More UFOs

My snowflake block is done and after a hot cycle in the washer and drier, it has an amazing texture that only happens with hand quilting.  It was sized to fit over my living room throw pillows, and will become a pillow...someday before the snow falls. 

The facets on the snowflake are quilted 1/8 apart with green thread.  The echo lines around the flake are also in green thread.  But it matched so closely that I had to quilt it from the back as I couldn't see the previous stitches.  I varied the width of the echo lines b/w 1/4" and 1/2" and took slightly longer stitches (12/inch) than those in the flake (14-16/inch).  My theory was that the stitch length would alter the amount of wrinkling, but the width between the stitching is what really made the difference.  

What I spent most of Saturday working on was this UFO.  (Sorry about the blurry photo).  It's a center panel and 4 outside panels that are based on Ojibwe bead work.  This is the point I was at when it got stuffed into the UFO basket.

While on a trip to E. Canada and New England with the family in 2005, I purchased Ojibwa Crafts by Carrie A. Lyford .  Skater Girl and I went back to DC that fall for a surprise birthday trip and I took millions of pictures of beadwork at the National Museum of the American Indian.

My niece Ashley was engaged at the time and I started this as her wedding quilt.  Part way through, I really started disliking the quilt.  At the time I thought it was the repeated design, which was annoying to me.  In retrospect, I think it was that I realized that the design was a better fit for me than for them.  That wedding was cancelled and the project set aside.  She did, however, get a hand appliqued, hand quilted beauty this summer before she married Jay.