My own Longarm Quilting Challenge!

Ok.  Take a deep breath!

I've been inspired by Jenny, another longarm quilter who had a backlog of customer quilts.  She gave herself a 31 day challenge to finish the 30 quilts she had on backlog.  She didn't make the goal, but she DID make significant progress, I think the total was 19 or 20 -- WOO HOO.  Granted, all but 3 or 4 were simple all overs, or all overs combined with a couple of borders.  But the point is - it got her committed to getting it done.  And even she said that it kept her focused on going back and quilting after getting interrupted/distracted.  She knew she had a goal to meet and so she knew she had to go back into her quilting room and get started again no matter how many times she got interrupted.  And she has kiddos younger than I so this gives me encouragement!!

I've already discovered books on CD's and that has gone a long, long way in keeping me from getting distracted and off the task of quilting.  Plus, I don't like stopping in the middle of a CD, so I'm likely to "keep going to the end of this CD."  Which gets a little more and a little more done.  Baby Steps you know!  So with a challenge commitment, I think I could make some amazing progress too!

Right now I have:
3 calls to make for setting intake appointments.

2 Queen/King & 3 Full size quilts on hand (one is for heirloom/custom, the other four are med. quilting)
2 Quilts of Valor - one done, one to go
2 twin size - one will be EZ boards, one light custom
1 Full/Queen - med. custom (to match one done before)
1 Wall hanging - round robin from guild yrs ago, custom/heirloom (will likely be mine to keep once done)

My Queen round robin from the MOL group - heirloom/custom, would like to finish for guild show
Plus one Queen size for mom.  She could be swayed into hand quilting it I bet, but parts of it looked like fun for me to quilt - maybe I quilt some and baste other parts for her to hand quilt??

Piecing (and then quilting):
1 T-shirt quilt (need to try one so I can do an up coming one for customer)
1 Twin (Marci's pink, black, lime quilt - I want to include this because it needs to get done!)

By FAR the most intimidating is the one for Martha.  She's a friend of my mom's (pressure to do well) and the last 2 quilt I did for her won ribbons at our last guild show (more pressure) AND I've had the top for just over a year (more more more pressure!)  I really feel like if I can get it moved out, I'll feel a great relief and the others will flow more easily.  But it's a big one, with, I kid you not -- 24" borders on the outside!  Yep, it's an embroidered table cloth and she bought yardage, cut it in half down the fold, then cut it to length and slapped it on the 4 sides of the table cloth!  That has had me stumped and intimidated for most of the year, LOL.  I do have a plan to do large swags and try to break up the area into more manageable strips, but still, 24" is a lot of length, and a lot of area to fill up, LOL.

So here's my challenge - a Labor Day Challenge - if I start counting Saturday, July 21 - that gives me 45 days till Labor Day.  My challenge is to complete all of these quilts and get them returned to their owners by Labor Day.

Now, mind you, I'm doing these numbers from work.  I've not included today or tomorrow in my 45 days so I can go home, sort and tidy my quilt studio and get ready for the attack.  That means that when I go through my stack, the numbers might change if I've forgotten about one here or there (always a possibility with my middle aged brain, LOL)  edited to add: yep, just remembered one I'd forgotten.  Updated the totals above, not suprised ;0)

Jenny was great about posting almost everyday, but I'll likely only update Wed. through Fri. when I have WiFi at work, with Dial-up at home, posting and pictures would be a drag.  Although, if I can figure out how to do it easily with my phone, I'll be accountable every day of the 45 days.

So there you go.  I'm committed, it's out there.  Abolish my backlog of customer & charity quilts and complete a few of my own that are most important.  No taking it back now ;0)