I started a quilt in February 2011 to commemorate my son's retirement from the Marine Corps. The top has hand applique and embroidery and took me 18 months to complete -- I have almost 1,000 hours just in the embroidery. I started hand quilting it this past summer, ran into some challenges and at present I've completed about a third of the quilting. My goal for 2013 is to complete this quilt before summer. Then I'm going to celebrate! I allowed myself 2 years to make it and dreamed about presenting it to him at his retirement ceremony in 2013. However, he decided to retire a year earlier so I missed that opportunity. Oh well, a year and a half late isn't as bad as the quilt still hanging in my sewing room that I started for my granddaughter when she was ten. She's now 21.
When I complete this quilt I'm going to start practicing machine quilting and, hopefully, become good enough that I feel comfortable in machine quilting at least one UFO. I have a lot of tops and will never get them all quilted by hand.