Focus, Susan, Focus!!

I am hereby officially making a Third Quarter list for Rhonda's (Quilter in the Gap) Finish-a-Long that I don't have a hope in hell of finishing. But I am hoping that this list will bring me focus and impetus to shake off this sewing slump and get back to what I enjoy so much. The idea being that if I don't get at least some of it done I will make a complete laughing stock of myself and that should be incentive enough to get back to the machine.

So here we go, my FAL 3Q intentions are -

1. Finish the Birdies quilt. I am so close really it would be silly not to take all those wonderful, mismatched, different sized blocks and turn them into a quilt. Considering I even have the backing fabric already (which is rare indeed) I think this should be doable. (Stop laughing!!)

2. Finish the Sew Stitchy quilt. This is not going to be a large quilt and will most likely be the first thing that I finish. You can always point out that I said that if it all goes horribly wrong.

3. Finish my French knot hell. Otherwise known as the prototype FQ Retreat hoop. I will finish this and it will be given to someone. Because I wouldn't want to keep it here, after all it might give me nightmares.

4. Turn my Diamond Hexies into a cushion. Not sure what to use for backing here and that brought me to an abrupt halt. But honestly, how long will it take to turn this from a WIP to a finish? All I need to do is stop dithering.

5. Turn these meagre few hexies into a lot more hexies, and then make them into a cushion for a very good friend of mine. Now this will get a nice start when I go off on my annual summer migration northwards in a couple of weeks. I plan on taking them as my little project to work on between lie ins and glasses of wine. (Chance would be a fine thing!)

6. Take all these wonderful carefully collected rainbow charm squares and turn them into the quilt that they are meant to be. They may look pretty hanging about as 5" squares but I firmly believe they will look even better when they are all sewn together.

7. Now Rhonda may argue with this one, because I have not officially started cutting my HR but I do consider it a work in progress as I have so diligently spent time collecting, swapping, buying and so forth since the beginning of the year. A lot of work has gone into this quilt just to get to this point. Now I want to take my HR Fan Club Quilt to the next level. In other words, sew it all together. (I would also like to point out that the wonderful stack of FFA on the top left of my storage box was a gift from Leanne when she came over from Canada. Isn't she fantastic?!)

8. This last item is not really an item. I need  you all to convince me that number five (hexies) and number 6 (rainbow charms) should not become a new project that could potentially send me over the edge this year. Because I keep placing four hexies on a charm and thinking 'Ooooo, I could get a lot of hexies from all these charms. A lot!' Liking little hexies and thinking I could do a whole quilt with them are two entirely different things. Kindly talk me out of even thinking about it. Please!

I think I will stop now. I am sure I could come up with more, but I am equally sure that I will not finish the seven projects listed so best to not add anything else. I have found that the Finish-a-Long has been one of the best things to come into being this year. It really does make you focus and think about what you have on the go and which projects you honestly want to work on. Rhonda came up with a fabulous idea and I fully expect that she will carry it on for a long, long time. Won't you, Rhonda?!

Please go on over to Quilter in the Gap and see what other people are planning to finish this summer.

And then when you are done there you might like to hop on over to Fluffy Sheep Quilting as you can vote for your favourite Kona solids bundles that people have put together. Cindy will be featuring the winning bundles in her fabulous shop. Which reminds me, I have some shopping to do there.

Susan x