c'mom, janstar. we all know the tough ones are the best ones. who else among us (well, we know a few!) has that kind of patience and perseverance? did you win any ribbons? you sure should have!

Every one of your quilts are beautiful, all of you. Shelly, I love the colors!!! Janstar and Pat.... WOW. I have not tried anything really hard yet. I have avoided much paperpiecing, any templates and don't really do applique either. I guess I am a wimp. I have some challenging looking patterns that I hope to someday try. All of you are an inspiration!!!!

My avatar is all paper pieced! IT took a long time, and was really hard when I began, but pretty easy by the time I finished the last block! :lol: There were 110 of them, and I had made a sample with 9 blocks to see if I really could and if I wanted to make a big quilt.
Yesterday, I paper pieced a panda, and it was HARD! I don't know when I have had to rip so much. The pieces aren't regular shaped, and I kept placing them backwards! But by the time I make several more (with the pattern enlarged) I will find something else to challenge myself with! And that is what it is all about! :lol: Learning how to do something new and taking the next step! :lol:
But applique :( :? Now there is a challenge that I keep postponing! :?
Someday :?

good for you!

every time you learn something new, you grow! :thumbup:

Wow ladies all your quilts are outstanding.....You rose to the challenge and succeeded...hats off to all of you I am very impressed :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

WOW!!! Beautiful quilts.

I would have to say the one in my avatar was my most challenging but the one I am working on at any given time is usually challenging. I just like to push the envelope to more and more complicated.

Amen to that, Mary! Push that envelope! :lol:

To be honest, just about every bed-sized (not baby) quilt that I machine quilt is scary and hard for me. I HATE machine quilting, but knowing my attention span and dislike of hand-quilting, bite the bullet and fuss with rolling, maneuvering, etc to get it done. So I stick with stitch in the ditch for the most part.

This is why I am so serious about getting a longarm--I really want to go into business for myself, but I also want a longarm for selfish reasons. I love to piece, and have a number of tops that are not quilts because I so hate to mess with machine quilting on my DSM.

For a long time my mom would handquilt for me. That ended when I got to be about 40 when she informed me I was getting to be a big girl and that she wasn't going to bail me out on any UFOs any longer. She rarely quilts nowadays and at 81 is a crocheting fool. LOL

My challenging project (turning into a UFO) I call the QFH...Quilt From Hades.

It was my first foray last year into Mystery Quilts. I still like the theory behind the mystery. You don't know what beautiful creation you are going to make until the last clue. I'm a fan of Mystery Novels and Agatha Christie or Arthur Doyle computer games and such. In fact, even though I hate this quilt with every fiber of my being, I would still consider doing another mystery.

This particular one has 4 different units making up the quilt top. One of the units has 4 times the number of all the other ones. They are flying geese units made THE HARD WAY. One clue had us cut 160 triangles. 80 were HST and the other 80 were QST. Then the next one had us sewing them together. Then the one after that had us cut another 80 HST. And then the assemble was in a different clue. Maybe if I wasn't such a beginner, I would have known that they were Geese, but I had no idea. Each and every one of those blasted things stretched and warped. I've never put anything together on point before.

Whenever I want to torture myself, or when hubby bugs me, I'll pull it out of the Godfather's boxes and stitch another row or two together. Konstantin put this great thing about adding coping strips in a newsletter not to long ago. I'll be adding this throughout and I don't think the quilt will look the same, but I'm sure it will still be pretty. The flying geese make a star around one type of piece, then they also create the appearance of a backwards star too. Overall, the quilt is very pretty...but I don't like the way the pattern or directions were at all. It's WAY too advanced for me.

I hate my QFH...I just wish I knew how to complete it so it would stare at me everytime I enter my sewing closet to get my stuff out.

Quick question mpeters - what are "coping strips?" Anything with the word COPING in it seems to be a good thing to know. :lol: :lol:

My hardest/scariest was the red/white/black one I made for my nephew (picture posted on Black/White thread in pictures). It was queen-sized, and was my first attempt at machine quilting on my little Elna. I thought I'd NEVER get done. But, he loves it, and my memories of the pain and suffering are fading enough I'm doing another queen-size one for my MIL. This one calls for machine applique, but I've been experimenting with hand applique and find that I love it, so may applique all the blocks by hand, just to dive in and do it.