Monday 9 July 2012

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.

2012 Finish-A-Long

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

28 comments:

  1. Good luck girly! A hexy charm quilt would be fab, what about machine piecing them though? Using the largest size on the gobaby? I could bring my die and cutter round and we could go to town :o)

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  2. is the lie-in with a glass of wine? oh nice work, get on and finish it lady!

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  3. I fully expect them all to be finished then! No pressure!

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  4. I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! I have missedyou and I am back just in time to see you have made a list that is totally doable if you do nothing else for 3 months.Good luck! Now I am off to make my list!

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  5. I want to see something finished for a big show and tell for the weekend! But promise me no more hexies :). Lovely as they would look in all those rainbows, but really, why torture yourself!

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  6. How about finishing the hexies in number five for your friend and then starting all over again with the rainbow charms but this time for you ;o) Go on, you know you want to!!!

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  7. Susan, you have my heart fluttering with these photos. The fabrics and colors are just delicious. Please, please, please get stitching and finish these all off. I can't wait to see them finished!

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  8. Forget number 8 it is one too far! The other projects are full of 'finish' promise! Go for it Mrs S! Di x

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  9. STEP.AWAY.FROM.THE.CHARMS.WITH.THE.HEXI.PAPERS!

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  10. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ;)
    I hope you succeed - these will all be beautiful!

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  11. Great list and these will all be amazing quilts. Hexie quilt warning - two years ago I started my hexie quilt and every few months it gets lifted out of my UFO corner to become a WIP for about 3 weeks and then something else takes priority and it's a UFO again. So don't do it if you want to get the other things finished! (But you could take it off your FAL list and just start it on the QT, enjoying a project that you will finish eventually - ssshhh, I didn't encourage you to do that really).

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  12. That lot should keep you out of troule for a while (well 5 mins anyway!). Jxo

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  13. great list but my list don't seem to help me any

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  14. Focus indeed! You realise there'll be no lieing-in, with this list to attend to!! Whatever you do get to, between much required glasses of vino, will be wonderful though!

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  15. I didn't laugh once there... *snigger*

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  16. I love your list and I hope you finish all of it! I think you would have cut really carefully to get 4 of those size hexies out of one charm, 2 is more likely if that helps put you off it. I have been sewing hexies this week, they get faster to make don't they. A whole quilt would be lovely, but you might want bigger hexies, I just got Tacha's book and there are whole quilts in it.

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  17. Ambitious! I look forward to seeing your finishes!

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  18. I think trying to get 4 hexes out of a charm square will cause you a lot of teeth gnashing! Otherwise, there's lots of loveliness in that list.
    If the french knots are giving you nightmares, not sure whether the recipient of it is going to be grateful or worried!

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  19. Soooooooooooooooo many nice projects. You can do it!!
    And I love the look of those hexies ;)

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  20. Now that's a list - I had heart palpitations with Rainbow charm square pics but you need to step away from those with the hexies ;-) They would look great though...

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  21. Or you could applique the hexies ONTO the charm squares....

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  22. As much as I would absolutely love to see a rainbow charm mini hexies quilt, I dont think I'd be able to cope with the venom I'd get via email every time it drove you nuts so I'm going to have to say dont do it. (well, not this quarter... get on with Burdies and HR!!!

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  23. Ok that's actually quite a long list but since you're so nearly done with a few of them I'm sure you can do it! The Sew Stitchy quilt looks wonderful :)
    I do think you'd be doing everyone a favour by ditching the mini hexies... not even I'm that crazy!!! One hexie per charm wouldn't hurt though would it??

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  24. Thats a lot of things to finish, but you can do it! And I thoroughly agree: the FAL is a great idea, it has certainly worked for me!

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  25. Resist the hexies! Even though if they're 1" hexies you can totally get four out of a charm pack. Just saying... I am so looking forward to seeing the birds finished.

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  26. I actually found sewing 1" hexies less of a chore than the big ones that lay unfinished in a drawer. I didn't realise you'd started joining your birdies together - can't wait to see it finished. I'm not linking up this quarter as it doesn't nothing for my motivation when I don't finish a single thing lol

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  27. Susan, I can't wait to see these projects finished :o) They look awesome!

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  28. Ambitious to say the least! But you can do it

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