The Big One!

This week I have been struggling a bit.  Now that the craft room is starting to be useable again I am getting ahead of myself on projects.  I have found several unfinished projects (UFOs - UnFinished Objects) in there and I've been finding fun new ideas (bad Pinterest!!)  Ideally, I need to complete ALL old projects before starting on new ones, right??  

Now, I will completely disregard that thought and tell you about the big one - it is sure to be an on-going project that I am sure will not be finished before I start/complete any other projects.  



So far, I have made three bed quilts, two lap quilts and a doll quilt using a red/white/blue palette accented with denim.  The goal has been to use salvaged fabrics...old clothes (especially jeans), fabric yardage that was given to me from other people's stashes or fabric/clothing purchased super cheaply at yard sales.  I confess I have loosened my rules and bought several new fabrics to incorporate.  There are just so many great prints I can't help myself!

As you may have guessed the "big one" is my current quilt.  Over several years I have cut and saved fabric squares so I have a good supply.  I have wanted to make a full-sized quilt with the 3 by 3 inch squares that I previously only used for lap quilts...little squares equals much more work :)   I loved the look of the lap quilts and wanted one for my bed.   In the middle of this on-going project I have married my fabulous husband, so I have added some fabrics to represent him.  I bought a martial arts print (he is a black belt in jiu jitsu, hopkido and tae kwon do) and an Indianapolis Colts print (he is a big Peyton Manning fan). 

Several months ago, I finally had enough squares to complete the quilt - nearly 1700!!  Time to lay it out.  The living room furniture was pushed aside (we spent a weekend climbing over the couch in the hallway).

The placement is completely random except I have to be sure the same prints don't end up side by side.

After several days and plenty of rearranging the "completely random" placement of squares I was satisfied.

Satisfied with the arrangement and ready to have my living room back.

I devised a plan to keep my squares in order.  Each row was carefully picked up and stacked in order.  Each stack went in its own baggie with a row number.  All the baggies went into a box... to be ignored for several months.  

When I decided to work on this project again there was a complete panic - I had forgotten where I had put the carefully organized box of squares.  Finally found it and crisis averted!

A couple of months ago, I sewed together 8 rows...then back into the box with the project.  This week I pulled it all back out to work on.  I am hoping to see it on our bed before winter is over - who wants a new quilt for summer??  It is almost February so I better get busy.  The following pictures are from this week's progress.

First I ironed the seams flat.  The seams are ironed in opposite directions for each row.  This helps strengthen the quilt.  

 Then rows are pinned together and sewn into pairs - I used a 1/4 inch seam. 

Notice the numbers from the baggies have been pinned to each of the sewn rows so I can continue to keep the order straight.

 I now have 8 rows sewn together - just about enough to cover our feet!

Check out my faithful assistant on the other side of the ironing board...

Don't strain yourself Zommie.

I have a long way to go, but am excited that it is finally back on track.  Stay tuned for its progress.  And as I mentioned before I am sure there will be a few more projects started/finished before this one is finished, but that is okay, right??  And a reminder to myself the room is FAR from neat and organized..."don't forget to keep working on that too, Anna!!"

I would love to hear about a UFO you could pull out and work on this week...

Anna