s finishing, not starting). The first one was a “calendar” project, where I sewed one strip on each day. That was all the sewing I had time for while in law school, which means I sewed it no later than 2005. Instead of one long pieced strip I started a new one with each quarter, so I had these four long strips:

Instead of adding background and calling it good, because it wouldn’t have been all that good, I cut the strips up into 2 1/2 inch wide strips, cutting them short wherever it seemed like a good idea. Doing that kept the pieces manageable and allowed some correction for the crooked parts in the original (which were 8 inches wide).

Then I sewed them all back together, using  2 1/2 inch wide scraps ranging from about 4 to 10 inches long. I sewed them all into one Mother Strip. Meanwhile I had cut strips of a red floral, long enough to use as alternate stripes on the final quilt. I’m sewing it QAYG style – directly onto batting and backing.

Meanwhile, my next handwork project is this applique block, which has languished for years. At least ten years, if memory serves (some days it doesn’t serve very well). At the rate I’m stitching, it may take another ten to finish it. I’m adding leaves to the outside (green) portion by cutting away an inch or two ahead of my needle as I work, a cut-as-you-go technique. It’s also design-as-you-go; I visualize the leaves slightly ahead of my scissors.

That’s it for this week, if I’m lucky I can finish the strip thing by this time next week. It may depend on how many doctor appointments my husband has, since he can’t drive. Though if I remember to take the applique along I could make some progress on that one.

 February 3, 2013  Posted by at 2:39 pm UFO of the Week  Add comments

  3 Responses to “UFO of the week #3”

  1. I love hand applique as long as it’s somehting small I’m working on, I don’t think I could do a large quilt! Unless maybe it was several small blocks that I could work on here and there.

    I really like your little applique block 🙂

    • Thanks, and yes, only small projects for me as well. Life is too short to spend it all on one big project, not with so many other projects waiting to be made.

  2. I think it’s great to revisit projects and change them into something that interest you now – those strips are going to be a lot of fun to work with.

Leave a Reply to karen Cancel reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)