UGLY quilt - can you relate?
 

I'm wondering if any of you have ever worked on a quilt that you thought was so ugly you were just tempted to throw it out so you could move on to something else. I pulled a UFO out of my box to work on. I had a picture of the quilt, but no instructions. The fabrics were mostly cut so I could figure it out. Using scraps of yellow, green, purple and pink. I put it up on the design wall to prepare to sew together the blocks, and WOW, this quilt is UGLY!!! It's actually kept me from working on anything else, I just look at it and think that maybe I should just jettison the whole thing, but then I think about the waste. So, I've got the blocks organized and ready to sew together. I'm thinking I'll just power through, turn off my brain, finish the quilt and donate it. Hopefully someone won't think it's as ugly as I do!!!

If this has happened to you, what did you do?

One day when fabric shopping a few years ago, hubby picked out a kit that looked pretty in the pkg, but when assembled, is really blah. Several fabrics in the same print or same scale, but in different colors. I assembled the center of the top back then and hated it. Pulled it out a year or so ago and added borders. It's still blah to me, so I put it away again. Someday when I have nothing better to do, I'll add some applique. Maybe then I won't mind it so much. It will be probably be gifted to someone who appreciates it more than I do. :)

Moral of the story - pay more attention when hubby picks something out for me. A variety of different scaled prints usually catches my interest more.

My ugly quilts are my UFO's. I have a variety of ziplock bags that contain templates, pieces I've cut out and the first and only block made before I decided I didn't want to look at that any more!

Post a picture and see what others are saying. What is one person's ugly is another person's purdy. If the group agrees with you, then you'll know. lol

I've finished some projects YEARS after I started and found I no longer like the colors or patterns but I still finished them and found a happy new owner.

Oh yes, I've been there! A guild member offered a OBW class a couple of years ago, which is outside of my comfort zone to begin with - I lean towards traditional. Combined with a poor fabric choice, and I really hated it. After getting 3/4's of the way through, I put it aside. After almost a year, I pitched it. Having it hang around weighed me down in a way that most UFO's don't. Usually, if I set something aside, I'll eventually get back to it, but this just seemed like it was wasting space, there was nothing I could do to make myself like it. So I decided to cut my loss and get rid of it. Didn't bother me a bit.

I have made quilts I don't like at all, when using colors/designs that DD asked for. I literally had to force myself to work on it. If I'm not feeling the love, I don't want to touch it. Eventually, it got finished (my avatar) and she loved it so much it was worth it a hundred times over - but hopefully I won't have anything that I drag my feet over that much again. Better to either let it go, as I did in the first case, or if it's for somebody special, to bite the bullet and get it over with.

Yes many times! Once it finished though you still have bragging rights no matter how ugly, it'll be a finish! I'll show you mine if you show me yours!.....lOL

oh YES! I made my son an orange quilt (aHEM..orange is NOT my color!). But when it was done, it was so striking, I entered it in our quilt show! if I have a UFO that I just canNOT stand, I try to pass it off to a quilter who DOES like it. The weight lifted off of my shoulders is AWESOME..and one less UFO cluttering up my sewing space!

throw it away and move on

I "inherited" a quilt top from my SIL who is now suffering with alzheimers. It was ugly. She pieced it and I finished quilting it, just last month. I labeled it and gave it to my son in law. He loves it! So, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

I have started a couple in classes that I didn't care for. I eventually packaged up the cut pieces with the blocks I'd made then took them to a quilt guild meeting and dropped them on the free table. They always went home with someone. I've also packaged up a kid quilt into a kit and gave it to the comfort quilt program. That way my UFO gets finished and does some good. If you don't have a guild, there are always senior centers or church groups that have quilt groups that would take it ... maybe even get a deduction for the donation.