UFOs Bite the Dust, and the Dust Keeps Rising

Two more UFOs are finished.

I hate to admit that this quilt top has been on a hanger in the closet for at least three years. It's made with Quarry Stone and Loaf blocks from Stitchin' Mission days. Well, now it's gonna be a donation to Project Linus.

Quilting is this repeated snail trail design, one in every block. It's fun to have a reason to use 40-weight YLI variegated thread on the quilt top. Aurifil 50-weight silver-colored thread is on the back.

Here's the quilt back. With a finish at 55" X 65", it should be a nice size for an older child. And because it's mostly blue, I'm hoping it will suit a boy.

My second finish is this two-tiered skirt from the book "The Essential A-Line." I swear that I've made at least a dozen skirts with this great pattern. But I'm disappointed in how this one turned out. While it fits fine, the lack of color on the top tier makes the whole thing look too plain. My plan is to take this skirt and fabric markers with me when I attend any meetings, and color away on the top part.

Fabric is from Andover, by Alison Glass, purchased from my friend's Etsy shop.

I'm making progress on other UFOs, including finishing my BAM BOM (Bay Area Modern Block of the Month) quilt top. Students in the February "Alternate Grid" workshop with Lee Heinrichs (Freshly Pieced) helped each other and this is the layout we came up with for my blocks. I had to order more Kona Ash - the background grey. What I received was definitely from a different dye lot. So, I inserted those slashes of Kona Bahama Blue to separate the background Ash of the pieced blocks, from the large Ash triangles on the right corners. I think you can still see they're different, but it's better than if they were touching.

Using three leftover blocks from the quilt front, two orphan blocks from my shrinking pile of orphan blocks, and lots of leftover fabrics from the blocks on the front, I pieced this back. I do like it a lot! And what a great stash-buster!

It's now sandwiched with Quilter's Dream Wool, pin-basted, and ready for quilting. 

Because I mentioned this a couple posts back, I'm participating in Debbie's Crosscut Quilt-Along that began July 25. It's fun digging into stash for low volume prints, and rummaging through solid scraps to cut, and in some cases piece, the one-inch insertion strips. And yes, I did piece that striped-looking insertion in the center block. 

Blocks were supposed to be trimmed to 9-1/2", but for some reason, mine came out at 9-1/4". No worries though. This is improv, with more piecing and cutting to come.

On July 26, The Villages Daily Sun newspaper ran this nice article about our Central Florida MQG's members' efforts to make quilts for victims and first responders of the June 12 Pulse nightclub attack. Of course, we're just a small part of a greater effort by the whole MQG and the Orlando MQG chapter that's not only collecting hundreds of quilts, but making hundreds of them themselves! It's these kinds of efforts that make me proud to be a quilter who can be part of the collective good, no matter who's affected. I may not be able to verbally express my feelings about the incident or the people involved - though I know we all deserve to be loved, for God is love, and He first loved us - but helping make quilts is a way for me to make the inexpressible, expressible.

Linda
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