January Progress Report

I've been plugging away at the many quilt-related commitments I made at the beginning of the year and am happy to say that I have made some progress! First up is the APQ UFO Challenge. The UFO chosen for January was #2, which happened to be my Somewhere in Time BOW. I managed to complete the stitching for blocks 1 & 2 and get a little start on block 3. I decided to do mine on a dark background instead of the light one provided and am loving the way the blocks are turning out.  

Next is the Quilty 365 challenge.  I got a bit of a late start on this one as I didn't run across the post until Jan 4. When I saw that some others had adapted the project to orange peels I had to jump in!  I started an orange peel quilt last year and hadn't made a lot of progress. I didn't originally include this one on my UFO list but love the idea of trying to do one a day so I decided to bump another project in favor of playing along. So 31 days in (we'll just say I started at the beginning of the year to keep the math simple) I haven't quite met the goal but I have made more progress in one month than I did all of last year! I hope to be able to meet and maybe surpass my goal in February with all of my travel. See how other challenge participants are progressing on their projects on today's Quilty 365 blog linkup.

I'm still trying to decide what method I prefer for making these.  I prepped the first bunch using the starch method because I was concerned about precise placement. I found I still needed to create a window template to ensure they were in exactly the right place, though.I hate dealing with the points when they are starched - I just don't like the feel of the bulk when you fold that starched flag under. I did the last five or so by needle-turn using my template for placement. It seemed a lot easier - faster prep and no annoying crunch flags to deal with!

Last but not least is the 365 Challenge.  My picture didn't turn out great but I did manage to complete all of the January blocks. I am hoping that all of these different blues play together nicely in the end - a few look a little out of place in the photo. These blocks are a lot of fun though I must say they are getting a little tedious...1.25" half square triangle are pretty darn small to work with!

The APQ UFO Challenge for February is #5 which happens to be my Disappearing Nine Patch. I am excited about that one since I got a bit of a head start on that one in January. I am optimistic I can move it along even though I will be short on machine time this month due to travel  

The sewing room saga continues. I spent all day Saturday trying to unpack and sort things for our guild's yard sale. It is going to take a LONG time before I have everything put away. There is so much stuff! I don't think I ever need to shop again!