Do you make quilt tops and never get them quilted? DO you have a method of getting them finished or do you have none? I love doing the tops and procrastinate on the finishing up.

ME TOO

I love to piece tops. Most don't get made into quilts until someone needs or wants one. So I consider it done when its fully pieced and ready to quilt.

Even so I had dozens of UFOs. So I made a list and put it on the wall in front of my machine. The rule was work on one at a time at least 20 minutes a day. It got marked off with a bright purple pen when finished.

I'd like to say they all got finished but I keep finding orphan blocks and cut pieces in with the scraps. Something for the next generation.

I do this all the time!! Probably have 20 quilt tops to quilt, just can't seem to stop making them!! ;)

Thanks for starting this thread--I hope lots of suggestions are made. I love to piece but for the life of me CANNOT FMQ so I have tops that need done. I have made so many potholders they're stacked up in my sewing room. I also have about 4 or 5 wall hangings or quilt tops tossed in the cupboard waiting for quilting.
C'mon folks-help us out with your suggestions to finish these UFO's!

Ah, make them into quilts is the question. I tie charity quilts with yarn and use a needle punched batting or a bonded polyester. Do they hold up? Family members have some that have been in use for 25 years.

I was just saying the same thing the other day to a friend. The fun part is the quilt top. After that I lose interest. :)

You may not have finished them all but what a great idea.

I've always said my quilts arfe like fine wine, they have to "age", sooner or later (often very later) they speak to me again when they are ready to be quilted!

Sounds good to me. :)

I also love piecing the tops. But sometimes the quilting just speaks to me and I quilt several at a time. (on my Janome 6600) I really like the feeling of having completely finished a project. Then its time to decide who to give it to, that's really the fun part. I love sending quilts to unsuspecting relatives!! they love them.

What a great ides sending the to unsuspecting relatives. I would love receiving a quilt even though I make them.

So true for me too thequiltmama
. I keep saying I am going to bundle up a bunch & take them to the longarm quilter and just be done with them but then I think oh I can do them myself and save a ton of money. :XD:

I love doing the tops also and finishing is not as exciting. However, i am a practical person and decided I needed to finish all incomplete quilt tops before I made new and I am on the last one. I see no sense in me having tops hanging in my closet, but unable to add warmth to someone so that was in incentive to finish them all. Even if you have to send some to be quilted they are more useable done (smile). Good luck with this.

I'm in the same boat. I get bored with one project so I have to have several going but UFO's seem to add up much higher than finished quilts.
I'm hoping when I finally finish cleaning up my sewing room I'll get motivated.
It's such a mess I've been avoiding it!!!!!!

I enjoy making the tops. I like the quilting but I need a elf to take the tops and get them ready to quilt. That is the part I don't seem to want to do.

I enjoy making the tops. I like the quilting but I need a elf to take the tops and get them ready to quilt. That is the part I don't seem to want to do.

I am trying to quilt one for every two that I piece. I don't have a problem quilting the small projects but the large ones take a lot of poking for me to quilt. Usually I wait until I want to give one to someone because they take up less room to store.

Oh man do I see myself in this thread ~~ So many tops done,some even basted ready to quilt. I just wish I could get "in the mood" to quilt them. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Me too, right now I have 8 that need to be put together and quilted. I keep saying I will not start another project till I get some quilted and completed, but somehow that is not working. Love to piece and design, but the quilting I really need to be in the right mood.

I have the same problem, but I think my problem is because it's such a pain to try manhandling the quilt through the machine. Oh what I'd give for a long arm.

I guess that is why I accepted the March UFO Challenge. I had so many projects between quilt tops and wall hangings, I was starting to feel guilty about them. Could not even justify buying more fabric until I had completed some of them. Working on UFO #3 now. A wall hangning for my Mom. Mom is running out of wall space because she displays every thing that my brother and I have ever made for her.

I guess I look at this differently. Quilting is my hobby, and unless I run out of room for the UFO's I really don't care how many I have.
Quilting is relaxing, destresses my mind, and I could be spending a whole lot of money in other areas and NOT have anything to show for it. So if I die with a pile of UFO's, my family knows where to take them where they will get finished :wink: and nothing will get thrown away or wasted.
This way I can enjoy piecing, quilting, or procrastinating, and enjoy my hobby MY way :D:D:D

It seems I only don't finnish the quilt tops I made for myself. If I have a death line and some one to give it too it will get finnished.

I should add that I enjoy hand quilting and don't do any by machine. I did have my local laq quilt one for me that I really didn't like that much, she did a beautiful job!! I just wish hand quilting were faster!

I have to completley finish everything I make. When I'm coming down the home stretch of a quilt my mind is on my next project.

Our guild has a UFO challenge each year. We list one UFO to be finished each month during the coming year. As we finish, we enter our names into a drawing for a small prize and bring the item for show and tell. Some months, we finish none and other times, we finish more than one and can enter our names more than once that time.

If you don't belong to a guild, you can do this for yourself. Make a list and as you finish a project, buy yourself a FQ or some other treat. I keep lists of both UFOs and projects completed. It is amazing to see what I do accomplish, despite the preponderance of UFOs!

I only do one project at a time. That way I keep organized and I never have UFO's to worry about.

I hate UFOs. Makes me think I am slacking off. I can tell you thought that the machine you have makes a HUGE difference. I tried to do FMQ on my Bernina 1230 - nothin doin, frustrating and just wrong. So I started doing a lot of hand quilting until my wrist became numb. I just figured this hobby wasn't for me.

Two things changed - I said to heck with the quilt police and started doing hand quilting using a running backstitch. MUCH easier on my wrist. Then I got a BabyLok Quilter's Pro and tried FMQ on that. BIG difference! I can machine quilt a 6 x 6 in about 2 days (weekends). One thing I also did to give myself incentive is that the quilt design is as important as the piecing - so I make a point of creating interesting patterns that I like to quilt. That helped a lot too.I usually have a couple of projects going - one pieced project and one appliqued project just to give myself a break.

I love to feel fabric, cut it, and piece it. Most times getting to the quilting is a hard task. I have been sending my quilt tops out (larger than crib) to a wonderful long arm quilter who lives in OR.

I must be the weird one here, I can't wait to get them in my little Singer to quilt. I love the driving and the texture that quilting the quilt gives to me. I like the quilting part better than the piecing part. Must be because I can have a glass of wine and start driving. I have to have my husband come in and tell me to come to bed because I would stay there all night. Anyway, that is my thought.

If only I can get the 3 pieces together it might be easier to do the rest.

I don't even try to count the UFO's anymore :lol: . I am trying to get some of them finished and have actually completed a few but there are always others to take their place...I'm a procrastinator from way back..besides there are so many ideas running through my head and new things I want to try. I have tops done but a LAQ is definitely not in my budget these days so they will stay on the back burner. Nowadays, I am quilting block by block and joining them with Sharon Pederson's Reversible Quilt method. And it's working for me!! It also helps that this way, I am using up smaller pieces of batting and fabric that I just couldn't bring myself to throw away. But it's a given......my kids inheritance will definitely include UFO's and WIP's :lol: :lol: .

I love getting the quilt finished.To me the most exciting part is when the quilt is quilted and trimed, just before the binding is added. But I have a LAM so I don't have any excuse for having unfinished quilts. :roll:

I finally took a FMQ class and I have been practicing. I have at least 10 quilt tops that need to be quilted. I have the batting a backs for 5 of them. My goal this year is to get at least one done per month. But I just can't stop myself from starting new projects. I have at least 4 quilt projects in the works so my sewing room is always a mess.

I love piecing.I have at least 15 to be quilted.I quilt but I have to be in the zone and feel good.with fibro I seldom feel good enough to quilt-but when I do I try to do at 2 or 3 of them.

No, I love to hand quilt so I eagerly look forward to sandwiching the quilt together so I can hand quilt.

Im sure glad to read that Im not the only one who would rather piece the top than quilt it! I have 2 full size unfinished and had so many "ideas" of ones I want to make but I forced myself to close my machine, hide my material and finish the 3 twin size quilts I am making for my three 6 year old grandkids! Got the H quilt done, working on the one for Hailee and have the 3rd pieced but still need to hand quilt the 2 BEFORE Christmas...I keep staring at my machine, forcing myself to NOT open it back up..its like an addiction! :)

I make lots of tops and them quilt them as needed. Finished quilts take up a lot of space (good excuse) so make tops and hang them til needed.
Brenda

I am so at home in this crowd! FORTUNATELY, I belong to a wonderful Project Linus group and there are located my counterparts who can't wait to get their hands on tops to quilt! We meet once a month and sometimes spend the morning layering pieced top donations to be picked up by our "quilting fool" sisters! This has really helped my situation AND is using up my stash. I have five pieced tops to take in this month. Goodbye UFO's. . . well, mostly!