The 2011 Ph.D Quilt Challenge

A goal is a dream with a deadline. –Napoleon Hill

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 {Project Half-Done} Quilt challenge, I decided that a little accountability would be a good thing to help me get these quilts finished. I'm committing to finish three Ph.D's during that time, although I plan on working on other Ph.D's and am also hoping to start and finish a couple of other quilts during that time.

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 this is the third of my three committed-to-finish Ph.D quilts for Myra's challenge.

Now, if I can just get the Christmas projects finished . . .