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Unidentified Blocks

I’m not a big believer in making New Year’s Resolutions, heck . . I don’t have to make them.  The same ones I’ve had for the last 20 years are still good because I never stick with them . . . lose weight, exercise more, get more organized, keep the house cleaner . . same old stuff.  But I do think the end of one year/the beginning of another is a time to evaluation my situation and see where I can improve and kinda make some guidelines.  One thing I’d like to do is finish UFO’s and stop starting projects before I finish old ones.  I wish I could say that I will finish each UFO as I find it, not stick anything back in a bag or box but finish it.  But, I know I won’t do that.  I’m not ready to give the UFO’s away, or write them off but I’m also not willing to spend a lot of time on some of them.  I decided to start going through the UFO’s with a real view towards finishing them.  The first thing I came to was 14 of these blocks:

I vaguely remember using a bunch of these blocks in a quilt.  Maybe I was going to make it bigger and then changed my mind.  I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.  If I end up remembering later what they ere supposed to be for, I can always make them again . . they’re just scrappy.  Here’s the plan I came up with:

This is how far I got on Sunday.

Depending on how much sewing time I get today, I could have this top finished by tonight.  Just the top . . not the whole quilt, but it feels real good to be back working on projects like this.  I think it will make a great QOV, don’t you?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  5. Love it! What a wonderful QOV that will be.

    Since I’m new to your Stashbusting, how do I add up scraps to equal yardage? I can’t wait to get started!

  7. That is beautiful! I admire all of you that can put a design together like that. Somebody is going to be very lucky to receive it.

    I’m with Babs on wondering how to count scraps but also kits, jelly rolls, quilts of the month blocks and other such fabric bits and pieces.

    Thanks!!

  10. I’m always amazed at how great simple blocks can look together. That will be a great quilt and makes me want to start one! As if I don’t have my own UFO’s to be finishing! Thanks a LOT, Judy!

  11. It does look great!

    The last couple years I’ve tried to avoid putting a project aside before finishing the top which has helped decrease my UFO’s but this year I haven’t done as much piecing and I think it’s in part because I get to a point on a project and rather than finish the top or put it aside – I just avoid sewing and work on quilting or doing something else. I think I might relax that rule a little because at this point I miss piecing and I’d rather have a few more UFO’s than find myself avoiding the sewing room because I don’t allow myself to start something new when the urge comes upon me!

  12. I’m a firm believer in the phrase…”life hands you lemons, make lemonade”……This is a great QOV project.

    Karen L

  14. Yummy! The “scrappy” look of the reds and beiges really make it way more interesting. Great setting with those star blocks and I can’t wait to see the borders on it.

  15. Oooops I left this comment on the wrong post….not enough cofee yet LOL

    Just lovely Judy! I think it would be a perfect QOV!

    I’m with you on the finishing UFOs thing, but there are so many pretty patterns swimming around in my head as well. One thing that I’ve started to do though is to incorporate some of the blocks I have stacked in the drawers into new patterns I want to do. I had the BQ2 pattern sitting here for awhile and finally decided to use it to set som 12? churn dash blocks that were in the UFO pile. I’m very happy with the top and I’ll b quilting it tomorrow to give to my cousin for CHristmas. So I got the best of both worlds, finish a UFO and try a new pattern in the same project

    Good luck with fnishing up some of those UFOs this coming year!

  16. Let me add “me three” for how to total yardage used.

    I finished up a wall-quilt for my son this weekend. It’s 30″ x 30″ … how would you calculate the yardage?

  18. Hi,

    I decided to join in the stashbusting this year and to start off, I am working on an inventory of my stash. It is not finished, but I am already past 1,000 yards. And, I am only estimating my stash, not measuring everything. However, I did come up with some figures based on a yard of fabric being 36″ x 42″

    2 1/2 strips = 14 strips makes a yard
    5″ squares = 56 squares are in a yard
    10″ squares = 12 squares are in a yard

    With scraps, I planning to cut them into strips and squares, so they are ready to grab and use. If I really use all of the tiny scraps to make string blocks or new “fabric”, then I was planning to use the finished size of the yardage in my stashbusting report. Unfortunately, I found a blog that talks about using selvage scraps to make things, so that’s another box to collect scraps!

    Doing a clean-up and inventory was eye-opening. But, my stash is better organized into works in progress, fabric families (that group of fabrics that I just can’t break up yet) and general yardage. I am heavy on blue and I still have that fabric my sister sent me when she was cleaning up her stash! But, I will enlist my neighbors to work on small donation quilts with me.

  20. Wow, that’s going to make a beautiful quilt. As soon as Christmas is finished, I’m going to strive to get some of my UFO’s done too. I’m not going to participate in the stash busting, but I’ll sure work on my stash. I have way too much stuff and am running out of space to put everything!

  22. I think it’s just amazing that you can take those blocks and come up with a completely different quilt–and have it look so planned.

    None of my UFOs ever look that good.

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