One Monthly Goal = A Finished (Ancient) UFO

At the beginning of September, it dawned on me that I was just 7 weeks from the end of my 40 year quilting making teaching career.  That meant I could clear out teaching packets and disperse leftovers and make a bit more space in my studio!

This stack of partially pieced bowtie blocks was at the bottom of a drawer and as you might be able to tell from the fabrics, goes back into the late 1980's.  Not sure why I haven't come across them before this as most of the demo samples from that era have long since been finished or repurposed.

So this was my "one monthly goal" for September as part of the Elm Street Quilts monthly challenge.

I quickly determined it would be a perfect boy's quilt for my charity stitching group's annual Christmas gifting project -- we never have enough boy quilts!  Once I had finished piecing the remaining blocks (they were my leaders and enders for a week of working on other - more interesting - projects), I organized a layout sketch.  Some stash diving produced this great print for alternate blocks.  There wasn't quite enough for my plan, but that just made the quilt better -- check out the plain squares of green and rust that filled out the plan.

Since the design wall was covered in other projects, I worked directly from the sketch to join pairs together -- what do you think of those impromptu guides (aka, scraps) to keep me on target?

As I stitched block pairs together, I spread them out on the floor adjacent to my machine.  A couple afternoons of stitching had the top all together and ready to layer and quilt.

I kept the quilting simple -- partly so I'd get finished and partly because it's a simple quilt.  There is a grid that follows all the horizontal and vertical seams and cuts the plain squares into fourths.  Once that was finished, I decided to add a diagonal grid through all the plain squares, too.

By this past weekend, I was ready to trim it up and today, I bound it during our bi-monthly charity sewing afternoon.

One of the other gals held it up for me and I'm pleased with it on several levels.

First, it is no longer an "ancient UFO" and second, it's going to be perfect for a little boy!

Keeping it simple and moving through it quickly was a good strategy instead of adding it to the UFO stack to be revisited who knows how many times before I actually used the blocks (or threw them away).

I've been outside a lot the past couple weeks with the change of seasons -- I'm always afraid I'll miss something!!  Like these mushrooms!  

There was a huge patch of these in the woods I frequent a couple years ago and ever since I've been hoping to see a repeat performance -- finally, I spotted the beginning bulb of one along the trail a couple days ago!

And when I glanced across the floor of the woods, there were several dozen more!

That large one in the center is huge -- 7" across and 8" tall.

Amazing!

And while I would not advise eating it, judging from that missing lump along the right edge, someone thinks it's tasty!

I also found this fella in my garden a week ago -- a black swallowtail caterpillar!

I never saw that butterfly in my yard (I would have been excited about that) but here is a caterpillar -- on the fennel.  He's now happily ensconced in a bouquet of fennel and carrot greens fattening up for a winter in a chrysalis that I'll keep outside in a safe spot for it to emerge in the spring.

Totally exciting!!

 I hope your first weekend of autumn or spring is a pleasant one -- I'm heading off for a few days of grand kid bonding!!

Mary

Linking up this week with Let's Be Social and One Monthly Goal -- click on the badges up there along the right side of the blog to see more fun stuff!!