PhD in 2021 and 2022

My friend Gail over at Quilting Gail has done a PhD (Projects Half Done) goal-setting program since 2018.  I've participated each year.  For 2021, I set my goals a tiny bit differently than Gail's program.  You see, since one of Gail's rules is that you can't carry new projects into the new year, my UFO list has dwindled.  But I only count projects once I've actually started them--just pulling fabric and/or planning doesn't count.  Here's how I laid out my PhD back in January:

• Complete at least 5 projects from my list of unfinished projects
• The remaining projects must be from stuff I already own--kits, scraps, planned projects, new projects that use fabric I already own, anything counts as long as I'm using fabric that is already in the house.

Here's the honest truth: I've had a hard year.  Nothing specific, just the wear of another pandemic year, I think.  I'm tired. I'm out of energy.  I haven't kept up with tracking projects (and lots of other things) the way I like to.  I've blogged a lot less. And because of this, I didn't think I'd finished my PhD. Fortunately, I haven't lost my energy or desire to actually sew, just the background things. So when I sat down to write this post (notice that I've procrastinated, writing in the last 30 hours of the year), I thought I was writing to admit that I didn't complete this year.

But I actually think that maybe I have?  I had 10 projects on my list.  I found another UFO that I didn't know I had, so that makes 11 to choose from.  I finished five of those.  Here's my chart:

Hearts On Fire	1	1-19-2021
Magical Forest	2	finished
Food themed picnic blanket	3
Lion Pillow	4
Patriotic Stars (2nd)	5
Smitten Kitten	6
Laura’s quilt	7
Dad’s place mats	8	finished
Round Robin	9	finished
Bookshelf quilt	10
Small Savanna	11	finished

Since Gail's program rests on finishing at least 12 projects, that leaves 7 to be completed with anything I already owned, as long as I didn't buy new fabric to finish it.   I went through all my blog posts (plus two finishes not blogged) and count 10 quilts plus other various smaller projects, including a car trash bag, 10 place mats for a local organization called Friendship Trays, and a multitude of By Annie bags. So I'm calling that successful.

The other part of Gail's challenge is to not carryover any new unfinished projects into the new year.  Here's where I'm on shakier ground.  I started Boho Heart back in February.  It's a Jen Kingwell pattern with 108 blocks, all different.  I'm not even close to done--my current count is 39 completed blocks.  But I have been working on it off and on all year and given the massive undertaking of this project, I'm ok with it carrying into the new year.  So that I can add some photos to this post, here are some of the blocks I've finished in the second half of the year.

 

 

I also have 3 quilts for Fire Monkey's teachers in various stages of completion (two just need binding hand-sewn down, which is not where I get stuck)  but I'm not worried about those becoming UFOs since they have a hard deadline of the end of the school year.  Boho Heart is really the only possibility of becoming a long-term UFO. In the end, it doesn't actually matter: I kept sewing and I finished a lot of projects and in a tough year, I'm calling that OK. 

Gail is hosting a PhD program again in 2022.  If you want to play along, you can find the details here.

I am going to try again, but I'll be gentle with myself if I don't finish.  Once again, my main goal is to use fabric that I already have, so the bulk of my 12 projects may not actually be started at this point, but they count as long as they are fabric I owned on December 31, 2021.  I've got 9 projects on my list (I did not add the teacher quilts, since I'm not really counting them as carry-over) and I'd like to finish at least 5 in 2022.

1	Food themed picnic blanket
2	Lion Pillow
3	Patriotic Stars (2nd)
4	Smitten Kitten
5	Laura’s quilt
6	Bookshelf
7	Boho Heart
8	Round Robin 2022
9	Tickled Pink

Snowmen!

Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Cookie Exchange blog hop!  Our hostess and mastermind, Carol of Just Let Me Quilt is generous in what we can post for this hop.  While highlighting holiday-themed projects you've already completed is allowed, I knew I wanted to use this hop as motivation to finish a UFO.  In 2017, I participated in the New Quilt Bloggers group. Twelve members from that group started a Christmas-themed QAL that year.  I completed that quilt, and I liked the Snowman block designed by Sherry Shish of Powered by Quilting so much that I planned a quilt of just snowmen.  I cut out pieces for 9 scrappy snowmen.  I pieced 5 of the blocks.  All this in 2017, and it has been in that state ever since.

Until now!  I think my original plan was to decorate each snowman in a fairly intricate fashion, but since that didn't happen in 2017, it certainly wasn't going to happen this year!  I'm not entirely sure what my original vision was, but I'm really pleased with my posse of snowmen.  

 

Sherry's pattern calls for embroidery of the faces but I used fabric markers instead.  I gave some snowmen a smile and some buttons.  I did hand stitching for the arms on a few and markers for a few others.  On those with busier backgrounds I skipped the arms.  I figure this variation gives a bit more visual interest.

 I quilted it with vertical wavy lines, hoping it would look like snow is falling.  I like the effect.

 

There are a lot of tiny pieces in this 12" block but it sews up so cute!  Sherry has the pattern for sale here if you are inclined to make your own snowman.  When the QAL happened in 2017, lots of people added some really creative accessories to their snowman, there's lots of room to play with this one.

Here in North Carolina we don't get a lot of snow but when we do, my son always wants to build a snowman.  We've made a couple really small ones, probably less than a foot high.  Like I said, we don't get a lot of snow!

As you can see, I went completely scrappy with this.  Some fabrics look a little Christmas-y but I wasn't trying to make a Christmas quilt.  Though I did pose for photos by our Christmas tree.

 

The Snowmen was on my list of eligible finishes for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.  I just need one more finish this month to earn mine!

Be sure to check out all the other bloggers featured today as part of the Virtual Cookie Exchange!

 December 4

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Fabrication

DesertSky Quilting

Seams To Be Sew

Happy Cottage Quilter

Pumpkin Patch Patterns & Quilting

The Darling Dogwood That's Me!

Kathleen McMusing

Scrapdash

Floral Strips UFO turned Butterfly Quilt

I recently found a UFO that was not in my count.  When I first started quilting, I was in a quilt shop in Kansas on a visit to my mom and found these three floral fabrics, all the same print but different colors.  I drew up a design on graph paper, cut some strips, and sewed up 2 strips sets.  And there it sat.  I used the fabric I had purchased as background years ago as backing, I moved the un-cut yardage into their designated color bins of my stash, and I thought I gave away the cut strips and strips sets.  Not so, apparently.

 

I'm trying to make some quick finishes for my guild's philanthropy project and I had previously sorted through my I Spy fabrics and pulled out lots of butterfly squares, planning to use them in a child's quilt.  Since the fabric strips from my long-forgotten UFO were floral, I figured I could combine them.  So the strips I had already cut to 3" but that were fraying due to that being probably 20 years ago got trimmed to 2 1/2" and I cut apart the strips sets to use those as well.  I used the blue and green strips to frame 20 of my butterfly I Spy squares, then alternated blue and green in the layout.

 

I had less of the purple but there was enough for binding.  It's quilted with a diagonal cross-hatch.  The back has some flannel remnants that I pieced together to make it big enough. 

 

I'm not sure of the exact date of this project but the fabric has 1998 on the salvage and I would have guessed I was still in college, so late 90s fits. Even though this was on my original list for my PhD (projects half done) with Quilting Gail, the fact that I believe I started this at least 20 years ago should qualify it, even though this is now a completely different project.  But different or not, it's done!

This is my 41st finish for the year, moving me close to my goal of finishing 52 projects in 2020.  This is also one of the three donation quilts needed toward my OMG with Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

Buffalo Explorer

I set my OMG or One Monthly Goal to turn a finished top into a finished quilt.  I did it!  And though I got the goal-setting post written in time, I forgot to link it up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts, but I'm still counting it as a win!

The dark blue animal fabric was donated to my local Project Linus chapter several years ago, when it still existed.  I always planned to make this Simple Layer Cake pattern that I've used a few times before, and had in fact cut all the animal fabric into 10" squares.  When I made the top, a neighbor who was also involved with Project Linus had just given me a huge bag of novelty fabric.  I went through it to find something that could go with the animals and found this fabulous gray explore/adventure fabric.  It has words like "Adventure" and "Explore" and "Roam Wild" spelled out using outdoorsy equipment like compasses and hiking boots.  

 
The solid in the sashing is Kona Roasted Pecan.  For the back, I used a cowboy boot print that I think was also donated to Project Linus.  (The other ladies often saved me the novelty prints.)

I tried a new quilting motif, inspired by the book Walk by Jacquie Gering.  First I quilted diagonal lines in one direction at a 3" interval.  Then, instead of a traditional cross-hatch, I did a curvy line that hit the straight line at the same interval.  While my curves are not yet uniform and there is a little more marking involved, I do like this as a variation and will use it again.

This was on my list for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.  I have another quilt with the same blue animal print that is ready to be layered and quilted, so there will be two similar quilts for that UFO.  Both will be donated to my guild's current charity project, quilts for kids ages 2-5 in my county who receive meals from Friendship Trays. 

mid-year PhD report

For the third year in a row, I'm following along with Gail of Quilting Gail for her PhD (Projects Half Done) challenge.  Since the year is now officially half over, I thought it a good time to look at my progress.



The main point of the program is to list your UFOs and commit to finishing 12 from the list in 2020.  I had 14 on my original list in January.  I found another one after making that list and now have 15 on the list.  Of those 15, I have completed 4.

Awesome Ocean

I modified my goal a little from Gail's original to make it work for me.  By my definition, a UFO has to be started in some way (cutting, and probably some piecing) to count as a UFO.  But I have a lot of projects that I have the fabric and a plan for, I just haven't actually started.  I'd like to get those done, too.  So my additional rule was I could count up to 1/3 (or no more than 4 finishes) that weren't actually started, but that I owned all the supplies and planned to make.  I've finished 2 that fit those criteria.

Scrap Everything

So that puts me at 6 finishes.  Not bad to be half done at he halfway point, though I'd like to finish more than 12.  I did highlight 3 projects I'd most like to get done and I'm happy to report that I've finished 2 of the 3, with significant progress made on the 3rd.

Project I most wanted to finish: Ultimate I Spy

The other piece of Gail's PhD program is to finish all the new projects you start.  I admit I've been more susceptible to new projects and QALs this year than recent years.  I think it's part "ooh, shiny!" part excitement at a new project, and part wanting to be a part of things right now more than usual.  But I've also finished all but two that I've started.  One of those will be done in a few days.  The other is my original Rainbow Scrap Challenge project for 2020 that I stopped after 3 months because I wasn't enjoying the blocks.  I'll either make something out of what I have or give away the blocks I made, so hopefully that won't count against me.

Here's my chart so you can see my original list and dates finished.

PhD 2020

I Spy leader/ender	1	2-9-2020
Western kids’ quilt	2	3-28-2020
Awesome Ocean	3	4-9-2020
I Spy for our bed	4	5-13-2020
Food themed picnic blanket	5
Smitten Kitten	6
Blue Forest Animals	7
Laura’s quilt	8
Bookshelf quilt	9
Magical Forest	10
Snowmen	11
Extra for Miren	12
Giraffe Pillow	13
Lion Pillow	14
Patriotic Stars (2nd)	15

Completed: Planned Projects with Fabric Already Owned

Scrap Your Plans	1	4-3-2020
Brown Bear, Brown Bear	2	6-6-2020

Here's hoping to a productive 2nd half of the year!