August To-Do

Here's how my design wall looks on the first of the new month. It's just busy as per usual. I have the newly ironed Bohemian Wife quilt and back hanging up so that I can get it layered, basted and quilted for the BAMQ UFO Challenge. That's pinned on top of the languishing Patchwork Palooza quilt. Maybe once I get the Bohemian Wife quilt done, I'll be in the finishing mode? There's also the HRT's' for the Lupine Mystery quilt. Up on the upper right is the Bending the Calendar quilt,  pinned up so I can think about how to finish it (one of the UFO's for this year). Underneath that are two finished projects, the QCR Mini Pumpkins and the award-winning (hah1)Ocean Effect quilt. In the front is the finished quilts that need to be put in storage or hung up on the walls of my house on top of some Project Bags. It's a lot on that wall.

Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2026 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year (more on that list later). Note, this is not the same list as the UFO Challenge for BAMQ, that UFO will have this next to it on the list:🌀🌐  

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Pantone Project - work on an overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making units following the clue instructions

BAMQ BOM - make monthly blocks of varying sizes through the year.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - Decide on borders, make backing & binding

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding, decide on whether to have it quilted

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023  Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

🌀🌐 David Owen Hastings class piece, make more blocks, assemble into quilt top, quilt, finish🥏👽 

                                      

Quilting

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife -  Sandwich this and start quilting it🌀🌐 

Mosaic Table Runner - Sandwich this and start quilting it

Final Steps 

🥏👽 Bending the Calendar - Cut up? Re-arrange? Embellish?🌀🌐 

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching -  🌀🌐

Body Pillow-knit cotton pillowcase - 🌀🌐 

Quilted Dog Jacket for Meg - 🌀🌐  

Hey! This Is All Finished!

🌀🌐  Mini QCR Pumpkins 🌀🌐  

I made and attached binding and a label to a Community giving quilt.

I caught up and finished my ICAD work.

Well...how about that? That's four months in a row with some actual finishing happened. Here's hoping that I can continue with the finishing energy into August.

Mini Pumpkins Done

 

The Mini Pumpkins quilt was put together and all ready and layered for quilting.

And so I quilted it, nothing too fancy, but done.

I decided to use on of the background fabrics for the binding.

I got it sewn on quickly.

And that's all done now.

Okay, done, just in time to show it at Sew Day for the #5 UFO Challenge. Now on to doing #3, which is my Bohemian Wife quilt...a real challenge.

Almost Mini Pumpkins Top

 

I buckled down and got all of the mini pumpkin blocks stitched together.

It took a while but they turned out well, except for one trimming mistake that I made.

All the blocks completed and up on the design wall together. Yes, it's going to end up being a rather large table runner. It may instead end up being a sort of banner/wall quilt. Depends on how I feel in the fall I suppose.

I've gotten the blocks sewn into rows and now just need to sew them together.

One New Mini Pumpkin

 

I had enough time today to sew together exactly one mini pumpkin block. 

The block went together very easily.

Sewing slowly its the main thing.

That and remembering how to use the Quick Curve Mini Ruler to trim the block down.

And the power went back on just in time to be able to give this a quick ironing

Ghost & Regular Mini Pumpkins

 

I had to switch over to cutting out the background pieces for the new mini pumpkin blocks from a new fabric as I ran out of the topo map one (there in the upper right hand corner. I think they'll work well together in the whole quilt and not be too jarring next to each other.

Lots of slicing.

There's how the orange pumpkins look with the backgrounds included. Amazing how big they are before all the seams get sewn.

And then I cut out the pieces that are required for more ghost pumpkins, which is closer to the look of the original pattern. Ooh no, that dark grey I used is not going to work. I'll dive into my BAM BOM bag to find a good medium grey to substitute instead.

Now to make these into pumpkin blocks instead of pumpkin pieces.

Mini Pumpkins

 Oh yes, that's right, I'm supposed to be working on finishing up my #5 on my BAMQ UFO list. It's the Quick Curve Ruler Mini Pumpkins project that I started back in 2019. These four blocks were the only parts that I had finished.

I also had put aside the right size squares of orange fabrics that I was meaning to use. So I dug out my Quick Curve Mini Ruler and tried out my smaller rotary cutter. Unfortunately the blade isn't quite wide enough to reach the cutting mat through the ruler thickness and fabric. So I just used my regular rotary cutter.

The cutting of all the curved orange pumpkin sections went pretty quickly. I found that I had four top "stem" units made. Now I need to cut the block backgrounds and make two more top of the block "stem" pieces. I will either make another grey pumpkin block or cut new outer edge pumpkin pieces for that bottom one. It just looks too strange of a shape because the outer curve is too match-y with the background fabric.

6x6 Finished

 

Well, 6x6 is now officially finished and even more importantly: LeeLoo-Approved™.

I used self-threading needles to bury my thread ends. There weren't a lot of them as I went from edge to edge with the quilting lines.

There it is, all finished, but not yet washed. Consider this the before picture.

Here it is post-washing. So much more texture, but not too much due to pre-washing the fabrics used. 

There's a side-view of the quilt surface.

And that's my #6 done for the CQFA UFO Challenge, hooray!