Sunday, March 1, 2015

Stashbusters Numbers Game

Every year I rejoin the Stashbusters UFO Challenge as it invigorates me to finish some of the projects that I have on the go. 2015 is no different. What is different is the addition of a Numbers Game this year. In this challenge 2 numbers are drawn at the beginning of each month and those are then the corresponding UFO projects as listed that you work on for that month. You don't have to necessarily complete them, but you do have to work some on them. What a great incentive for people like me.

January's numbers were give a few days early because of the holidays. These numbers then were #8 and #35. For me this was my Spicy Spiral UFO for #8. This was a revisiting of a UFO that was color coordinated for our previous RV. So I added a coordinating color from the newer RV and renamed it Old Meets New.
As I didn't have a #35 listed, the last number listed takes it place and for me that was #25, the microwave bowls for DGD which she should have had for Christmas. Great way to push me to get her bowls done and sent off to here. They were completed and off within a week of our return from the cruise (with her).


And then came February's numbers, #2 and #64. Again as my UFO list doesn't go as high as this, I was designated to work on the last listed one which is OUR Quilt - a sampler quilt  made out of a red/silver/grey/black medley.
 So far I have made 6 blocks out of a total of 16 blocks. Just a few more to go here. This will be a holiday quilt for our bed and as such will be a slightly oversized queen size. Luckily for me it doesn't have to be completed until the end of November.  

#2 on the other hand happened to be a quilt,  Christmas Toys that would be found in the storage unit, not the RV. Lucky for me I knew exactly where it was in the unit and we were already scheduled for a couple of days of cleaning and revamping in it. So I was able to get it out and bring it. Horrors on horrors, I found that it is simply too small to be anything but a baby cuddle quit. I sure didn't realize that was how small it was when I was piecing it in Panama in 2010. Up it went onto my makeshift design wall (hanging from the valence in the main area of the RV) for reviewing, mulling and planning.  And to add insult to injury, not only did I find the flimsy, but I also found 2 more panels each different presentations of the same venue along with the coordinating fabrics. 
 Guess I will simply cut up the coordinating fabrics and make kits out of them and hence they will become UFOs for next year if I don't get them done this year! They will stay here in the RV with me at least until I either start to work on them or they begin to irritate me. Then they will be returned for awhile to the storage unit.

And now, here we are in March and 2 more numbers have presented themselves; #7 and 17. Well, #7 was completed in December (DGS#1s quilt, a Christmas present) and I never took it of my list. So once again I am going to be replacing it, but this time with continuing to work on February's numbers My #17 is my Rainbow Jane, a very longterm project as the blocks are small and often using techniques that I am not overly thrilled with. This is something that I can work a little on but here again, I only have one of the 24 BOM kits that make up this quilt here with me and no trip to the storage unit in the foreseeable future. I think that I have completed maybe 5 or 6 of the 225 in total. Yes, when I looked it up, it was 5 completed blocks, 4 blocks and 1 triangle.  
 This doesn't show the finished triangle so I have to now update the Rainbow Jane blog as well as find the photo of the green "spanish moss" triangle and put it into the template. I will be able to work on the ones that I have here with me and that will work for this part of the challenge. Both surely won't help me finish up a UFO however. 

Interspersed between working on the Numbers Game, I also worked on other UFO's and projects. The Main one for me was to finish up Danny's Request[ed] quilt. He wanted one that wouldn't get too dirty, or at least show that it was dirty when he came in from bicycling and sat on the beige la-z-boy. This one, per request, had to cover the whole chair as well as the foot rest so that he could rest his "sweaty sunscreeny legs" on it. It became a 60x90" Jelly Roll Race, quilt-as-I went, interpretation. As I found the colure rather dull and dreary, I added splashes of brilliant strips in his favorite colors of lime green and pinks. 
 Oddly enough, however, these colors go great in our bedroom. This is good as I still have 2 jelly rolls of the same colors left and will now plan an everyday quilt for the bed.

After having completed DHs quilt,  my main focus in the UFO Challenge turned to DGS#2s quilt. Today I got it to the flimsy stage and will get it off to the longarmer in the morning, as it is way too big for me to tackle on my Miss Betsy easily. It is 52x88" as DGS#2 is now 6'4" and still growing at 16y/o. (Way too long for me to hold up and show the true length of it - me at 5'6").  The original pattern was called Bohemian Quilt by Joanie Holton & Melanie Greseth of Tailormade by Design (found in Quiltersworld, Winter 2014). I am unsure yet as to what I will call it, but it has to be something that suits both the style of the quilt and my DGS#2.

As I go along, working on the not identified numbers but listed UFOs, I find other quilts in some state of having been worked on in the past and keep adding them to the list. And so it goes, working towards the end result in the Numbers Game and UFO Challenge and that is to reduce the numbers of UFOs and subsequently the stash. 

As a no-buy rule does not apply in this household, I am sure that I will accumulate more stash before the year is out, even though I try to pick a project that is stash oriented first. Think that I will have to start keeping tract of the "in vs out" and see if I am reducing any at all. 

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