October UFO Parade

Ready for the last two months of the 2015 UFO Challenge: The project number for October is:

#8

And now, on to the finishes for September!

Friend Martha got her finishes to me early in the month (thank you for that, Martha!). This darling pinwheel quilt is for a friend's new baby.

Martha and her husband formerly served in the Peace Corps. They went to a Peace Corps reunion in San Francisco last month, and Martha made this quilt for a fundraiser auction. I bet it was a big hit with the attendees!

Pam in KC has made up for lost time with three finishes for September! I'll let Pam tell the story of "Out of the Blue."

The name means so many things in the case of this quilt. First out of the blue I decided I needed to do something to get my orphan quilt block box closed and pulled all the blocks and strip sets with a black background and came up with this quilt. I'm out of the blue fabric that I used for the border. Based on those two things my husband and I came up with the quilt name. Then out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago I was asked if I had something I could quickly quilt for a 7-year-old girl. Finally it will be out of the blue when the package arrives next week and the girl receives this quilt as it is not her birthday and too early to be a Christmas present. All the statistics on the quilt can be found in this blog post:  http://pamela.avaraarts.com/out-of-the-blue/

I love that story, Pam! 

Pam's second finish is "Orange is the Ultimate Favorite Color." Details on her blog, here.

And third, a Bonnie Hunter pattern, "Nifty Thrifty." This really is a thrifty quilt, Pam made it entirely from recycled clothes -- front, back, and binding. And the batting is a "frankenbatt" pieced together from batting scraps of Hobb's Tuscany 100% cotton -- Pam reports between the cotton batting and the recycled shirts, this quilt is "soft like an antique quilt." Details at Pam's blog, here.

Mary J finished a second quilt made from her pattern "Group Dynamics." Mary's pattern is featured in the May issue of Modern Quilts magazine! You can read all about it on her blog, Zippy Quilts, here.

Another Bonnie Hunter finish by Sandi this month. Sandi, you are right -- Bonnie's designs are gorgeous, but they can take a lot of time. Sandi calls this one "Korners." Read all about it at KwiltnKats, here.

Donna made this great quilt for her twin sister, Debbie. She calls it "Fraternal Twin Quilt," since the Bonnie Hunter pattern makes two blocks of the same fabric, but different ratios. So the blocks aren't identical twins, but fraternal twins -- just like Debbie and Donna!

Nancy is toiling away on her "Hoop Sisters" quilt. This is quite the project -- learn all about it on Nancy's blog, My Love of Fabric, here.

And just for fun, Nancy finished this little cutie to take to the beach. I love it, Nancy!

Becky finished up two Project Linus quilts -- and used up some poly batting -- or her UFO this month. I love the rainbows, Becky!

I think that's a pretty good parade for the end of summer! This month's UFO Parade winner is Martha.  Send me your mailing address so I can send you some goodies!

I'm going on the "Fall Frolic" shop hop here in the Texas Hill Country today. Report on Sunday!


From the desk of your

Design Wall Monday: Leaders & Enders

I love Bonnie Hunter's Leaders & Enders challenges. This year the project is "tumblers." I'm using my Civil War reproduction scraps in an attempt to use them up. 

Before I came to Texas this summer, I cut most of my CWR scraps into tumbler shapes. The tumblers filled one of my cute metal lunch boxes. I thought that would be enough to last me though fall.

Even though I have a good-sized bin of Civil War repros, I had to beg more background fabric from my friend in Ohio. Thanks, D'Awn! Faith didn't like the block with Abraham Lincoln (upper left in photo) appearing upside down, so I flipped this photo. The rows aren't sewn together yet, so if it looks like the tumblers don't match up -- they don't!

Bonnie explains that "Leaders & Enders" take the place of the scraps of fabric many quilters sew onto at the end of a row of stitching. Rather than using scraps that you'll throw away, why not sew together pre-cut shapes. I've used 2.5" squares and the cut-off triangles from snowball blocks or flying geese. My tumblers are cut from 3.5" strips using the EZ Dresden Tool from Darlene Zimmerman. The narrow end of each tumbler is at the 2.5" line on the template. I calculated to make my "tumblers" quilt a large lap-size, I need to make 30 rows of 33 tumblers each. 

Do you use "Leaders & Enders?" Are you making this quilt, too?

From the desk of your