FNSI Update

I was able to spend plenty of time in the sewing room Friday night and the rest of the weekend and made fairly decent progress on one of my March UFOs - Magic of Christmas. I finished five blocks which leaves seven more to go - two each of three patterns, one of another that I skipped early on. Seven doesn't sound all that bad until you look at them...hundreds of tiny pieces left to assemble!

I also managed to keep caught up with Triangle Gatherings - two blocks finished last week and six more sets of triangles prepped and ready for Lisa's posts.  

And lest you think that all I ever do is make blocks (I am starting to feel like that myself!), I fnally loaded my Winter Stars quilt on the frame and selected a quilting design.  

I hope to get it quilted this week. Then it can join the growing pile of "just needs binding".  I wish I enjoyed that part!

So Many Triangles!

I have4 been enjoying a little time at home the past couple of weekends and have been trying very hard to keep up with Triangle Gatherings as well as make progress on this month's UFOs.  The weekend before last I caught up on my 6" block and then thought I would get a start on catching up the 3" version. I finished one block and am not sure I am going to take that one any farther.

I'm no stranger to small blocks - I started out quilting making miniatures - but I am not a fan of the triangle papers for these.  The seam allowances are about 1/8"amd are not at all fun to press open.

The little dog ears were a pain to trim also.  And then the pieces aren't quite as easy to line up - somehow the "bulky" 1/4" seams fight the little seam allowances. I may try another one as I prepped about 8 of them but I did not find the first one to be at all enjoyable!

Lisa posted block 17 at the beginning of the week and thanks to having pieces prepared for several more blocks I was able to finish it that night.  Blocks 18 & 19 posted this weekend and I knocked those out too.

So far, so good!  I am really hoping to keep up through the end so it doesn't become another long-term UFO. Speaking of UFOs, my Mosaics quilt is one of the assignments for this month.  This is how it looked at the beginning of the month (yes, it is in exactly the same spot as it was when the workshop ended last October).

It's hard to tell from the photo, but most of it is not sewn.  The inside of the circle, the bird's head and a little bit of one of the branches have been stitched.  Sadly I have not made much progress since the beginning of the month but am still hoping to at least have all of the center appliqued by the end of the month,

Magic of Christmas is my other UFO for March.  I have made some progress on this one, completing two blocks each of the last two weekends.  I think I have about 10 blocks left to make. These are not at all quick to put together!

I have really been going to town on my 1875 Ship rug - that's part of the reason no applique is getting done.  I took this one with me to Lenexa since it was smaller  (19"x 40").  I hadn't worked on it since the class in 2015 and only had the ship, water, houses and part of the flowers finished.  If I am able to keep up my current pace I think I will have the hooking finished by the end of the month.

We're only halfway through the month - let's see how much farther I can progress my UFOs by then!