I am making one big change, in that I am leaving the linky open for the whole month, but I will repost it each Tuesday. In other words, the linky and pictures will carry over from week to week until a new month begins. Since often my linkers are working on blocks for a particular project from week to week, I am hoping that it will give us all a chance to see some progress shots along the way. If we don't like it, we can always change it back.
Now what have I been working on? On Saturday, I participated in the Lazy Bum Global (Cyber) Retreat. The Lazy Bums is a Flickr Group I joined last year with the focus of working through some UFO's. Each month has a particular focus that is supposed to inspire you to finish one of the UFO's on your list. I admit that sometimes it helps when someone just tells you, "Hey, work on the UFO that has the most triangles in it". Taking the thinking out of the, "what should I work on?" question helps sometimes. And if you complete your monthly challenge, you get points and prizes.
Well, for January our challenge was to dust off a UFO that has a LOT of blocks to do, like a Dear Jane or a Farmer's Wife project, and to really motivate you to get some blocks done, we had a cyber retreat. For 24 hours, you were supposed to devote as much time as possible to your January block project. For every 10 blocks you completed, you got a point. Unfortunately, I didn't have a Dear Jane or a Farmer's Wife project in process, but I did have a New York Beauty that I started very early in my quilting life that hadn't seen much action since the day I started it. Since the blocks involved paper piecing and curves, I thought they would be time consuming enough to fit with the overall spirit of the challenge.
On the Saturday of the retreat, my DH had taken my two oldest girls away for a camping trip with one of the groups they are in, so it was just little Olivia and I at home. I brought my sewing machine and supplies up from the garage and set them up on the kitchen table so I could keep an eye on her and sew at the same time. You can see that I also set up our laptop right next to my machine so I could chat with the other participants as we cheered each other on.
When I dug around in my project boxes until I found the NY Beauty UFO, and found that I only had 5 blocks completed and a few partially pieced. But in my favor, most of the fabric had been cut already! I only had to cut out some more of the blue outer sections for the blocks. There is no way I would have gotten many done if that fabric hadn't been cut up already.
Between Olivia's gym class in the morning and a dinner party I attended later that night, I only had a few hours to sew. BUT, I did manage to finish up my partially pieced blocks and complete 10 more. So now I have 20 finished, and only 16 more to go for the lap sized quilt I plan to make.
It felt good to participate in the Global Retreat and chat with the ladies along the course of the day. I seriously doubt this project would have ever fit into my "Work on what I want, when I want" plan, but having an event to motivate me really helped. Why wouldn't I want to work on this quilt? While I love the look of the quilt, but I really despise the fabrics I choose way back when I didn't know anything about fabric. Some are poor quality and others are great. It makes for a really strange textural experience. I would love to make this quilt again some time with new fabric. But enough about me!
What blocks have you been working on? I would love to see. Link up your fabulous blocks. You put a lot of hard work into them - show them off! This free linky will stay open until the first Monday of next month, but I will repost it every Tuesday until a new month starts.
Rules:
1) Please link up only to the page in your blog showing your wonderful blocks, not just the blog homepage. Flickr pictures are also OK.
2) Make sure to put your blog name as the description so people know where they are going or the name of your block!
3) Please grab my button and post it in your blog post or sidebar.
4) Visit other linky participants!
Thanks for reading!
Jen
Do you have enough blocks to make a baby quilt and donate it? I ask because I have a very hard time finishing something that I'm not thrilled with and your reasons are valid. Say you finish the lap quilt. Will you like it as much as you will quilt "A" made with higher quality fabrics and in color choices you now like? Food for thought. I always cut all of my fabric before I sew a stitch because I had a (free) pattern once that didn't call for enough fabric in the instructions and there I was making do. The drawback to this method is that if I don't like where the project is going I've already cut the fabric. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteSo pleased to see Building Blocks Tues back and great idea to keep it open for a month. Love your blocks, obviously I can't see the quality of the fabric and the textures, but visually it looks great. NY Beauty was the first foundation paper piecing I ever did, it was one of my NYC Metro Mod Guild Bee Blocks, initiation by fire - fab block though :D
ReplyDeleteNew York Beauty are truly fabulous to look at. I agree with Lisa though - if you don't love it, can you stitch together what you've done and make a baby quilt to give away? It looks like a good size, as is. Or you could add a border, if you really want it to be lap size... :-/
ReplyDeleteGood work making that many blocks in a day!! I dawdle along with my sewing and just can't imagine finishing 20 paper pieced blocks.
E xx
Oh Jen, they look amazing! And how fab to have a sewing day. I'll try and work out how to link up!!! (The PC seems so slow compared to phone / iPad, but things like linking / cutting & pasting are so much easier with a mouse !!!)
ReplyDelete