Michelle's PhD Challenge Projects

After reading about Myra's 2011 PhD Challenge over at Quilting in My Pyjamas I decided I'd jump on the Projects Half Done bandwagon. You see, Projects Half Done could be my middle name. I've got one flimsy that is probably getting upwards of fifteen years old. I'm a much better starter than a finisher. And in the past, I've been a much better piecer than quilter. I'm trying to remedy the latter by learning how to FMQ. That said, I'm only committing two projects to Myra's PhD Challenge, as life has a habit of getting in the way of my quilting goals. Plus, I reserve the right to start a new project and live with the guilt of that fifteen year old flimsy.

PhD #1: The Scrappy Star. This project is at least ten years old. It's now gone through two major moves. In my defense, this quilt is hand-pieced and the blocks and the inner checked border will be hand-quilted. In the interest of having this one finally done, I'm going against my obsessive-compulsive nature and will FMQ the last two borders. At this point, I have 1 1/2 blocks and part of the checked border left to hand-quilt. All of the two outer borders still need to be quilted.

PhD #2 is sampler from a block swap. The swap was called "You Pick" and was hosted by a gal I became acquainted with on RCTQ (rec.crafts.textiles.quilting), a quilting newsgroup. Each participant chose a focus fabric and sent a 12" square of it to the other participants to make a block. My focus fabric was a pansy fabric. I received some gorgeous blocks back.



I have begun free motion quilting the sandwich, and have five of the sixteen blocks done. I'm doing the sashing as I go.

As you can see since these projects are really more than "half done", I should easily be able to finish them by June. Now, I only hope that it's true!