January Finish and February's UFO

I joined up with Judy at Patchwork Times to try to complete some UFO's this year.  The two I worked on in January were an Arkansas Crossroads quilt done in blues and a Christmas quilt done with various stars. The blue quilt top was purchased by my mom about 15 years ago, long before I started quilting.  It is a 36 patch of one inch squares, and each side has two half square triangles to make it a star.  The cream part of the quilt is also one inch squares.  My sister, Nancy,  picked it out from several tops mom had.  Nan got married in 2011, and at that time I paid to have it long arm quilted.  And it has sat ever since, waiting for me to bind it.  At some point, I trimmed off the excess backing and made binding strips, and then it sat again. This is the one I wanted to get done before her visit at the end of January.
The Christmas star quilt was a wedding gift for my nephew and wife,  started in 2008. I ended up buying them a gift.  I made two blocks of 6 different stars, using all sorts of fabric.  I believe all the stars came from Quilters Cache.  I started sashing these, and ran into some blocks that were wonky.  It looks like I even took part of it apart.  Since I made this, I used one of the fabrics in another project, and it bled.  So needed to  redo that block, fix any issues, sash, make a backing, layer, quilt and bind.  While digging out all my UFOs, I found that several of them stopped in their  forward progress because I ran into problems I didn't know how to fix, and I just stopped.  Now, these problems don't seem so insurmountable.

I'm happy to say that the binding was sewn on the Arkansas Crossroads quilt, hand stitched, label was added and my sister took it home with her yesterday.  A rather large empty spot is now available in my closet.  I am very happy that it's off my list and that there is a little more breathing room in my sewing room.

The second project didn't get completed, but I did make a small amount of forward progress.  I took apart the one block that had the bleeding fabric, cut replacement pieces and started sewing it back together again.  Realized I had cut the replacement parts the wrong size and it is still sitting on my machine.  I plan to continue to work on this, hopefully I can deliver it when I see my nephew in March.  I haven't taken a new picture, since not much has changed.

For February, Judy drew #9.  On my list, that is a Christmas hearts quilt.  I looked it up, I believe it is actually called Hidden Stars and Christmas Hearts, from a book by Nancy J. Martin. I think I got the book from the library.   It is the first quilt I pieced.  I started hand quilting it, and I would like to complete it by hand.  Last fall I got a Grace quilt frame at an estate sale for $2.  It was in pieces and no one knew what it was.  I found the manual online and when we put all the pieces together, it was all there!  I haven't used it yet.  I'm considering taking out the basting and small amount of quilting that I've done and trying out the frame.  One of the things making me hesitate is the memory of crawling around on my kitchen floor basting the quilt!  But it is much more likely to get completed if it is on this frame instead of the small hoop I started out with. I will also need to make leaders to attach it to the frame.

It's a small, square quilt.

Part of the quilting I'd need to remove.

 Finally a peek at a different project I have been working on the past few days.  I am cleaning out the dresser and closet in the guest room that I use for non quilting crafts.  I have discovered things that disappeared long ago, and also things I don't remember ever seeing before!  Here is my dining room table with the contents of two dresser drawers.  This clean up and out will make it a lot easier to find what I need.

Thanks again, Judy, for motivating me to get some UFO's done in 2017.