Revisiting UFOs

I was attempting to reorganize a couple of drawers in my sewing room without completely reorganizing my sewing room a month or so ago. It didn't really work that well, so I don't really recommend that approach. However, it did unearth a couple of UFOs that I've avoided for a few years. It didn't really unearth them; I've always been able to see them and have just ignored them. But this time, I wanted to reclaim the drawer space so I gave them a second look. 

One was the 6" sampler that I've hinted at recently. I had a sampler all sashed and ready to quilt complete with a backing (but not basted). I was going to attempt to machine quilt it on my domestic and felt like it was a size I could achieve. But...well, I wasn't all that interested in doing it. I have too many other things I'd rather do. So, when I cleaned out that drawer, I took a hard look at it and decided I needed to either finish it, or get rid of it. I decided to finish it, in a different way than I had planned. I decided to take it apart and set the blocks between hourglass blocks so it would be larger and have the appearance of stars. But, I didn't have quite enough blocks, so I have been adding to them over the past few weeks. I think this will be a lot better for me and the way I use quilts. This picture doesn't have all the blocks I have finished in it, I'm up to 56. I'm shooting for 60 so I can make a 60x72 quilt.

The second was an English Paper Piecing project I started when I was pregnant with the twins. I wanted to make sure they both had baby quilts and figured I'd have zero time to finish them after they were born, so I really wanted to finish beforehand. But...I got nauseous in my sewing room. It was the most tragic thing! Still, I wasn't about to be deterred, AND I was bored just sitting on the couch all day. So I decided to try English Paper Piecing the top. I saw an amazing design on Instagram and it had the piece sizes, so I just kinda went for it...but I ran out of steam. And felt a lot better, so I opted to make the baby quilts on the machine instead.

The problem was that when I got to a certain size, it because really hard to continue to add to it. I was adding from the center out, and figured I'd get around to rounding it out into a square eventually...but I couldn't figure out how to do it. So, I left the center and the completed blocks to add in the corner and forgot about it. 

But, I'd really like to finish it up somehow. I do like what I have, but adding to it seems daunting and it's way too little and not square. So, my current plan is to buy some yardage to appliqué it on to, and then add to it in a medallion style to make it larger. I'm going to start with a border of churn dashes and then I might do a zigzag or a diamond type border around that. 

As for the squares I had made (hexagons, I guess, more precisely), I decided to make more in different colors and make it a block based quilt rather than medallion, so I've started basting more diamonds. And I think I'll go with the color scheme I posted for my Fabric Friday on March 10. I'm out of practice, I haven't English paper pieced in years, so the basting is going slowly, but I'm looking forward to having some handwork to work on during movie nights and things. And I think it will be much easier to finish, since it'll be more in rows than this one and won't require so much thought to square it up. 

And, if I'm not mistaken, those are my only UFOs. I have a bunch of orphan blocks and leftover HSTs that I would have made as I cut them off of other projects, but I don't consider those UFOs. I'm pretty proud of myself that I don't have more! I did do some UFO clearing out during the pandemic and I'm sure that helped a lot.