Elizabeth's Ph.D's

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
–Les Brown

Hi everyone. Elizabeth here, from Such a Sew and Sew. And boy is this Ph.D challenge a good one for me. Somewhere, I have a list of all the quilts I've started that need to be finished. It's a pretty long list. Some of them were interrupted with more pressing things that had to be done right away. One or two of them I'm just procrastinating because I'm scared of quilting them because it means trying something new. A few are in progress because the tedious paper pieced blocks take squillions {that's an Aussie word that means really a lot} of hours each and I get bored and want to do something that shows more progress. And I have one that is on the back burner as I passively work on it as leaders and enders. They are all still projects that I love and want to finish, so when I heard that Myra was hosting a Ph.D Quilt challenge, I decided that a little accountability would be a good thing to help me get these quilts finished. Originally, I committed to finish three Ph.D's during that time, but I'm adding one more quilt to my goal, because I just had to.

At the head of my list of quilts to finish is the t-shirt quilt I decided to make on December 16^th in time for my husband's birthday on December 23^rd. It was madness to try to fit it in there, but I wanted to do something really special for him this year. Unfortunately, it wasn't in the cards. I ordered fabric for my sashing and back on-line, only I mistakenly ordered the wrong print. An exchange is in the works and I should have the right fabric in my possession early next week. The t-shirts have all been made into blocks and once the rest of the fabric arrives, I hope it will be smooth sailing and a quick finish.

High on my list of priorities is my snowball quilt. I started two snowball quilts when Karen announced her Snowball Night Quilt-along at the end of May. I finished one for my sister and gave it to her as a wedding gift, but due to quiltus interruptus {thanks, P. for the awesome term}, I still need to finish mine. I have it all stacked and ready to sew into rows. Then it needs its stacked coins/piano keys border, and I need to put the baby snowballs together and get them into the back. Then it is ready to be quilted, bound and washed to wrinkly, bumpy, quilty goodness.

Another quilt high on the list is my pinwheel sampler. This was Rachel's quilt-along over at p.s. i quilt. I've got it sewn together into eight sections — only seven seams to go and the top is finished. I'm procrastinating though, because the quilting is going to be tedious and a little bit scary, with lots of starts and stops and tying off. I want to do straight-line echo quilting inside all of the triangles, and I want to do it free-motion, so I don't have to turn the whole quilt to go around corners with the walking foot. I'm also debating whether or not I want to piece teeny tiny windmills to go on the back.

Another quilt-in-progress I would love to finish is my Woman's Work quilt. I started working on this quilt in mid-September, and hoped to be able to finish it in six months' time. I'm at the half-way point and feel like this is a reasonable goal, even throwing in about a hundred other things and so I'd still like to finish this Ph.D during Myra's challenge. [Sidebar: I'll be sending this one out for professional machine quilting.]

In addition to the four Ph.D's above, I would like to also make a stacked coin quilt, a drunkard's path quilt and a pinwheel quilt for three very special family members. And there are a few other Ph.D quilts that are close to done and I would like to finish them sooner rather than later:
Halloween Sampler
Frolic Jelly Roll Magic Quilt {scroll down to see it}
Starry Night Quilt

I know that finishing my whole list is a long shot, but I'm really hoping to get a lot done.