UFO Challenge - March Finish!

First of course is a photograph… a flower. A Bird of Paradise or as they are known here, a Crane Flower.

I don’t just have one finish…. I have TWO. Actually I did quite a bit of sewing in March.

There are 2 small items I can’t show you yet. One is a Sparkly Chickens Group ‘Receivers Choice’ swap block, and until the receiver receives… I can’t show it. The other is a surprise for the recipient and well showing it would ruin the surprise. I also messed around with creating a new luggage tag. I made a couple for DH… before he went to Rwanda, which is when I realized ours were all out of date… In the states I would just print new ones up and laminate… but I left the laminator in storage… (wish I had brought the thing with us). I made 2 prototypes, then the 2 for DH and yesterday I was messing with it again… and am half way through making 2 more. Of course you learn each time you make something… and this time I wanted to use button holes instead of eyelets (since I am almost out of large eyelets). I have only made them once on the Janome… and couldn’t remember the start/stop… on the automatic ones… every machine makes them differently!!! but I think I am liking these luggage tags. I still need to figure out how I am going to attach to the luggage…

The number drawn for March was Number 1; a hand appliqued hand quilted baby quilt, begun for my sisters oldest daughter, sometime in 1988.

It’s been a long time getting to this point. Lots of reasons for it -Like my life changed direction several times… The center wreath was taken from a Judy Martin book/ pattern. Once it

was done I thought it needed more and not just borders, so I created the corner vines. The stumbling block was the hand quilting and the cross hatching. It’s crooked, something I learned- mark cross hatching before you start… the top will stretch and shift and the lines won’t be in the right place on the other side. Finally worked it out… but well I would do it differently now. The other stumbling block was I had marked one corner of the border with a cable…. and in one of my ‘life direction changes’ I disposed of the stencil… that was used. I found another and thought it was the same… but it wasn’t… anyway done is done and I am hoping Christie will still enjoy it as something to look at rather than sleep under it. Of course getting it to her… is another matter all together. I cannot ship it from here… So it will have to wait a little longer. I may add some more line quilting in the corners 2” cross hatching… and the label well need to be done, but since I still have some cogitating time… I will think on the added quilting and make a label and add a hanging sleeve.

***One other thing I want to share about this quilt. The quilt was marked with a blue washout marker, way back in the late 80’s, and it stayed there until sometime in 2009, when I worked out the fix. It was re-marked with a blue washout marker… As you can see none of it remains. I will tell you also that it was pressed in some place with the blue marker still in… and it also washed out! I have never had a problem getting blue maker out… of a piece. Of course items marked were not exposed to long periods of light or heat, and stored well over the decades.

Remember the February project that was stopped before it started with the need for a design wall? Well it has gone from this:

To this!

So February UFO is done as well. I really wasn’t keen on using the brown stripe used as the posts as the border, but I didn’t have another brown to use (that I liked)… so this is it. I am thinking about adding some additional chicken things in the border… a fox, or a foundation pieced barn, or maybe some chicks, or eggs…

Well the list as usual could go on and on and on. But I am happy to report I got some things done, or at least as I stated when I started the UFO challenge to the next step!

As always…. MOre LAter!

Beth