Elizabeth's Ph.D's: Finish № Four (Finally!)

It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is best from the top. –Arnold Bennett

I'm only 14 months late, but my fourth and final quilt from the challenge is finished, bound, washed, blocked and folded neatly waiting for the right occasion to be used.

The quilt is called In the Pink: A Study in Pinwheels. I finished the quilting last Tuesday. I washed and blocked it on Wednesday. It wasn't dry until Friday. And there was finally good light to photograph it today.

I'm sort of at a loss for words. The only ones that come to mind are . . . terminus . . . finished . . . completed . . . finito . . . done. Those are happy words.

There's really not much more to say anyway. I've pretty much said it all in the 2¾ years it has taken me to make this quilt. Here are links to all the posts about this quilt. Yeah. It's been one epic quilt in the making.
Inspired
Block One
Block Two
Block Two, Take Two and Take Three
Block Three
Block Four
Block Four, Redux
Block Five
Block Six
Block Seven
Block Eight
Goal to Finish - 2011 Ph.D Challenge
Name, Label and Quilting Sketches
Getting Started with the Quilting
Quilting Update: still working on Stitching in the Ditch
Working on the Free-Motion Sections
Free-Motion Update
More quilting {and unpicking} a year later, with updated quilt label
Finished Quilting in Each of the Blocks
Quilting in the Sashings
Finished and Ready to be Blocked
Blocked but Not Dry

Elizabeth's Ph.D's: Finish № Three

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. –Henry van Dyke

93 Snowball blocks
{45 baby, 48 regular}

903 Seams

723 Sashing Swirls

192 Corner Curlicues

1700 yards of quilting thread

7 yards of double-fold bias binding

Making a quilt start to finish: Priceless

Posts about the creation of this quilt:
A Quilt-Along
How One Quilt Became Two
The First Snowball Quilt Finished
Work Begins on the Second Quilt
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3
Back at it After A Long Break
Construction Nearly Completed
Preparing For Machine Quilting
Machine Quilting in Progress
Machine Quilting Almost Finished

Elizabeth's Ph.D's: Finish № Two

Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen,
Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men.
–Richard Watson Gilder

One week before his birthday {which is two days before Christmas} I had the brilliant insane idea to make a quilt for my husband, Mr. Bug, using old t-shirts from when he was in the Navy. Five months and one week {not to mention a fair amount of unpicking} later and it is finally finished!

There are six t-shirts, four sweatshirts, a turtleneck and the leg of a pair of sweatpants in the blocks. The sashing is made from the work shirts he wore on board the ship. I also used a bit of one of the shirts in the center of the quilt and also for the label on the back of the quilt. The label has his dates of service and his rank. I also put the emblem for a QuarterMaster on the label; in the Navy the QuarterMaster navigates the ship.

Below is the front of my favorite t-shirt {it sits in the bottom left corner; the back is in the bottom right corner}. The scroll reads We men of the USS Clark crossed the Royal Relm {someone forgot to spell-check} of the Honorable King Neptune, known to all land lovers as the Equator. When a ship crosses the equator, there is a big to-do aboard {read hazing} for all the sailors who haven't crossed before. Those who have set up an obstacle course and if you have to go through the course, you're guaranteed to be wet and miserable. Not only did they cross the equator, but they also went through the Panama Canal {denoted on the back of the shirt}. Mr. Bug was the navigator on duty when they went through. He says it is a bunch of hurry-up-and-wait, because you have to go through a series of locks and each one has to fill when you enter it, but I think it sounds really neat.

Mr. Bug wanted to include his insignia and some of the patches he collected over his years in the Navy. I used the front of one of his work shirts because the little emblem above the pocket was a pretty big deal to earn. I kept the pocket on just for fun. Below that I used part of a sleeve that has his insignia printed right on it. I pulled the navy blue insignia just below it off of a jacket; it would also be used on a dress blue uniform. The white insignia {which includes the QuarterMaster emblem} would be used on a dress white uniform. There are patches from the two ships he served on and the others are some he traded with servicemen from other countries.

I started this quilt with the intention of finishing it in the week before Christmas as a birthday surprise. It would have been a very different quilt had it happened that way. Because I ordered the wrong fabric for the sashing and back and had no hope of getting an exchange and finishing the quilt in time, I showed Mr. Bug what I was up to. As I worked on it, he gave input and pulled out the work shirts and a couple of other t-shirts that we put in the quilt. He also helped me with the placement of the blocks in the quilt. And I think it really turned out great! I'm so glad to have it finished and am excited for Mr. Bug to be able to have a tangible object to associate with those memories.

Here are links to each of the posts about the creation of this quilt.
Last-Minute Gift
Fabric S.N.A.F.U.
About the Blocks
Half-done is Well Begun
Quilt Top
Quilt Label in Progress
Ready for Quilting
Teaser

Elizabeth's Ph.D's: A Finish & An Update

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. –Josh Billings

It's April 11^th and I'm just barely reporting a finish. So what have I been doing? I'm kind of all over the map. I've made three quilts start to finish {Grandpa's Candy Dish, Gracie's Pinwheels and Cozy Posies}, which were on my master list of things to do between January 1 and June 30, but not on my Ph.D list because they weren't started yet.

And I've done a bit of rearranging to my Ph.D list. I planned to count the finish of my Woman's Work appliqué quilt top, but quilt tops don't count as a finish, which I didn't realize when I put this quilt down as one of my Ph.D's. I'm going to have this quilt professionally quilted and even if I were to finish it tomorrow {which is entirely impossible since I'm only half-way finished}, I'm positive I wouldn't have it back from the quilter in time to bind and label before the end of June. So, while I still plan to have the top finished and get it to the quilter by June 30^th, I'm going to take it off my Ph.D list and substitute another quilt in it's place. I think that is fair. I rearranged my list {and e-mailed Myra about it} before I finished the substitute quilt, so I think it should be OK to count for the challenge.

My substitute quilt is called Magic. You can see more photos, details and a link to the tutorial I used for this quilt at my blog.

I'm only listed for three Ph.D's in the sidebar, but in my first post here, I changed my number to four. I've got one finished now {hooray!} and I've got the top finished on my husband's t-shirt quilt. I hope to get the quilting done on that in the next couple of weeks. I still plan on getting the Pinwheel Sampler and the Snowball Quilt finished, as well as a couple of other quilts that aren't started yet. It is going to be a busy few months, but in the words of that Little Red Engine, I think I can, I think I can!

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.