Quilting gallery qal

Loving the first three blocks of the quilt along , join at the quilting gallery!

The long road ahead

Have you ever looked at your UFO pile of projects and felt a sharp stabbing pain in your chest? I gathered all of mine this week, all 43 quilt tops, 13 on-the-go half made projects and thought "this is going to be impossible". I don't know where to start. I looked online for helpfull advice, but alas all I found was more followers to my great cause of project loving and not being able to close the deal. I'm sure you can all sympathize with me, everyone's had that one project that has sat forever, you know the one, "finish in a weekend!" and in reality it takes you years....

I think I've found a somewhat plausible and doable solution. It's a step by step program. Follow me here and tell me what you think.

1. Gather all your projects in one place and sort them by size and by what stage they are on. (needs quilting, needs sandwiching, still needs some borders or blocks finished).

2. Take the projects needing sandwiching and match those up with backing fabric that you have on hand. Sandwich these then put them in the "ready to quilt pile". Wow sees you've just reduced your stash by one whole pile! Congrats!

3. Take the projects that need borders and get the fabric from your stash for the borderd and match these up. Set these aside layering them in a rubbermaid tote container. (I love using the long narrow ones for under beds and I use less folds in my quilts and they stack neatly under my quilting station.

4. Now this process is supposed to help you feel as though you're making an impact on those ufo's so at this stage you need to go to the "ready to quilt" pile and grab the smallest one there and go ahead and quilt it. Whoopee, now you've actually made twice the difference you did two steps ago. Congrats!

Next week I'll go through the next steps, however until then, measure all the quilts that needs quilting and go ahead and make your binding for them and put the binding in a sandwich bag and pin to the quilt so it doesn't get lost. This step helps you on the finishing step, when the binding is already made, you can quickly transition from quilting straight to binding that quilt and getting it on a bed.

See you next week for the second step!

Cheers

Rhonda

Annual gathering of the guilds

What a super night! Members from all over Alberta the uk and Wisconsin were there. Lots of great ideas doe my next quilt and superb ideas for your next quilt!

Summertime Quilt a Long with QUILTING CALLERY

This summer I am participating in the Quilting Gallery QAL (that's Quilt-a-long) for any newbee's...it's great and it's never too late to join in. Michele has it all setup for beginners, but anyone who is experienced can tag along too and help with tips and tricks and gosh golly get a quilt done in 13 weeks!!! Join me and my fellow quilty sisters in her QAL....see below for her fun intro and a picture of my fabrics that I'll be using. This summertime, join us for a Beginner’s Quilt-Along! We’ll be making 12 or 13 – 12″ finished blocks for our quilt. You’ll have two options for putting your quilt together: either a standard layout with 4 rows and 3 blocks per row or an on-point layout that Pat Sloan will be teaching us how to do. The blocks are a Mystery .. you’ll have to check back each week to see the latest one. The on-point layout uses 13 blocks while the standard layout uses 12, though you could use the 13th block in the piecing of your quilt’s backing. Both quilts will have sashing (and an option for cornerstones), a small 1″ border and a large 6″ border. The quilt made with the standard layout finishes at 54″ x 67″ and the on-point layout finishes at 56.5″ 69″ square. This is truly a Beginner’s Quilt-Along .. the first 10 blocks are no more complicated than creating half-square triangles. The remaining three blocks up the complexity level a little, but once you’ve done the first blocks, you’ll be a pro and able to tackle them with ease. All of the blocks are based on a 3×3 grid, which means they are made up of 3 rows and 3 columns, i.e. large pieces. We’ll be sharing tips, tricks, tools and links to other resources so you can learn not just from us but from others too. This will be the landing page for the quilt-along where all the links will be housed for you to easily find the blocks. We’ll get started June 7th and finish up the quilt-along mid September. You’ll have ample time to quilt your finished top and bind it in time to give to someone special this Christmas. Even if you’re beyond the Beginner’s stage in your quilting, we hope you’ll join us to make this easy quilt and perhaps learn a trick or even share with others your own way of completing the blocks. There will be random prizes awarded each week chosen from those that finish the block from the previous week. You’ll need to submit your finished block to the Beginner’s Quilt-Along Flickr Group to be eligible. There will also be grand prizes randomly awarded to those that complete the top. More information to come on prizes and sponsors.