Before I started my blog, I joined the finish-a-long party but haven’t been back since. Life happens. Because I need all the motivation and encouragement I can muster, I am linking once again. It’s an International affair hosted by a group of bloggers from around the world. You will find the link at the bottom of this post. Look out party goers, Tu-Na’s back! 

Tu-Na’s January, February, and March Finish-A-Long projects

1. The Elephant Quilt. I posted about this quilt here in Tu-Na Quilts: Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Closet. This is my January goal for OMG.
   

   This one needs to be done soon. That baby is growing up and now has celebrated her first birthday making this quilt a very important one to finish. It’s a good thing that it’s a larger one that will fit a toddler bed but is still small enough for her to snuggle under.

2. The I Wish You A Merry Quilt-A-Long Quilt. While this one should be a finished flimsy by January 15th to be eligible for a wonderful grand prize, I’m not sure it will make it. But it would be nice to have it done by the end of March. You can read more about it here and find the patterns which are free through January 15th. It’s a fun one to sew and kept me in stitches while I was waiting for and then recovering from eye surgeries last year.
   

   It needs some sashing and a border. I’ve tossed around a lot of ideas and have drawn up a fun twisted ribbon sashing. Can I get it done in a week? Not likely. Can I get it done by March?Hopefully.

3. The Poodle Quilt. My Bee Inspired bee mates made all but two of these. It sure would be nice to have this one done by the end of March or before. This quilt is destined for my Arizona, Paris-themed, guest room and we’re getting guests this winter. I wrote about this poodle project here on Tu-Na Quilts: Now, We Have an Elephant Parade, here on Tu-Na Quilts: A Poodles Came to Play and here on Tu-Na Quilts: More Poodles Came to Play. 
   

   I thought these were all the poodles until I was home in North Dakota for the holidays. I found a poodle peeking out from under a pile of fabric on my ironing board. That naughty little rascal thought he could hide. But I tucked that one into my carry on bag and can happily report he’s joined the others who are excitedly awaiting the arrival of 4 more (all left facing). They are in the incubation phase; the fabric is gathered.

4. The Cheerio or Lifesaver Quilt. Good grief, I can’t even decide what to call this one. This was my Stash Bee block request for 2017. I’ve only received blocks from 6 hive mates (I made two-the top middle and top right one pictured below and one person sent two) so I’ve got several more yellow and orange ones to make but these are large and easy to sew. I should get that done by the end of March or earlier so it can be entered into my AZ quilting group’s quilt show.
   

   Indecision might stall this one. These are some gorgeous blocks. I need to make either three more for the bottom and add sashing and borders for a nice lap size. Or make it 4 blocks wide by 5 blocks long and skip the sashing and borders. Or offset them with sashing and make some partial blocks for the sides. Yes, I notice that one block has peach tones. I might make a few more blocks with those tones to help it blend or decide to do something else. Sometimes, it would be nice if someone would tell me what to do.

5. Twelve Strawberry Pincushions. I’m needing some more little gifts for Valentine’s Day and have these started. I’ll be using my handy dandy Crushed Walnut Dispensing Bottle that I first blogged about here on Tu-Na Quilts: The First Reveal—What’s Inside the Stocking? and using the technique described in my post on the Strawberry Pincushion here on Tu-Na Quilts: Tu-Na Quilts: The Second Stocking Stuffer Reveal—You Mean There’s More? These teepees need to be gathered, filled, and topped with green leaves and a white curtain ring which I need to purchase yet.
   

   I’ve got 12 of the half circles sewn into teepee shapes. Yes, we’ve joked about them already at my Wednesday evening quilting group.

6. Two Container Pincushions. I bought these cute little cups at Goodwill before Christmas. They would make great gifts although, I might keep one for myself. I will use the same technique as the pail pincushion described here on Tu-Na Quilts: The First Reveal—What’s Inside the Stocking?
7. A Pillow for My Living Room. Several years ago I fell madly in crafty love with this free pillow pattern from Cluck, Cluck Sew that I first saw here. I’ve been looking for the right fabric for the petals ever since and finally found it at Goodwill last month. I’ll use the gray for the pillow and back. 
8. The Mystery Quilt. My AZ quilting group is offering a mystery quilt class and I decided to accept the challenge. This is the first time I’ve done a mystery quilt and I’m a bit worried about my color choices. The requirements said we only needed three high contrasting fabrics: light, medium, and dark (fabric for borders are optional and I chose the navy (pictured below) since I didn’t have enough of any of the others from my ND stash. The print fabric is a Timeless Treasure 8 yard piece that I found at Goodwill for $2.50.). I am a half yard short of the white for the background and am thinking about using the print as the background instead. It might give the quilt a totally different look. Maybe I’ll ask the teacher if that would be ok or if I should find a similar white on white half yard piece for the background. This class should be fun. We start on Wednesday. I can almost hear Tu-Na Helper groaning about my starting yet another project. (Tu-Na Helper, if you are reading, just skip over the next two items.)
9. A New Table Topper. I wasn’t able to attend the class for it at my AZ quilting group last month but I heard that it’s being offered again. I brought fabric back from my ND stash when I was there for Christmas.
   

   I saw another quilter use this chili pepper fabric for this project and I knew I had some at my ND house that needed to be used. Her topper turned out beautifully. I hope she doesn’t mind using her idea. After all, copying is the highest form of flattery, at least that’s what I’ve heard.

10. Put a Little Love in Your Quilt. I’m participating in that blog hop hosted by Just Let Me Quilt and am scheduled to post on Feb. 6th. This will be a small wall hanging for the outside of my front door. It’s time I put something out there since we took down the metal artwork three years ago; something that says a quilter lives here. I’m using the pattern for the block found here and of course making some changes to it. But I don’t want to give all my surprises away, so you’ll just have to stop on back in February to see it.

I raided my scrap bag for some pinks, reds, and whites.

What I Learned Today:

1. I’m exhausted just reading through the list above.
2. I’ll have a very busy three months.
3. I have to make time for savoring the sun. It was 76°F and sunny yesterday. We’re back in Arizona.
4. I have lofty goals and good intentions. All of these projects may not get done by the end of March but I’ll do my best and move them along towards that goal. I have other blog hop projects with March and April deadlines that I have NO IDEA what I’m doing yet.
5. Modern technology is great until I run into a problem which I don’t know how to solve or maybe it’s just that it’s the “new and improved” version which is giving me problems. I still can’t figure out why programs are changed; it was working perfectly before. 

Question: What stalls your projects? For me, indecision is the biggest hurdle. There are so many possibilities and I want to make sure I use the very best one. In the process, projects get set aside and sometimes forgotten while I decide. 

Thanks for stopping by and do come again.

Karen, Tu-Na Quilts

Linking to:

2018 Finish-A-Long at She Can Quilt (There’s a long list of other hosts on that post with an interconnected linky-meaning I post on one and it shows up on all)

Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

Moving It Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag

Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River