The dirty dozen (s)

So it was the last official Sit n Sew on Sunday. I had work to complete for a customer - you'll see in a minute, but I also had time to work on something for me.

Here's the deal - I made a list of 12 UFOs that I wanted to complete in 2017. I was silly and actually put thirteen items on the list - a bonus. How thoughtful of myself - NOT! There are still four items left to finish on that list. All of them are piecing (one has some fusible applique), but I don't think any of them would take too long to finish!

Then we have the list for 2018. Originally there were twelve items on that list and there's still six projects to finish.

And if we were to chat about the list for 2019 - oh - there's still ten on that list.

YEP - I'm going to make a new list for 2020. I know - call me silly, but I am making a vow to myself to NOT push these things off again.

I have a goal and that is to complete at least one item (hopefully more) from each of the three lists. Then to set out goals in The Taskmaster to get more completed this year. I've made enormous progress on some of them as they required hand applique or embroidery. So it's not like I've been slacking. I just go slowly.

Why am I telling you this? Because one of the projects I worked on at the Sit n Sew is an item from the 2018 list.

Remember all that applique I did earlier this year? On my Gingerbread quilt???  Well - it's almost together.

The blocks are trimmed, the embroidery ends are tucked in and the top is now in two pieces. I ran out of time this morning to get that last seam stitched. A job for later today.

The gingerbread quilt

This was started in 2007 as a Block of the Month at Jillybeans's in Oakville (long since closed) and over ten years later - it's almost done! The big issue now is borders. A long time ago, I had purchased this striped fabric which I thought would make a great border.

Now that I have the top together and see the fabric with the quilt, I'm not so sure.

Striped fabric for the border

The colors are PERFECT. I'm not sure if it's too busy? Or just not the right feel with all that applique, but I'm not convinced that this is what I should be putting on as the border.

The pattern calls for a plain border of the background fabric and I think I'm liking this better. The problem is that I don't have enough of the background fabrics to make that happen. Although I didn't look through the stash.

Plain border

 I'm sure that if I can't find the exact fabrics, I can find something that'll work. I'm sure any beige/light tan will work. I'm not worried about finding something to match up. Getting this quilt completed (not quilted) will be awesome and I can hardly wait to check it off on my list. BUT that's not going to be my one item on the 2018 list to be completed before the end of the year. OH NO - I have other plans. One of the other projects on the 2018 list is the UFO project I've been working on all year. I'm sick of that quilt and my goal is to get it completed as well.

Now I just need to schedule some days in the calendar that are UFO-related and I-m, good. I just scheduled THREE UFO days between now and the end of the year to get these projects done or at least as many as I can work in. Yeah --  and if those quilts weren't on any list, they wouldn't be on the radar. So the list isn't working quite as well as I wanted, but it's working and I'm sticking to it. My goal for this coming year is to focus on those lists. How will I do that? Through the UFO club which I'll chat about later this week. I might want to take some time today to actually find all those projects!

I told you, I'm so motivated that it hurts. And I'm focused on cleaning up this mess. I've seen huge leaps and bounds this past year so I know it can happen.

What else did I work on? Well - here's the customer project that I did. I have the "best" customers. They want something made, yet they don't want to make it so they ask me to do (for a price of course). Besides quilting quilts, I make labels and attach bindings. This time, I got to make a duvet cover using a quilt top. Yikes!! Nothing like trial by fire!

I started out by quilting the quilt top to a large piece of fabric. We used a quilt backing. That was to protect the seams from the pieced top from fraying. No batting.

The quilted top of the duvet cover. 

Then I trimmed off all the excess backing. The biggest job and thank goodness for the work tables was to trim the back of the duvet to match the front.

Trimming the back of the duvet cover

I pinned the heck out of those two pieces and serged up three sides. It even has loops inside to attach the duvet cover to.

Serging the duvet cover together

The edges on the opening were turned under and the snap tape was meticulously pinned in place and then sewn with the sewing machine.

Sewing the snap tape in place

The snap tape is now in place.

The snap tape is sewn into the duvet cover

There's the final duvet cover. It worked out way better than I imagined. The extra fabric behind the duvet cover provided a LOT of stability. I'm really happy with the project and would do it again and might even find something around here that would work to make one for myself.

The completed duvet cover

I also managed to get a customer quilt quilted. It's delivered.

Customer quilt - DONE

There are three more customer quilts to go this week. A Quilts of Valour quilt as well and then some of my stuff.

I've got almost THREE FULL weeks with NOTHING booked (except two private classes) and the rest of the time is mine to book how I want. It's starting to get filled with things for me. Like today is a clean-up day. A day that I am NOT allowed to reschedule. So far, I've been doing great with that aspect of it. I don't think I'll get to the office today as I still have a few things in the basement that need to be taken care of. It's all good. OH - I just booked a cleanup day for the office. No excuses now. I can't put it off any longer!

Even though today is a cleanup day, I have some paperwork to clean up so I guess that fits in the theme of the day.

Before I go, I will say that our monitored smoke detector works just fine. DH was merrily cooking something at extremely high heat (don't go there) and was standing right there as the meat (not for me) is merrily smoking away. Why???  I've no idea. Anyway - our standard smoke detector went off and then the monitored one went off. That's the one we have to pay attention to because the voice at the other end was prepared to send a fire truck. NO - we don't need a fire truck, but thank you for being there!!!

I should have taken a picture of that monitor when it was BRIGHT RED because of the triggered alarm. Or Murphy who was perched upon the ottoman (where she's not supposed to be) or Lexi cowering in her house because they were freaking out. All is good!

The fire alarm monitor

 In the event, I do tackle the office today or part of it, I took some "before" pictures. What a mess!

On that note, I'm out of here to hit that paperwork!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!