| Iceblossom |
03-17-2019 06:19 AM |
I have quite a few tops waiting to be quilted (somewhere over a dozen), but I don't count those as UFOs -- those are completed tops even if they aren't quite quilts yet. My joy is in the design and piecing part of the process.
I have three projects in process. One is still being cut. One needs the blocks to be laid out again (they are already numbered) for the border sections to be arranged and the rows assembled. One needs to be laid out and then sashed and assembled, I'll probably be cutting out the sashing for that today. I do have a baby quilt waiting to be bound, but I hate handwork and usually take those to my small group... My hubby is home sick and my house is small, I do most of my layout on the queen sized bed so no layout projects for me today.
I have a couple projects planned but not yet started, other than the fabric collecting which again I don't count. I mostly work with scraps and charms and it can take years sometimes to get enough fabrics. But it is true I am ready to cut/start two of those, my Christmas String project, and my snowy January quilt which will be a sampler of 9 large lone stars, each made of different snowflake fabrics in blue and white, I'll make the stars more like snowflakes and not like radiating arcs of color.
So the closest thing I have to an UFO I am still considering as "in progress" but I haven't worked on it in months. I keep meaning to, but I just haven't been feeling it. Part of the purpose of this project is paper piecing and I just haven't been pushing myself to work on this not so familiar technique. It is a farm quilt, rather contemporary instead of my typical traditional style and will be embellished with buttons and appliques and other such things. It will have a few pieced blocks, the Barn unit is done. I'm still planning on paper piecing some more, a horse and pig heads, a mama chicken, some chicks, hummingbirds, couple of others. Then the rest of the quilt will be larger pieces of fabric being fields and such. The bottom third or so will be crops grown in Washington, so there will be potatoes but no pineapples! There will be some roads between the fields with tractors or whatever. The cabbage fabric will have little bunny buttons hiding in there in the end. The middle third will be the farm animals, again various largish pieces of fabric with pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, etc. The top third will be the barn block (it's an original barn with a silo, the block is maybe 15x20"), the tiny paper pieced hummingbirds and the horse pastures. Above that will be a pond and wild ducks and geese and sky, to the one side I'll try for some distance perspective and use some farm prints for off in the distance. The quilt will be all over edge to edge quilted with a simple chicken wire design.
For decades I was very good about completely finishing each quilt until I decided that a top counted on it's own. I don't sew every day but I try to, schedule and health permitting. I've have small groups to go to and I need something portable for that, that barn quilt is not portable -- at least not the way I work. So I try to have a couple of things in progress that I can take.
From being on boards and in discussions, I think some of you are way too hard on yourselves on what is an UFO -- some people practically consider keeping a magazine with a picture of a quilt that they like as an UFO! I'm a big believer in having fun while I quilt, even though some parts of the process can be tedious. All I can say is when you determine that no, for whatever reasons you aren't going to finish a project, get rid of it! Yes, just in whatever condition it is, you don't have to finish it. I was at a quilt show yesterday and the guild booth had a UFO section with all sorts of projects in various stages, and a bin of orphan blocks for $0.50 each or something like that.
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