I count projects that I have started but haven’t worked on for a while. I don’t generally buy fabric for specific patterns so I don’t have projects planned ahead with fabric pulled and stored together with a pattern. Therefore, I don’t count uncut fabric. I count it as a UFO if I’ve actually cut the fabric, however, most of my UFOs have varying degrees of sewing completed. I love quilting, but am not as fond of piecing, so my UFOs are mostly partially pieced tops rather than flimsys waiting to be quilted. I find that once the piecing is done I am motivated to go ahead and get it sandwiched and quilted.
As far as timeline goes, most of my UFOs have been sitting unworked on for at least a year, including a couple that are nearing the decade mark and one that is (ahem) 30+ years old. But I have had projects that became UFOs in my mind after just a few months of not being worked on. Unworked on and not thought about are the keys for me deciding something’s a UFO.
My WIPs are all things that are in some active state of progress- even if that only entails thinking about what I want to do next with them. As long as I’m actually contemplating it, I consider it a WIP even if physical progress has been paused.
I make an exception to the cutting guideline for panels because I bought several over the years and then didn’t know what to do with them. They languished in my stash, forgotten about, but taking up room until this past year when I decided to pull them out of my stash and store them with my UFOs so that I will actually use them. And I will count each one as a completed UFO if it is removed from the UFO pile either by making a project with it or deciding to pass it on to someone else.
Some folks only count unquilted flimsys as UFOs, while others count patterns and fabric that they have pulled together for a project but not yet cut out as a UFO. Some folks have commercial kits that they bought years ago, but never got around to making and now consider them UFOs. Just depends on your creative process and how much it bothers you to have unfinished things hanging around as to when you want to decide something is a UFO. For completion, Some folks only count it as complete if it’s quilted, bound and labelled and some consider a UFO to be completed if it’s removed from the pile even if that was accomplished by being donated, sold or thrown away.
Rob