Lately, I've been trying to limit myself to two active projects - one by hand and one by machine. I just finished putting together a top which is a second generation UFO. The center blocks of this hexie quilt were bought for my husbands grandmother by my mother-in-law. Laura made most of her quilts by hand and this was to be a hand piecing project for her. After her death, My MIL gave me all of Laura's UFOs. I started working on this because I wanted something mindless to machine stitch. I wondered if I could get reasonably good results in machine piecing a hexagon quilt. I got the top completed yesterday.
My results in machine piecing were OK. I think the largest problem is that I rotary cut the brown attachment pieces and they are not entirely accurate. The flowers are about 8" across, so the size wasn't an issue in piecing and the flowers themselves ironed out reasonably flat. However, there are lots of less than flat pieces between the flowers. I was hoping it would iron out. Now I'm hoping it will be better once quilted and washed.
I can't say that I'm fond of this. The picture makes it look a little nicer than I think it is. My thoughts for names while I was working on it included "The Ugly Quilt", "Learning Experience", "What Was I Thinking?", "What a Waste of Time", and others that were even less flattering. This is now ironed, folded and hanging in the closet until I decide what to do about borders and how to quilt it. I'm open to suggestions. This will be a good excuse for machine quilting practice.
I decided that I had done quite enough on the hand quilted charity quilt. I sort of felt guilty for taking to the guild unfinished, but somebody eagerly picked it up and agreed to do the binding. That made me feel better. So that's off my list.
I'm making progress on the eagle quilt. Some of those grey areas are pretty small. I'm working on it sort of systematically to get the outside edges all sewn down so I can trim away the red backing beneath the white before I applique all the grey in the center. I work on it most every evening and have learned to put it down if I start getting frustrated.
And, this is my next machine project.
Bur first, I have to press it, layer and baste it. I'm hoping Thursday will be rainy and cold. It's my plan to baste then. Otherwise I'll feel obligated to spend time outside moving leaves from all over the yard to a big pile at the back of the property. Good exercise, but boring. At least I get to catch up with quilting podcasts while I rake.
